(June 21) Just prior to the close of the 2012-13 fiscal year, the county is augmenting the sheriff’s department’s auto repair budget with  an additional $240,000 to increase five purchase orders from $500,000 to $740,000 with five automotive repair services.
According to sheriff’s captain Steve Higgins, the department wanted “additional purchasing authority of $240,000 for automotive repairs to be completed through June 30, 2013. Historically, the department seeks board of supervisors approval for its annual automotive procurement in the first quarter of the fiscal year. However, in 2012-13 the annual item was delayed due to the completion of a request for proposals to award multiple purchase orders for automotive repair services. Shortly thereafter, vacancies occurred in the department’s procurement and accounts payable sections. This resulted in the department’s internal tracking measures failing to identify it had exceeded its purchasing authority with one vendor, Citori in Hesperia. The department’s position vacancies in the accounts payable section are being filled to ensure improved tracking in the future.”
According to Higgins, the department had contracts with five automotive garages –  Hesperia-based Citori, which is also known as G&M Automotive; Rancho Cucamonga-based Inland Empire Stages; Highland-based Peta’s Car Care; San Bernardino-based Pride Automotive; and San Bernardino-based McCray Enterprises – to do $100,000 worth of automotive repair work for the department in 2012-13. As of this week, according to Higgins, Citori/G&M Automotive had actually done $188,760 worth of work. He asked for the Citori/G&M’s 2012-13 expenditure limit to be increased to $225,000. He said that Inland Empire Stages had to date completed $99,664 worth of work and he asked for the expenditure limit for Inland Empire Stages to be upped to $115,000.
Peta’s Car Care had completed $94,524 worth of work and Higgins requested spending authorization with that concern be increased to $120,000. Pride Automotive had billed for $97,282 and Higgins requested that the department be authorized to have that company complete $130,000 worth of work by June 30.
McCray Enterprises had completed $94,845 worth of work as of earlier this week. Higgins sought and obtained spending authority with that entity be increased to $150,000.

(June 21) ONTARIO—Teachers with the Ontario-Montclair School District have rejected the district’s offer of a two-percent salary increase, asserting the condition that they work an increased workday amounted to a four percent increase in their workload.
In May, when the Ontario-Montclair Teachers Association was presented with a contract that called for teachers to work a 15-minute-longer workday in return for a two percent raise, the union’s members opposed it.  It was pointed out that the 15 minute extension would represent a four percent increase in each teacher’s time on the job.
At present, teachers with the district are paid from $38,240 to $82,034 annually, depending on educational levels, certification and seniority.
With 1,177 teachers, Ontario-Montclair is one of the largest districts in San Bernardino County.
The district’s current contract with its teachers, which was approved more than eight months ago, will remain in place.

(June 14) Administrative Law Judge Jean Vieth this week delivered a crushing blow to the city of Chino Hills and residents there advocating the undergrounding of high-voltage powerlines through that city.
In 2009, the California Public Utilities Commission, over the city of Chino Hills’ protest, granted Southern California Edison clearance to erect a series of 197-foot high power transmission towers through the heart of the upscale, 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.
That line is intended to facilitate the Tehachapi Renewable Energy Project to connect what is planned as the world’s largest windfarm, consisting of thousands of electricity-producing windmills in Kern County, with the Los Angeles metropolitan basin.
Fearing a host of problems from the imposition of the towers, including significant negative impacts on property values in the city, the Chino Hills City Council authorized the expenditure of millions of dollars of taxpayer money 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.
In 2011, Edison, which has long had a 150-foot wide right-of-way for its power lines that runs for 5.8 miles from Tonner Canyon to the Riverside County line, erected 18 of the towers within Chino Hills before a city appeal to the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and Public Utilities Commission Chairman Michael Peevey in particular succeeded in obtaining a temporary halt to the towers’ construction in November 2011 while a potential undergrounding alternative was explored for 3.5 miles of the roughly five miles over which electrical lines are to transit the city. Early last year, a determination was made that the lines would remain above ground through that section of Chino Hills known as Oak Tree Downs, primarily because the topography of the land, which includes rolling hills, would render undergounding prohibitively expensive.
Simultaneously, Vieth was designated as the arbiter of still-remaining issues between the utility company and the city and its undergrounding advocates.
