(July 19) The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has dropped tentative plans to expand the California Institution for Men in Chino’s capacity by nearly 800 inmates.
The Chino Institution for Men (CIM) had been one of seven state prisons under  review by the state for the proposed construction of up to three, 792-bed Level II Correctional Housing Facilities and related support buildings.
A notification from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation stated that CIM was eliminated as a potential low-level facility expansion site because there is insufficient time to complete engineering studies pertaining to water at the site.
Data with regard to water availability and wastewater treatment capability is lacking, according to state officials. The prison is proximate to the Chino Agricultural Preserve, where sodium and nitrate concentrations in the soil have proven to be an ongoing environmental issue.
The state is looking to expand its prisoner holding capability, and in particular wanted to build as many as three new Level II facilities, intended as repositories of  lower-level offenders, such as those  who have committed white collar or financial crimes or were involved in drugs or property offenses.
In addition to CIM, other state prisons at Sacramento, Folsom, Solano, Vacaville, Ione and San Diego were under consideration for the Level II augmentation.
The city of Chino was not supportive of the concept of expanding CIM and the announcement by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation was hailed as good news.
“Although CIM has been a part of our growing community for many years, the council and I cannot support the placement of new facilities that would house additional prisoners at CIM until the population and on-going and deferred maintenance issues have been properly addressed,” said Chino Mayor Dennis Yates. “We are pleased to have received this news and thankful for our many community partners, who supported our position on this project.”

(July 12) The California Public Utilities Commission yesterday voted narrowly in favor of requiring Southern California Edison to underground high-voltage power lines for the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project for 3.5 miles of the five miles they will run through Chino Hills.
The vote of three of the boards five commissioners – Michael Peevey, Mark  Ferron and Catherine Sandoval – effectively undid a four-year old vote of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) that gave Edison go-ahead to string 500 kilovolt cables from 197-foot high towers running through the heart of upscale Chino Hills. Peevey, Ferron and Sandoval’s votes represented the bare minimum needed to overcome the votes of their fellow commissioners Michel Florio and Carla Peterman, who voted against deviating from the commission’s 2009 decision. The vote also overcame a tentative ruling by Administrative Law Judge Jean Vieth which denied the appeal lodged by the city of Chino Hills and the grassroots group Hope For The Hills of the commission’s 2009 permit allowing Southern California Edison to erect the towers.
After the California Public Utilities Commission granted  Southern California Edison that permit four years ago, the Chino Hills City Council authorized what has to date resulted in the expenditure of $4.4 million to employ attorneys and make other efforts to contest the Public Utility Commission’s action, including filing suit against Southern California Edison, alleging the company had “overburdened” the 150-foot wide power line easements. That legal effort failed when West Valley Superior Court Judge Keith D. Davis ruled the California Public Utilities Commission has exclusive jurisdiction regarding the route used by Edison, and the suit was thrown out. An appeal of Davis’s ruling was denied by the 4th District Court of Appeal. In a last-ditch gambit, Chino Hills directly appealed in 2011 to the Public Utilities Commission, which at that point had shed four of its five members who had voted to approve the line in 2009. By inviting first Peevey and then the other four members of the commission to Chino Hills to actually examine the towers, 18 of which had been erected, undergrounding advocates were able to convince Peevey, who prior to his appointment to the PUC had been a senior executive and president of Southern California Edison, to issue  in November 2011  a stay on further construction while undergrounding alternatives were considered.
At one point Edison asserted the cost of  undergrounding a double-circuit line to be $703 million to $1 billion. Edison claims it could erect the towers along the same span and string the cables between them for an estimated $172 million.
By January 2012, the PUC acceded to Southern California Edison’s insistence that it could not prepare economical plans to underground that portion of the Tehachapi Renewable Energy Project power line through a 1.5 mile section of the city known as Oak Tree Downs along the north side of Carbon Canyon at the west extension of Chino Hills, given the undulations of the area’s rolling hills and other peculiarities in the contour of the land. Constrained to determining the cost of undergrounding a single cable for the remaining 3.5 miles of the span through Chino Hills, Southern California Edison indicated the burial could be done for no less than $270 million, not considering the company’s cost of having erected the 18 towers and the future cost of bringing them down.
Four members of the Chino Hills City Council and city manager Mike Fleager were in San Francisco on Thursday to attend the PUC hearing. Approaching 200 members of the Chino Hills community were present at Chino Hills City Hall to witness a real-time broadcast of those proceedings. Prior to the hearing, Peevey had rendered a proposed decision calling for the 3.5 mile undergrounding of the line. In their pre-vote remarks at the hearing, Ferron, Sandoval, Florio and Peterman offered their analysis of the factors in their respective decisions. When Ferron indicated that he felt the towers presented an intolerable burden on the city of Chino Hills, the city council chambers, more than 300 miles distant

(July 12) Pacific Gas & Electric is moving forward in earnest with its strategy of converting Hinkley into a ghost town to overcome the liability of dealing with a spreading plume of hexavalent chromium that has rendered the area’s water supply unfit for human consumption.
Indeed, the community of Hinkley was already trending toward extinction as growing numbers of its residents over the last few years have elected to pack up and leave in the face of what appears to be the ineradicable hexavalent chromium contamination problem. For the last ten or eleven months, that exodus has been hastened by the willingness of Pacific Gas and Electric, (PG&E), the entity responsible for the contamination, to essentially buy them out as part of a plan to render the rustic desert hamlet completely uninhabited.
Hinkley, which a little more than a year ago boasted a population of something over 1,900 but has since diminished to an estimated 1,300, is an unincorporated zone in San Bernardino County’s Mojave Desert just north of State Highway 58, 14 miles northwest of Barstow, 59 miles east of Mojave, and 47 miles north of Victorville.
The town came to international prominence in 2000 with the release of the blockbuster movie Erin Brokovich, in which Pacific Gas and Electric was portrayed as a corporate villain that had recklessly endangered the lives and health of Hinkley’s residents. The movie was a substantially accurate version of what had actually occurred.
The Hinkley hexavalent chromium contamination came about as a consequence of Pacific Gas and Electric’s operation of a compressor station there beginning in 1952. The compressor station was a facility located on a pipeline that ran between Texas and Canada and delivered in excess of three billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. The compressor station in Hinkley was one of eight such stations along the line in California. Natural gas available in the line was used to fuel compressors which repressurized the gas to push it through the pipeline. At Hinkley, the compressed gas was cooled with water circulating through two cooling towers. From 1952 until 1966, hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium 6, was added to the cooling water to prevent corrosion to the cooling towers and the water circulation system. Wastewater from the cooling system was disposed of in unlined ponds at the Hinkley site. Beginning in 1964, after the danger of chromium 6 was recognized, the cooling water was treated to remove the chromium before it was disposed in the pools and a non-chromium-based additive was substituted into the cooling system in 1966. Beginning in 1972 the cooling water was pumped into lined evaporation ponds.
These improvements to the system, however, did not undo the ecological havoc that had occurred up until 1972.
In 1988, the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, which oversees water quality issues in that portion of the desert, issued a cleanup and abatement order to PG&E to investigate a plume of chromium 6 in the water table.
In 1991, the water board issued permits to treat the contaminated groundwater using land treatment units.
In 1993, attorney Ed Masry, with whom Brockovich, a Hinkley resident, was working, filed a multi-plaintiff direct action suit against PG&E, alleging contamination of the town’s drinking water and untoward consequences of that pollution. In 1996, the case was settled for $333 million, the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit until that time.
Contrary to widespread public assumptions, Pacific Gas & Electric’s payment of the $333 million did not redress the underlying problem.
In 1997 and 2004, the water board reissued follow-up permits to PG&E for the use of land treatment units in the treatment of the contaminated groundwater around Hinkley. .
In 2006, with the Hinkley groundwater contamination issue fading from public consciousness, the water board gave permits for two subterranean remediation systems to clean up the source and central areas of the plume. In 2008, however, the issue was resurrected as one of regional and local concern when, amidst the water board’s provision of a permit for Pacific Gas & Electric to apply additional cleanup measures, it issued redrafted cleanup and abatement orders. Steadily over the last five years, the condition of the lingering contamination in Hinkley has grown into a larger and larger public issue as evidence of how the underground plume of chromium 6 continues to migrate through the water table into the area from which local wells draw water used for household purposes has emerged.
The best hydrological data now available indicates the plume is more than six miles long and two miles wide and gradually expanding.
Pacific Gas and Electric has been mandated and tasked to take a number of steps to ensure that the tainted water does not end up in the drinking glasses, cooking utensils, showers, baths, toilets and garden hoses of Hinkley residents.
Essentially, all or nearly all of those strategies have been deemed ineffective or inadequate to the task of preventing human consumption of or contact with hexavalent chromium, which is a known carcinogen that is harmful in even the most minute of quantities.
Among those strategies was one championed by Pacific Gas & Electric that called for “irrigating crops as an effective means of providing both hydraulic control and treatment of extracted hexavalent chromium tainted water.” That process entailed pumping groundwater through a subsurface drip irrigation system and organic matter in the soil around plant root zones to create conditions, Pacific Gas & Electric claimed, would “chemically reduce the level of chromium 6 in the water. Hexavalent chromium is naturally reduced to insoluble trivalent chromium. Trivalent chromium joins and becomes bound with the trivalent chromium naturally occurring in the subsurface soil.” Using this method, Pacific Gas and Electric maintained in 2009 that “Total hexavalent chromium concentrations in extracted groundwater have decreased from approximately 60 micrograms per liter in 2004 to approximately 20 micrograms per liter today.”
The effectiveness of that approach was questioned by others, including the water board and residents of the area.
Chromium is the 21st most abundant element in the earth’s crust and as such naturally occurs in rocks, soil, ground water and plants.
Under current guidelines, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency specifies 100 micrograms per liter as the maximum acceptable total chromium contaminant level acceptable in water to be consumed by humans. The California state standard is half that at 50 micrograms per liter. But that standard applies to the most beneficent form of chromium, and not hexavalent chromium or chromium 6.
Trivalent chromium – chromium 3 – is the dominant form of chromium in nature, and is virtually insoluble in water and stable and immobile in soil. Hexavalent chromium – chromium six – is not abundant in nature, is soluble in water and is a potential carcinogen if inhaled.
For that reason, Pacific Gas and Electric believes that a strategy of converting the hexavalent chromium to trivalent chromium is an acceptable method. Pacific Gas & Electric has never been able to execute upon that theory in actuality, however.
In addition to treating the water within the water table, Pacific Gas & Electric sought ways of keeping the contaminated water from migrating to other areas of the aquifer and tainting the water there. One effort Pacific Gas & Electric made to prevent the spreading of the plume entailed drawing up to 80 gallons of water per minute from supply wells south of the compression station, pumping it north through new underground pipes and injecting the water outside the northwestern plume boundary. This strategy, Pacific Gas and Electric claimed, was intended to “create a hydraulic barrier designed to prevent spreading of the plume.” While partially effective, that measure did not achieve the goal of reducing the chromium 6 in the water supply to an acceptable level.
Pacific Gas & Electric was hamstrung in its undertaking by a multitude of challenges and obstacles that included low background chromium levels in the Hinkley area, a legacy of extensive agricultural use in the area that introduced other contaminants unrelated to chromium 6 into the water table, ongoing active use of the aquifer, potential revisions of the chromium standard and difficulty in accessing all portions of the plume.
Pacific Gas and Electric, in an assertion disputed by many environmentalists and local activists, claims that there are average chromium background levels of 1.2 micrograms per liter in the Hinkley area and maximum chromium background levels of 3.1 microgram per liter in certain areas around Hinkley.
That assertion was attacked by critics as an attempt by Pacific Gas and Electric to lower the degree of clean-up work it should have been required to do.
With the continuing migration of the plume, Pacific Gas & Electric offered to provide every household and business in Hinkley with a filtration/treatment system to capture the chromium before it would be dispensed at the tap. Last year it began supplying all homes and businesses in the area with commercial drinking water.