In her decision released on June 11 Vieth weighed in with her analysis of the matter, which relates to the city’s request to force Southern California Edison to install the line below ground the 3.5 mile span from the end of Eucalyptus Avenue  to Pipeline Avenue and the 71 Freeway.
Vieth, in taking up the petition and determining it “should be considered on the merits,” nevertheless rejected the city’s request to have Edison de-erect the towers in favor of a single circuit double cable line along that length of the  Tehachapi line through Chino Hills, which is known as Segment 8A.
“Proposed Decision denies the city of Chino Hills’ petition for modification of Decision (D.) 09-12-044 regarding Segment 8A of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project,” Vieth wrote. “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. The proposed decision concludes that actual cost of undergrounding would be either a low of about $268 million (without reactive compensation) or a high of about $296 million (with reactive compensation).”
Previously, Chino Hills said it was willing to contribute $70.45 million to $76.7 million to offset Southern California Edison’s costs in carrying out the undergrounding. That contribution, the city said, would include real property that is necessary for the construction of an 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.
The 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.
“As petitioner, Chino Hills has the burden of proof to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that its petition, filed October 28, 2011, should be granted; accordingly, Chino Hills must show that the design approved for Segment 8A should be changed to require construction of Chino Hills’ preferred alternative instead,” Vieth wrote. “Because we find that Segment 8A is not dissimilar from several other sections along the project route and that undergrounding Segment 8A at ratepayer expense is not reasonable, Chino Hills’ petition, filed October 28, 2011, should be denied. Because we deny the October 28, 2011, petition, Chino Hills’ subsequent petition (the additional request for a stay), filed October 31, 2011, should be denied also. The construction stay on Segment 8A should be released. This order should be effective immediately to avoid delay in completion of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project.”
Vieth provided some of the calculations that went into her decision for denial, stating that the 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, while serving as the administrative law judge on the case, does not have final say in the matter.  On the same day Vieth’s decision was publicly released, the Public Utlities Commission also released an alternative proposed decision by PUC President Michael Peevey which endorses Chino Hills’ remaining request for 3.5 miles of the single circuit line  to be buried below ground.
Peevey’s  alternate proposed decision  stood in stark contrast to  Vieth’s ruling, and differed by at least $46 million in its cost analysis.    Peevey estimated the undergrounding  cost  at $224 million.
A thirty-day comment period is to now ensue. The full California Public Utilities Commission Board, of which Peevey is a voting member, will take up the issue on July 11 and render a final, binding ruling as early as that date and no later than July 30.
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, was able to find a silver lining in Vieth’s ruling.
“The California Public Utilities Commission issued two contrasting proposed decisions in the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project (TRTP),” he told the Sentinel. “The full commission will determine which decision becomes effective following a vote at the commission meeting on July 11, 2013,” Goodwin said. “CPUC Administrative Law Judge Jean Vieth issued her proposed decision, which would lift the stay on construction of the partially completed overhead lines within Chino Hills and allow the line to be completed as originally approved by the CPUC in 2009. The judge noted the high cost to ratepayers of the proposal to underground the lines and the fact that the overhead transmission lines are close to residences in other portions of the TRTP project.
“While we were not surprised by her conclusion, we feel she made two significant points: 1) underground construction is feasible and 2) project could be completed on time,” Goodwin continued. “Judge Vieth did her job given the scope of the original petition she was ruling on.  Also included in the documents is a alternate proposed decision drafted by Michael Peevey which grants the city of Chino Hills’ petition and orders SCE to construct an underground system. He sites two main reasons: 1) unfair burden imposed on Chino Hills and its residents and 2) the project is contrary to community values. He concluded that based on this and the estimated cost it warrants undergrounding.”
Goodwin sounded confident the entire Public Utilities Commission Bboard will go with Peevey’s proposal rather than Vieth’s.
“While this does not finalize anything, we feel strongly that with Mr. Peevey’s alternate proposal and Administrative Law Judge Vieth’s comments, our foot is a little further in the door. This matter is not over by any means and no one should feel we have won anything. We still have work to do and are prepared to see this to the victorious end.”

(June 14) NEEDLES —David Brownlee may be in the final phase of his tenure as city manager with the smallest city in San Bernardino County.
The city council on May 28 approved advertising for the city manager position and designated council members Linda Kidd, Jim Lopez and Tom Darcy to serve on a subcommittee to review responses from candidates.