But with no certain, final and comprehensive cure of the problem in sight, Pacific Gas & Electric eventually arrived at a way out of the dilemma that consisted of simply buying up the entire town of Hinkley and shutting it down. In April 2012, PG&E sampled the attitude of the 300 Hinkley homeowners most impacted by chromium 6 groundwater contamination. They offered them, essentially, three options. Under option one, the company offered to continue to supply them, into perpetuity, with bottled water. Option two consisted of the company replacing in its entirely each home’s water hook-up and piping and plumbing arrangements, and providing each with a state of the art filtration, purification and treatment system. The third option was that Pacific Gas & Electricity would purchase their property at fair market value, providing them with enough money to move elsewhere. Two-thirds of the households surveyed – 200 – accepted Pacific Gas & Electric’s offer to buy out their property. Appraisals on those properties were initiated. As soon as mutually acceptable terms between PG&E and the individual homeowners have been arrived at, the purchases have been made. Since January, more than 40 homes have been sold. Once the houses are empty, Pacific Gas & Electric has not spared time in having those homes razed, foreclosing any possibility that squatters or anyone else will be tempted to take up residence therein ever again.
Pacific Gas and Electric has made no bones about wanting to empty the town of all residents. In February, Barstow Unified School District Superintendent Jeff Malan approached PG&E hat in hand, requesting that the company, in a gesture of good will, provide the district with financial assistance to further his efforts to keep Hinkley School open in the face of mounting pressure to shut the school as a consequence of dwindling enrollment. PG&E corporate officers turned Malan down flat. On February 26, the Barstow Unified School District Board of Trustees, with board member Barbara Rose dissenting, voted 4-1 to close down Hinkley School as of the beginning of the 2013-14 school year.
The town’s loss of the school has only served to encourage more residents to bail on the community. In the meantime, PG&E has widened its offer to other town and area residents beyond the 300 most directly impacted by the contamination to more than 200 other homeowners whose homes lie beyond the advance of the known plume as well as another 100 or so property owners who do not currently reside on their properties.
With its population having diminished by nearly 30 percent in the last year and many of those remaining lining up to make their exodus, Hinkley appears to be on the cusp of oblivion. Accompanying its death gasps is the unreal spectacle of a PG&E campaign aimed at persuading hangers-on to follow suit and themselves leave. While it would not seem to be in the company’s interest to perpetuate any further horror stories about the ecological havoc done to Hinkley by PG&E, the company is not discouraging the circulation of anecdotes suggesting just that. A recently published report held that four family members residing on a single property within Hinkley had succumbed to cancer in the last year. Such adverse publicity encourages further departures. Amid the negative publicity, property values in the area have declined, setting back even further that segment of the population burdened with underwater mortgages.
The signs of the community’s death are omnipresent – abandoned alfalfa farms, neglected windmills that no longer suck the water from the earth, dilapidated, weatherbeaten and empty farmhouses and the rubble of homes that have been recently demolished. Despite those outward signs, fully one third of town’s remaining property owners or homeowners say they are at present committed to staying, either because they do not view living in solitude in a negative light or because they believe that Pacific Gas & Electric might be induced to up its offers to achieve complete ownership and autonomy over the area. It is an unanswered question at this point whether the inevitable closure of Hinkley’s lone market and its post office will break the will of the remaining hardy locals to carry on.
Whatever expense doing so may in the end entail, Pacific Gas & Electric appears to be prepared to make a de facto purchase of the town. That purchase would, until the plume migrates to another populated area, stanch the flow of money being spent to redress the local hexavalent chromium contamination problem.

(July 12) TWENTYNINE PALMS — A move is now afoot to once again seek voter approval from residents within the boundaries of the Twentynine Palms Water District for an increase in the special fire service tax that funds the Twentynine Palms Fire Department.
Since 1958, the fire department in 29 Palms has been overseen by the water district. The department has grown to include two fire stations and seven firefighters to cover the 59 square miles within the Twentynine Palms City Limits and the 29 square miles of unincorporated county area that also falls under the water district/fire department’s 88-square mile jurisdiction. The city does not contribute to, participate in or subsidize the fire department’s operational budget.
In 2012, water district voters rejected a tax increase measure and the water district explored  surrendering authority over the fire department to the county fire department. County Fire Chief Mark Hartwig said that working within the confines of the $1.244 million in available special tax funding for local fire service, he would need to close down one of the fire stations and reduce the department to no more than four firefighters.  Several local residents have lobbied officials to have the water district keep control of the fire department and maintain current service levels, and the merger proposal with county fire has been withdrawn.
A citizens’ committee to develop a ballot measure  has formed and met this week, discussing efforts to stabilize fire department finances and the placement of a ballot measure before the water district’s voters that would generate sufficient revenue to increase the fire department to an eight-man force.

(July 12) SAN BERNARDINO –The city of San Bernardino, which last year filed for bankruptcy protection but has since had to fend off persistent requests by city employee unions and the state pension system to which those employees belong that the city remain current on payments to them, has made a motion before the bankruptcy court for summary judgment on its bankruptcy case.
Attorneys for the California Public Employee Retirement System and the middle managers represented by the San Bernardino Public Employees Association have lodged objections to the city’s pendency plan, which defers payments to the city’s creditors while the city is working to restore solvency. For a full year, the city suspended payments it was contractually committed to make into the state employees’ retirement system, withholding over $14 million.
On no fewer than six occasions since the bankruptcy filing in August 2012, the city attorney’s office and its hired team of bankruptcy law specialists have had to respond to objections by the lawyers for both the California Public Employee Retirement System and the San Bernardino Public Employees Association.
One recurrent theme in the protests is that the city’s financial responsibility to the pension fund and its employees trumps the claims of all other creditors. Another theme is that the city’s financial position is not as dire as city officials, the city attorney’s office and the city’s bankruptcy attorneys maintain.