Brownlee, who was elevated into a caretaker city manager post in 2010 when the previous city manager, Bill Way,  was released, was the city’s assistant city manager and utilities service manager at the time. At present, the council is seeking a city manager who is connected politically, can bring economic development to Needles and can write grants.
The council set a $1,000 limit on its advertising costs for the position, suggesting the recruitment would be mainly staged through a public notice in the Califorria League of Cities monthly publication.
Brownlee’s current contract runs from June 1 of this year through May 31, 2014. The terms of that contract give him retreat rights to return to being a city employee with the title of assistant city manager/utilities general manager.
There was no outward show of contention between Brownlee and the council, although the council did rebuff Brownlee in his recent effort to get clearance to hire an associate planner. The city council’s move comes as the economy is continuing to stagnate and businesses are vacating Needles and no new businesses are coming in to the town located on the western bank of the Colorado River. The city itself is making payroll and bond payments. The city is in a relatively fortunate position in that it owns the electric, water and wastewater utilities which give it some semblance of financial stability. Needles has challenges, including significant going-concern issues, according to the San Bernardino County Local Agency Formation Commission, most of which are beyond the city’s control.
Needles, with a population of 4,844, is the county’s smallest city population-wise. The budgeted range for the city manager in Needles is $129,000 to $132,000 per year. Brownlee is not paid according to that schedule, however, and receives $50.47 per hour based on  furlough-truncated annual hours of 1,976. All employees in Needles are required to take furloughs. Brownlee’s annual salary is therefore $99,728.72. If the furloughs were to be discontinued and he were to work a full 2080-hour work year, he would be earning $104,977.60 per annum.

(June 14)  TWENTYNINE PALMS — More than a year after the county local agency formation commission recommended that the Twentynine Palms Water District divest itself of the fire department, the water district has yet to relinquish it, and the fire department’s future remains in limbo.
A takeover of the department by the county fire department fell through earlier this year and the department, which boasts seven personnel functioning out of two fire stations to serve a jurisdiction of 88 square miles, is set to be downscaled to five firefighters and one station.
Last month, the most recently drafted version of the department’s 2013-14 budget was presented by fire chief Jim Thompson to the water board. That spending plan earmarks $1,209,525 for department operations from July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014 and will salt away $52,775 in a reserve account. The department, which is funded entirely by a special tax, is slated to receive $1,244,800 in the upcoming fiscal year.
The Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), which oversees jurisdictional issues throughout the county, in its five-year service review of Twentynine Palms delivered on May 7, 2012 stated that the demands of operating the fire district have for some time been outrunning the water district’s funding ability. The report, authored by LAFCO executive officer Kathleen Rollings-McDonald, assistant executive officer Samuel Martinez and project manager Michael Tuerpe, said LAFCO’s review of the water district’s financial books “identifies a significant deficiency in funding” such that “the water district’s fire operations are unsustainable as presently financed.”
Rollings-McDonald on May 24 told the water district’s board members that the district would have to overcome the financial challenges facing the fire department, or cede control of the department to another entity by July 1, 2013. She said the water district could either hand the downtown station over to the city of Twentynine Palms and the Lear Avenue station to the county fire division and thereby surrender the special tax to both of those entities or in the alternative invite the county fire division to expand its sphere of influence and annex the water district’s territory for the purpose of providing fire service, complete with an arrangement to have the county inherit the special tax.
On June 27, with director Nicholas “Bo” Bourikas not present but voting in absentia in writing, the water board moved to file an application with the San Bernardino County Local Agency Formation Commission to sever fire service from the district. On July 12, 2012 at a joint meeting of the Twentynine Palms Water District, including its legal counsel and staff, Twentynine Palms Fire Chief Jim Thompson, the Twentynine Palms City Council and its legal counsel, county fire chief Mark Hartwig and Rollings-McDonald, a decision was made to have the county’s fire department subsume the fire department. Ultimately, however, that takeover has not been consummated.
Since that time, officials have gone back and forth over whether the operation of both existing fire stations will be maintained. There have been differing proposals to close out one of the fire stations and other cost-cutting moves which some elements of the community vociferously protested.
At one point, Hartwig proposed reducing the department to three firefighters and one station and utilizing volunteers/paid call personnel to function within the $1.2 million financial model. Eventually, the water board, under increasing pressure from members of the community, rejected the concept of handing the department off to the county, whose unionized firefighters draw higher pay and benefits than the current department’s members.