City attorney Jim Penman, however, insists that the city is truly foundering and that it has no choice but to adhere to a meticulously laid out operating and spending plan if it is to map its way out of the economic abyss it has fallen into.
The city’s legal team has accordingly made a motion for summary judgment which requests that Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury determine that the city is eligible for blanket  bankruptcy protection, rejecting further requests by the California Public Employee Retirement System, the San Bernardino Public Employees Association and any others that the city be forced to deviate from its pendency plan, which entails the payment deferrals.
Penman asserts that the cost of responding to the legal objections to the bankruptcy plan is unduly expensive and is hurting the city’s effort to get back on its feet.
Judge Meredith Jury is due to rule on the motion August 28.

(July 12) Retraining San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies in the proper use of tasers is called for in the wake of the deaths of three people deputies employed the pain compliance devices against over the last five years, according to the county grand jury.
In particular, according to the grand jury, deputies need to alter their taser policy to avoid redundant use of the stun guns on subjects who do not outwardly display indications that they have been incapacitated.
One of the 2012-13 San Bernardino County Grand Jury’s three ad hoc committees took up the subject of the sheriff’s department’s taser-use policy in response to reports detailing the deaths associated with taser gun use within the county – the July 2008 death of an Apple Valley man who was shocked three times, the 2009 death of an inmate at West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga after deputies used a taser on him twice and the May 2011 death of a Lake Arrowhead man died who was shocked at least 17 times by taser-wielding sheriff’s deputies after a traffic stop – along with a February 2012 Amnesty International report indicating at least 500 people have died nationwide since 2001 after being electrically stunned.
While the district attorney’s office made a finding that all three of the referenced county taser-related deaths were legally justified and involved appropriate use of the devices, the grand jury expressed concern that officers are often incapable of knowing if the tasers are effective in those cases where the subject or suspect has no outward signs of incapacitation, resulting in over application of electrical shock.
Moreover, according to the grand jury, the sheriff’s department’s policy as laid out in its taser training manual does not call for on-scene tracking of their use by deputies. This can result, the grand jury found, in deputies who arrive at an arrest or custody situation that is already in progress using their tasers without knowing if their colleagues have already employed tasers on the subject in question.
The Sheriff’s Department’s taser training manual does not specify a limit on the number of times a taser can be safely discharged against a single suspect, leaving that for an on-scene determination by the involved deputies.
The Justice Department has issued an advisal with regard to employing tasers indiscriminately or redundantly, urging agencies to incorporate policies and training guidelines that include consideration of the age, body mass, gender. and physical condition of those upon whom tasers are to be used.
The grand jury also delivered an understated warning that recklessly allowing tasers to be employed could prove extremely costly for the county’s taxpayers.
“Two Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals cases illustrate law enforcement officers are not immune from liability when they subject a suspect to multiple taser exposures,” the report states. “In Bryan v. MacPherson, the court ruled a taser had been used in a way which constituted excessive force and was, therefore, a violation of the Fourth Amendment. In the case of Mattos v. Agarano, the Court held in two situations involving taser use officers had used excessive force causing the death of the individual. There are more cases throughout the United States wherein the courts have decided against law enforcement agencies when multiple and repeated tasering has occurred.”
The grand jury recommended that the sheriff’s office “implement enhanced officer training to situations where the target does not exhibit neuromuscular incapacitation symptoms or compliance, amend the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Taser Training Academy Manual to require greater communication among on-scene officers regarding the number of discharges of the taser against the target to avoid multiple, repeated or continuous exposures; increase hands-on training with tasers, focusing on the issue of identifying when a taser discharge is effective; formulate training to address the problem of knowing whether the taser is operating properly to avoid continuous, repeated and prolonged use of the taser; [and] when multiple deputies are using tasers, the highest ranking deputy at the scene be required to keep track of the cumulative number of taser exposures.”

(July 12) On a 4-0 vote, the San Bernardino County school board on July 8 moved to officially seek to remove board member Gil Navarro from office.
The current circumstance grew out of Navarro having  outdistanced George Aguilar in last November’s race for a position on the San Bernardino Municipal Water District representing that entity’s  Division 2, with Navarro capturing  11,643 votes or 56.21 percent to Aguilar’s  9,070 votes or 43.79 percent. At that point, Navarro still had two years remaining on his term as a school board member.
Navarro’s victory prompted county superintendent of schools Gary Thomas to seek a legal opinion from San Bernardino County’s in-house lawyers, known as county counsel, as to whether holding both positions would represent a conflict. Thomas, who is independently elected to his post and has had a few run-ins with Navarro over the last several years on issues pertaining to education, said he was prompted to obtain the opinion because of concerns expressed by members of the public about possible conflicts that might arise if Navarro is called to vote on specific matters over which both the county division of schools and the water district might have competing interests.
On December 7, head county counsel Jean-Rene Basle authored a letter in which he and his staff summarized published opinions from the California Attorney General’s Office which they said indicated Navarro’s circumstance entailed a potential conflict of interest.
The San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District has overarching authority with regard to water issues in the central portion of the county, dictating policy with regard to water availability and setting wholesale water rates for smaller water retailers and other public water agencies, including those that provide water to several school districts.
Such a circumstance creates a conflict under California law that might preclude Navarro from voting with regard to, on one hand, the water district making water available to school districts or determining the price of that water, or, on the other hand, the county’s schools and school districts purchasing that water. Basle said this would lead to a conflict that Navarro and both the water district and the county superintendent of schools office should avoid. An attorney general’s opinion from 2002 opines, Basle said, that “A significant clash of duties and loyalties may arise in such matters as the water district setting the wholesale water rate that will be passed on to the school district by the retail water agencies involved” and could further occur when the water board votes on “determining the need for restrictions on water usage during times of water shortage.”
Navarro, however, maintains that no such conflict exists at the present time and that he can sidestep any conflicts that do arise by abstaining if and when such conflicts materialize. He has refused to surrender either position.
The matter was referred to the California Attorney General’s Office, which made a determination that there would be sufficient grounds for the board to undertake a lawsuit to seek Navarro’s removal from the county school board, on which Navarro has been a member since 2006.