Twenty-nine years before the city of Twentynine Palms incorporated in 1987, the water district extended its responsibilities to include fire protection after the California Department of Forestry ceased providing local fire service to the area in 1958. When the city incorporated, it did not do so as a full-service municipality, and it left responsibility for fire service to the water district, which likewise remained independent from the city.
Under the water district’s guidance, the fire department grew to boast two fire stations, Station 421 on Adobe Road, which provides first response to the 59-square mile incorporated portion of Twentynine Palms and some unincorporated pockets close to town, and Station 422 on Lear Avenue, which is the first logical responder to fire and medical emergencies in most of the 29-square mile unincorporated, outlying communities of Twentynine Palms, including the Desert Heights area. The fire department’s service area is thus not coterminous with the 29 Palms city limits. The city does not contribute to, participate in or subsidize the fire department’s operational budget. Under the arrangement that has been in place since 1958, fire department finances have been held independent of the water district, with water rates totally devoted to the provision of water to customers. Fire department operations are defrayed entirely by a special fire tax on properties throughout the service area of the water district.
In April 2012, residents within the water district’s service area were presented with a ballot initiative, Measure H, which would have levied an added special fire service assessment on all water district customers. The voters rejected that initiative. Thompson at that point said that the fire department’s only option in balancing its books was to shutter one of its two fire stations.
That prediction is about to become reality. And two firefighters will also be casualties of the economies that must be imposed. Thompson’s working plan is to consolidate fire operations and maintain five paid personnel — himself as fire chief, two captains and two engineers  — and augment that skeleton crew with three reserve volunteer firefighters daily. The Lear Avenue station will be closed and all operations will be run out of the 1,800-square foot downtown Adobe Road station.
Like last year, all maintenance or capital acquisitions will be deferred, at least until next year. Most of the $1,244,800 in revenue the water district will receive that is earmarked for the fire department will be eaten up by the anticipated $1,209,525 for salaries and fuel and basic operations, leaving $52,775 in reserves, which will eventually be used, Thompson hopes, for maintenance or acquisition at some indefinite point in the future.

(June 14) The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on June 12 approved a $4.4 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2013-14, which the county’s chief executive officer, Greg Devereaux touted as balanced and forward looking.
Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Janice Rutherford said, “Despite the ongoing effects of the economic downturn, the county budget is balanced and incorporates major investments in key priorities, including road maintenance, public safety, and efforts to streamline the county’s land use approval processes.”
The fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30. The county will place 155.1 million more into its general fund in the upcoming year than it will utilize in the nearly ended 2012-13 Fiscal Year.
It is notable that the largest line item in the budget is that devoted to the county’s Human Services division, which will eat up $1.6 billion of the revenue that will be coming into the county over the next 12 months. A portion of that outlay will go toward hiring 158 new employees in the Transitional Assistance Department.
The county’s law and justice group, consisting of the sheriff’s department, district attorney’s office, probation department, and public defender’s office, will utilize $825.7 million over the course of the next 12 months.
The county will devote a whopping $37.9 million to staffing and further expansion work on the Adelanto Detention Center.  The county will also spend $18 million for other jail upgrades, $15.7 million for a new crime lab and $360,000 for medical marijuana enforcement.  The budget also has provided $150,000 for improvements to sheriff’s department resident posts, which consist of resident deputy housing at various locations throughout the county.
Other notable elements of this year’s county budget are a $4.5 million increase for pavement management programs and transportation projects; $4.5 million for the relocation of the sheriff’s department’s aviation division at Rialto Airport, located at 1776 Miro Way in Rialto to  San Bernardino International Airport; $4.5 million for a buildings acquisition and retrofit project to acquire existing office space near the Victorville Courthouse to locate general funded departments currently in leased space; $1.6 million to the Land Use Services Department to begin updating the county’s general plan; and $524,276 for the Homeownership Protection Program, which will identify all housing funding mechanisms and programs to help families keep their homes.
The budget also sets aside funding for expenditures in future years, including $18 million for future jail upgrades, $13 million for future upgrades to the county’s financial accounting system, $10 million for future upgrades to the county animal shelter, $5.9 million for the upcoming Rimforest Storm Drain Project, $5.4 million for future activity by the Land Use Services Department, $4 million for future acquisition efforts and retrofit projects on county buildings, and $200,000 for future updates to the county code and county charter.
The county’s general fund spending authority totals $2.5 billion, only $498.9 million of which, according to Devereaux “is truly discretionary.”