“There is substantial issue as to the incompatibility of the two offices Mr. Navarro currently holds, because we have found similar offices incompatible,” a letter from the attorney general’s office dated June 11 states. The attorney general’s office stopped short of asserting Navarro could be removed, indicating that the matter would need to go to trial for that determination.
Thus, the vote by the board this week sets up the likelihood that just such an effort, known as a “quo warranto” proceeding, which involves the attorney general acting to remove “any person who usurps, intrudes into, or unlawfully holds or exercises any public office”  and involving the expense of a trial, will be undertaken.
In making his stand, Navarro will be hanging his hat on the legal precedent involved in the case of  Blanca Estella Rubio, a board member with the Baldwin Park Unified School District, who in 2004 was challenged by another member of the Baldwin Park Unified School District Board, Anthony J. Bejarano, because he claimed Rubio’s school board position and that of board member or director of the Valley County Water District, to which Rubio had previously also been elected, constituted the holding of “incompatible offices.”
Bejarano related the matter to the California Attorney General, who at that time was Bill Lockyer. The State Attorney General’s Office concluded Bejarano’s    question was valid, requiring judicial resolution.
In Rubio’s case, she was a water district board member before she was elected to the school board and under the provisions of the case that Bejarano and the school district were allowed to bring to trial by the State Attorney General, Rubio would have been, if the trial court had held against her, removed as a water board member and would have been allowed to retain the office to which she was most recently elected, that of school board member. The matter went to civil trial and in October 2005, a jury ruled in a 9-3 decision that Rubio could keep her seats on both the school board and the water board.
“After a jury trial, Blanca Rubio was not found to be in conflict and was able to maintain two elected positions,” Navarro said.
Certain legal authorities, while conceding there are direct parallels between the Rubio and Navarro cases, point out that there is superseding law which will undercut Navarro’s position.
The issue is not whether there is a direct conflict of interest, according to legal authorities, but whether there is the possibility that there could be a divided loyalty.  The issue is whether the offices are incompatible because the duties might possibly conflict at some time.
Previously, the doctrine of incompatible offices that had been developed by common law precedent, i.e., rulings of the courts, over the years in California allowed a favorable outcome for Rubio in her case.  In 2005, however, the California State Legislature acted to make the doctrine black letter law by the adoption of Government Code Section 1099.   This was after the jury verdict in the Rubio matter. At present, the statutory law now provides:
“(a) A public officer, including, but not limited to, an appointed or elected member of a governmental board, commission, committee, or other body, shall not simultaneously hold two public offices that are incompatible. Offices are incompatible when any of the following circumstances are present, unless simultaneous holding of the particular offices is compelled or expressly authorized by law:
(2) Based on the powers and jurisdiction of the offices, there is a possibility of a significant clash of duties or loyalties between the offices.
(3) Public policy considerations make it improper for one person to hold both offices.
(b) When two public offices are incompatible, a public officer shall be deemed to have forfeited the first office upon acceding to the second. This provision is enforceable pursuant to Section 803 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
(f) This section codifies the common law rule prohibiting an individual from holding incompatible public offices.”
Navarro, an outspoken Latino activist who has pushed for the political and professional empowerment of Hispanics, insists he has encountered opposition because of that activity. He maintains the voters have approved him for both roles he is currently fulfilling and said he will require that the district be put through its legal paces if it is to proceed against him. It is anticipated the trial will entail a cost of over $100,000.

(July 5) A decision that will have momentous impact on both the outward aesthetics as well as property values in the heart of upscale Chino Hills could be rendered as early as next Thursday when the California Public Utilities Commission meets in San Francisco.
On July 11, the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) will take up the issue of whether a 3.5 mile-long span of the roughly five mile portion of the electrical transmission line for Southern California Edison’s Tehachapi renewable energy project that runs through Chino Hills will be placed underground or whether the cable capable of carrying 500 kilovolts of electricity will be strung from a series of 197-foot high towers, 18 of which have already been erected in the city.
The PUC, which in 2009 over the city of Chino Hills’ protest granted Southern California Edison clearance to erect high-tension power transmission towers through the 44.7-square mile city at the extreme southwest corner of San Bernardino County along a long-existing power corridor easement owned by the utility, was persuaded in 2012 to reconsider that decision after city officials importuned PUC Chairman Michael Peevey to visit Chino Hills and witness firsthand the impact of the towers on the community.
The PUC ordered Southern California Edison, which had already expended millions of dollars in erecting the transmission towers within the Chino Hills city limits, to consider bringing the towers down and examine the  possibility of burying  the transmission lines  beneath the power corridor running through Chino Hills.
The 173-mile Tehachapi line is intended to connect what is planned as the world’s largest windfarm, consisting of hundreds of electricity-producing windmills in Kern County, with the Los Angeles metropolitan basin.
After the California Public Utilities Commission gave Southern California Edison initial approval for the project and its means of conveyance, the Chino Hills City Council authorized what has to date resulted in the expenditure of $4.4 million to employ attorneys and make other efforts to contest the Public Utility Commission’s action, including filing suit against Southern California Edison, alleging the company had “overburdened” the power line easements. That legal effort failed when West Valley Superior Court Judge Keith D. Davis ruled the California Public Utilities Commission has exclusive jurisdiction regarding the route used by Edison, and the suit was thrown out. Chino Hills appealed Davis’s ruling to the 4th District Court of Appeal, asserting the city had the right to have the case heard by a jury, but in September 2011 the appeals court affirmed Davis’ decision.
The last ditch gambit by Chino Hills to appeal to Peevey in 2011 succeeded in bringing about in November of that year what would at least prove to be a temporary halt to the towers’ construction while a potential undergrounding alternative is explored
But that  halt also forced a delay in the overall project, known as the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project, and state energy officials made clear that Chino Hills and other advocates of the undergrounding would need to utilize the respite in the construction to work with Edison to find a mechanism for defraying the increased cost the undergrounding would represent. With the deadline just days away, it appears the opportunity to forge a cost sharing alliance between the community and the utility has been squandered, significantly increasing the prospect that the PUC will allow Edison to proceed with the project as originally approved.
Southern California Edison has made clear all along that it would prefer to leave the power lines above ground. Nevertheless, it complied with the PUC’s request that it gather information, engineering and financial data, and testimony from involved and uninvolved but informed parties in order to arrive at a decision on whether undergrounding the cables is a viable alternative to leaving the line overhead through  Chino Hills. The decision that is likely to come next Thursday will come down to whether a majority of the members of the PUC board can be convinced that the burden the towers impose on the community of Chino Hills outweighs the complication, interruption, expense, and potential further delay that undergrounding effort will represent to Edison’s effort to complete the project.
While undergrounding advocates passionately maintained that burying the cables in the Chino Hills community was a superior option, they have risked the PUC’s rejection of their position by failing to prepare or outline a convincing cost-sharing plan toward that end which would have those directly benefited by the undergrounding bear a portion of its cost.
Undergrounding advocates have accused Southern California Edison of inflating the cost estimates for the undergrounding project. The undergrounding advocates have likewise been accused of underestimating the cost.
Last December, Edison submitted cost estimates for various undergrounding alternatives that ranged from $486 million to $807 million. Edison previously maintained the cost of trenching out a six-foot wide and six-foot deep, 3.5-mile long swath through town and undergrounding a single line would be $300 million to $473 million, and undergrounding a double-circuit line to be $703 million to $1 billion. Edison claims it could erect the towers along the same span and string the cables between them for an estimated $172 million.
Some of those calling for the burial of the lines maintain the job could be done competently for as little as $147 million. Southern California Edison, operating from a position of strength by virtue of its decades of experience in laying and stringing electrical lines, has cited its assessment of the technical and financial challenges associated with the project and the PUC has accepted those estimates as realistic ones.
Administrative Law Judge Jean Vieth, who was designated as the arbiter of still-remaining issues between the utility company and the city and its undergrounding advocates, concluded, “Using Chino Hills’ own summary of the major cost categories and the differences between the parties’ estimates, and evaluating the record developed on those cost items, we conclude that $147 million is not a credible estimate for the undergrounding. The actual cost, before offset for the reasonable value of Chino Hills’ real property contribution, which we have not determined, would approximate either $268 million or $296 million.
The city of Chino Hills made what PUC staff referred to as a “token” effort to share in the undergrounding cost, asserting it would participate by providing as much as $76.7 million to mitigate Southern California Edison’s undergrounding costs, including providing 69.97 acres of real property needed for the construction of the underground transmission line which the city is prepared to convey to SCE in fee; future  revenue which the city would have derived which will now be available to SCE through ownership of such properties; increased expenses that the city will incur due to its loss of the use of the contributed properties; and costs associated with the landscaping and maintenance of those properties that are located in the right-of-way.
Vieth, however, was skeptical of Chino Hill’s claims as to the value of its offered contribution. Last month she tendered a proposed decision on the undergrounding petition which went against Chino Hills and in favor of allowing Edison to leave the line completely above ground. Vieth stated her “proposed decision does not assign a value to Chino Hills’ proposed real property offset but concludes that the actual value is a much more modest amount than Chino Hills’ estimate.”
Vieth further noted that Chino Hills substantially underestimated other costs associated with the discontinuation of the original plan not included in the undergrounding costs and appeared insensitive to those added cost implications.
“In qualitative terms, Chino Hills’ estimate does not include any allowance for three cost items, tower foundation removal, fiber optic cable in the conduit and geotechnical work, none of which it contends are necessary, and compared to Southern California Edison, it significantly minimizes five other cost items or groups of costs,” Vieth stated.
Vieth’s recommendation to the full PUC board is a non-binding one, but it nonetheless reflects the pointed issues at play in the eventual outcome.
One of the issues raised by Chino Hills which Vieth considered but ultimately rejected was the contention that Chino Hills was uniquely burdened by the Tehachapi line and as such the undergrounding alternative through the community merited approval.
“The affected section in Chino Hills is longer than elsewhere and, as a total, more residences border the utility right of way, but the housing density is greater in Duarte, Chino and Ontario,” Vieth stated. “Certainly the Chino Hills’ community, or at least part of it, has been more vocal in its opposition but this, alone, is not a basis for deciding the merits. It can be difficult to measure the views of a community at large. On the facts reviewed above, we could conclude that Chino Hills is not unique.”
By her language, Vieth suggested that the PUC’s granting of Chino Hill’s undergrounding request could touch off similar demands in dozens of other communities, delaying and adding expense to the project.   In her decision, Vieth cited the following passage from the brief offered by the PUC’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates as being concisely relevant to the question at issue: “By this rationale, every city the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project passed through has a reasonable basis for seeking modification and requesting that the line be placed underground as it passes through those cities as well.”
Vieth went on to state, “[My] proposed decision denies the city of Chino Hills’ petition for modification of the [PUC’s 2009] decision regarding [the Chino Hills] segment of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project. The proposed decision finds that while underground construction of a single circuit, two cables per phase design is feasible and could be completed on a timely basis, the cost is prohibitive and should not be borne by ratepayers at large for the benefit of the city and its residents.”
Vieth offered a glimpse of the reasoning that went into her decision/recommendation to the PUC board, stating that the undergrounding’s cost benefit ratio was too lopsided. “On a per mile basis, these estimates represent a high approaching $85 million per mile and a low approaching $77 million per mile,” she stated. Along the 3.5 mile span, according to Vieth, 220 houses were directly impacted by the towers. The cost of sparing them from the visual blight of the towers would essentially exceed the cost of the homes themselves. “For each of the 220 houses that borders the right-of-way, the cost is on the order of $1.2-$1.3 million per house,” according to Vieth.
Vieth’s is not the final word on the matter.  On the same day Vieth’s decision was publicly released, the Public Utilities Commission also released an alternative proposed decision by PUC President Michael Peevey that stood in stark contrast to Vieth’s ruling. Peevey, who since visiting Chino Hills to personally survey the towers in the Fall of 2011 has expressed his empathy for Chino Hills and its residents, endorsed the call to place 3.5 miles of the single circuit line below ground level.
Peevey’s estimation of the undergrounding cost matched neither Chino Hill’s lower undergrounding cost projection nor Southern California Edison’s higher one. Peevey’s projection –  $224 million – came in at least $46 million below Edison’s estimate.
Peevey’s alternate proposed decision grants the city of Chino Hills’ petition and orders Southern California Edison to construct an underground, single circuit, cross-linked polyethylene system for roughly 70 percent of the distance the Tehachapi Line traverses Chino Hills. Peevey’s proposed decision concludes that “the burden imposed on Chino Hills and its residents by 3.5 miles of the aboveground transmission line, with towers approaching 200 feet tall, is unfair, is contrary to community values under Public Utility Code Section 1002 and warrants undergrounding.”
In the aftermath of Peevey’s November 2011 order to Edison to consider the undergrounding options, advocates of the undergrounding had been hopeful that change would extend to the entire five mile distance through Chino Hills. By February 2012, however, those hopes were dashed when the PUC acceded to Southern California Edison’s insistence that it could not prepare economical plans to underground that portion of the Tehachapi Renewable Energy Project power line through a 1.5 mile section of the city known as the Oak Tree Downs along the north side of Carbon Canyon at the west extension of Chino Hills, given the undulations of the area’s rolling hills and other peculiarities in the contour of the land. The upshot is that at most, the line will be undergrounded for no more than 3.5 miles.
Bob Goodwin, the leader of the Chino Hills-based group Hope For The Hills which was instrumental in lobbying the PUC to revisit the undergrounding issue, said the Chino Hills community in general “looks forward to a decision by CPUC favoring public safety in Chino Hills on July 11. This has been an epic battle of a growing group of passionate citizens trying to undo bad management decisions at corporate giant SCE to construct a dangerous infrastructure project through a densely populated neighborhood. This would become the largest high voltage transmission project in the world that is located this close to a densely populated area.”
Goodwin said, “Chino Hills does not want to be an afterthought years from now when health issues arise, and they will, with the prolonged exposure to the electromagnetic frequency radiation these lines will emit. Additionally, with this project being the first like it in the U.S., the construction is not proven.”
He accused Southern California Edison of “experimenting on a community of residents with no regard to the health and safety impact this will have on families.”
Despite Vieth’s ruling against undergrounding, Goodwin said he was heartened by her conclusion that underground construction is feasible and the project could be completed on time if the undergrounding takes place. He hailed Peevey’s finding, “which grants the city of Chino Hills’ petition and orders SCE to construct an underground system. We appreciate,” Goodwin emphasized, “the courage demonstrated by the CPUC commissioners as they were personally appalled at the sight of seeing the arrogant towers with their own eyes.  It’s obvious they immediately recognized SCE’s reckless disregard for others.”

(July 5) Opposition is forming to Verizon’s application to construct a cell phone tower near the trout ponds at Mt. Baldy Village.
Verizon’s application for the tower has been submitted to the San Bernardino County Land Use Services Division and is being processed for a public hearing likely to take place late this summer.
Verizon was required to make public notice of the application, which alerted residents of Mt. Baldy Village. Several local residents spontaneously formed a group, known as the Keep Baldy Wild Coalition, to oppose Verizon’s application.
“We oppose the proposal submitted by Verizon to construct a cell phone tower by the trout ponds at Mt. Baldy Village,” Steve Sacks, the coalition’s spokesman, stated.
Sacks said his group’s opposition is not to the erection of a tower that will enhance communication service to the Mt. Baldy area but rather to the location Verizon has chosen.
“We are working to minimize the potential harmful biological effects of radio frequency radiation exposure from cell phone towers and antennae by applying the principle of prudent avoidance and advocating a tower placement that serves the needs of search and rescue and the fire department and is at least 3,000 feet from human habitation,” Sacks said.
In its application for the cell tower and its promotion of the project, Verizon has touted it as one that would provide better service to its customers and enhance safety by increasing communication coverage and facilitating the rescue of lost or injured hikers.
Sacks, however, disputed that, saying “Their proposal would only provide cell signals in Baldy Village, where Verizon stands to make money.  Verizon’s proposed tower would not cover the rugged terrain where hikers might need help. That is why the Keep Baldy Wild Coalition advocates an alternative site, far enough from residences and sensitive habitats to be safe, but with better coverage for hiking areas. We believe that such sites exist, and that it is up to Verizon to do engineering studies to prove their viability.”
According to Sacks, “The area surrounding the proposed cell tower site is a unique transitional chaparral/woodland/forest habitat for numerous plant and animal communities, including amphibians, snakes, migratory and year-round bird populations. Sensitive species among all of these categories also find refuge in this habitat. In addition, a declining population of Nelson Big Horn sheep drinks from San Antonio Creek nearby. These animals will be exposed to radio frequency radiation as they travel their traditional route down the hillside and while they drink. Mt. Baldy is currently a refuge area from radiation, for both humans and animals. We know that the health and fertility of animals can be affected by radiation.”
Sacks said that in addition to the risks posed to the wildlife in and around Mt. Baldy Village, the cell phone tower represents a health hazard to the village’s residents.
“Cell phone towers are associated with higher cancer rates,” he said. “The World Health Organization classifies radio frequency radiation as Category 2B, which is possibly a carcinogen to humans. No safe level of radio frequency radiation has been determined.”
Verizon referred questions about the safety of cell towers to the Federal Communications Commission, which has set health and safety guidelines for their size, power and placement.
Sacks said “Federal Communications Commission safety limits never anticipated wireless technology health impacts and do not protect against the biological effects of radio frequency radiation. U.S. limits were established by the telecom industry and are amongst the least protective in the world.”
Obliquely alluding to the presence of the U.S. Forest Service ranger station in Mt. Baldy Village, Sacks suggested that a wider base of opposition to the cell tower may yet manifest.
“The International Association of Firefighters opposes cell towers on or near fire stations, citing slowed reflexes, headaches, and loss of concentration with cell towers near fire stations,” he said.

(July 5) Most of San Bernardino County’s 24 cities have set their spending plans for the governmental fiscal year that began on Monday. Two thirds of the budgets are balanced.
The fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30. Traditionally, prior to the end of June, cities pass a budget which outlines revenues to be derived and expenditures to be made over the upcoming twelve months. This year, every city inthe county except Upland had met that goal. The Upland City Council will consider its city’s budget next week.
Adelanto, which has projected it will run a $2.6 million deficit in its 2013-14 general fund, has declared a fiscal emergency, clearing the way for a citywide vote with regard to creating a taxing mechanism. In the meantime, the city council passed a budget spending more than it has available in income but provisionally balanced upon the use of reserves.  The budget projects revenue and transfers  of $17,488,513 and expenditures of $17,487,446.
In Apple Valley the town will have general fund revenues of $24,783,892 and general fund expenditures of $24,608,985. It will have special fund revenue of $12,914,879 while making expenditures from its special funds of $14,830,736. The town will expend $1,627,150 toward debt service. It will put $20,307,000 into its capital improvement fund account while spending $25,158,700 on capital improvements. It will take in $16,405,154 in revenue for its enterprise accounts while spending $17,689,786 on such enterprises. The successor to the town’s redevelopment agency will bring in $3,986,395 at the same time it must make $17,986,395 in payments to the creditors of its old redevelopment agency. Thus, Apple Valley will have total revenues in 2013-14 of $80,024,470 and total expenditures of $101,901,752.
In Fiscal Year 2013-14, Barstow anticipates $11,602,533 in revenue into its general fund and $11,602,010 in expenditures out of its general fund. Through all funds, Barstow anticipates $26,654,722 in revenue and $25,181,643 in expenditures
In Chino the projected revenue into the general fund is $47,001,011 and the city has   proposed appropriations of $45,487,145.
In Chino Hills, the city anticipates total expenditures for 2013-14 of  $159.7 million through all of its funds, including general fund expenditures, operating and capital, of $37.8 million, and restricted fund expenditures of $121.9 million. The city’s estimated revenues for 2013/14 are $138 million. General fund revenues, which fund law enforcement, recreation and general services, amount to $34.1 million. The remaining $103.9 million of the city’s revenue comes from restricted sources, including special revenue funds, proprietary operations, internal service funds, and agency funds.
The Colton City Council has approved a $120.8 million budget for fiscal year 2013-14, including general fund expenditures $29.8 million, enterprise funds of $81.7 million and special funds of $3.07 million. Other funds total $6.2 million.
Fontana has budgeted $77 million in spending out of its general fund in 2013-14.
Grand Terrace, which has also declared a fiscal emergency and will ask its citizens to approve a utility tax in November, has passed a budget anticipating $3.3 million in revenue and $3.98 million in expenditures.
In Hesperia, city officials have scheduled general fund expenditures of $23,827,402 with total resources (revenue, budgeted reserves, and transfers) of $23,983,765. The city further anticipates $22,729,914 in spending from funds beside the general fund, including $4,301,813 from the county transportation agency to be used on road repair and creation, $1.5 million in community development block grants, $554,020 in community development block grant loans, $3.28 million from the city’s street fund, and using $1.345 million for water rights acquisition.
In Highland, the city council has approved a budget that projects $13,509,355 in general fund revenue and $13,672,355 in general fund expenditures. The total projected revenue into all city of Highland funds is $49,736,780 and total expenditures from all city funds, which beyond the general fund consists almost exclusively of capital project spending, are projected at $75,952,590.
In Loma Linda, city officials have projected the city will receive $13,549,100 in revenue into the general fund and make expenditures of $13,503,500 from the general fund. Overall, Loma Linda will have revenue of $31,266,600 into all of its municipal funds and expenditures of $33,477,500 out of all of those funds.
Ontario’s proposed operating budget for 2013-12 is $423,826,981, including $168,997,116 in its general fund, and $254,829,865 in its special revenue, capital projects, enterprise, fiduciary services and internal services funds. In addition, the city is providing $19,375,799 for the Ontario Housing Authority and $19,306,474 for the redevelopment successor agency for a total overall operating budget of $462,509,254.
Needles will spend $5,470.218 out of its general fund while bringing $5,512,030 in revenue to its general fund. Needles will spend a total of $25,588,161 from all of its funds, including $12,355,318 by the Needles Public Utility Authority.
Rancho Cucamonga boasts a $65,240,470 general fund budget, and a $28,449,220 budget for its fire department, which is accounted for on a separate ledger. The city also is scheduling $4,138,190 of spending through its library fund, which is kept separate from its general fund. The city has another  $72,075,310 of spending slated through its special funds not included in its general fund.
Redlands, which anticipates revenue into its general fund of $51,315,371, will have general fund expenditures of $49,837,690.
Rialto projects taking in revenue of $58,798,000 and making $61,439,000 in expenditures for a $2,641,000 deficit.
The city of San Bernardino, which declared bankruptcy last August, has projected it will make $117.2 million in expenditures in 2013-14, while projecting revenues of $114.7 million.
Twentynine Palms will have general fund revenues of $8,052,000 and expenditures of $7,871,410.
The city of Upland has yet to officially confirm its budget. Upland City Manager Stephen Dunn told the Sentinel he anticipates the city will receive roughly $40 million in revenue in the twelve months between July 1, 2013 and June 30, 2014 and can meet the goal he has imposed on the city’s department heads of holding overall operating expenditures to $38.5 million to stow away $1.5 million into a reserve account.
The City of Victorville’s annual budget for fiscal year 2013-14 is proposed at $126,360,698. Total revenue for the city’s general fund portion of the total budget is estimated at $48,822,218. Total expenditures out of the general fund are projected to be $48,762,397.
Yucaipa has projected $16,134,565 in revenue into its general fund and is anticipating general fund expenditures of $16,123,853.
The town of Yucca Valley has approved a $9.1 million budget for 2013-14.