Slightly more than $1.9 billion of the county’s budget lies outside the general fund.

(June 14)  San Bernardino County within the last two years passed a significant demographic milestone, as the number of Latinos living within its borders grew to become an outright majority of the population.
According to U.S. Census data released yesterday, June 13, Hispanics now account for 50.5 percent of San Bernardino County’s population. According to the U.S. Census, 32.7 percent of the county’s population is white, 9.6 percent is African-American, 6.9 percent is Asian and two percent is Native American.
San Bernardino County has joined the ranks of a growing number of cities and counties with a Latino majority. Among counties specifically, it is the second largest in the country where Latinos outnumber all other ethnic groups combined. Miami-Dade County in Florida, where 64.3 percent of residents are Hispanic, holds the distinction of being the largest such county. Miami-Dade and San Bernardino are the only two counties nationwide with a population exceeding 2 million where Latinos form a majority.
According to the U.S. Census, the number of those identifiable as Hispanic in San Bernardino County eclipsed the half way mark sometime in late 2011 or 2012.
For accounting purposes, the government defines its years on a fiscal calendar, which runs from July 1 to June 30. In the year ending June 30, 2012, San Bernardino County’s Latino population edged upward by nearly 2 percent over the previous year, from 1,030,213 in 2011 to 1,050,372 in 2012. At the initiation of the 2011-12 Fiscal Year in July 2011, Latinos registered as 49.9 percent of San Bernardino County’s total population of 2,064,511. By July 2012, they accounted for 50.5 percent of the county’s total population of 2,081,313, according to Census figures.
The increase in the numbers of Latinos in the local  population over the years has been reflected in political representation across the county. At present, two of the members of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors are Hispanic or of Hispanic ancestry. Half of the county’s 24 cities – Chino Hills, Chino, Ontario, Fontana, Rialto, Colton, Grand Terrace, Redlands, Needles, Barstow, Adelanto and Victorville  – have at least one Hispanic councilmember. In Colton, the only city where Hispanics form a majority of the council, six of its seven members are Latino.
Like most of California, San Bernardino County has long had a significant Hispanic population. That base has grown considerably in the last several decades. In 1990, Latinos were 26.7 percent of the county population. By 2000, their ranks had grown to 39.2 percent. In 2010, that number eclipsed 48 percent.
In San Bernardino County the Hispanic demographic is a relatively young one. The median Latino age in San Bernardino County is 27. By contrast, the median age of Caucasians in San Bernardino County is 45.

(June 14)  JOSHUA TREE— Over the strenuous objections of dozens of Joshua Tree residents, the county board of supervisors upheld the county planning commission’s previous approval of Dynamic Development LLC’s application to build and operate a 9,100-square-foot Dollar General retail store in this desert community..
Many in Joshua Tree pride themselves on the rustic character of their town. They resisted the Dollar Tree proposal, maintaining the presence of a national corporate retail establishment would compromise the Old West ambience of a desert town that relies on tourism. In January the planning commission by a 4-1 vote approved the proposal by Dynamic Development in conjunction with the Goodlettsville, Tennessee–based Dollar General Corp. to establish the store at the corner of Twentynine Palms Highway and Sunburst Avenue in Joshua Tree. Locating the outlet in Joshua Tree is part of a larger business strategy of the corporation which has established a Dollar General store in Yucca Valley and has already obtained approval for a Dollar General store in Twentynine Palms. Having three stores along State Route 62 will create a synergy and economy of scale with regard to supply and delivery, corporate officers believe.
Mark Ostoich, an attorney representing Dynamic Development, said the project met all the criteria of an acceptable property use.
Gus Romo and Ernie Perea, planners with the county’s department of land use services who previously recommended that the commission approve Dynamic Development’s conditional use permit application, set the groundwork for their boss, Terri Rahhal, the  planning director for the county, who was tasked with reiterating the planning  division’s earlier analysis and findings  and building a case to justify the store at its proposed location after several town residents together with the Joshua Tree Downtown Business Alliance filed a timely appeal of the planning commission’s approval.
Romo and Perea maintained the 1.45 acre site is compatible from a land use standpoint with the applicant’s plans. “Surrounding land uses consist of single-family residential uses located within commercial zoning to the south across 29 Palms Highway, single-family residential uses within multi-family zoning to the north across Commercial Street, vacant commercial land to the east across Sunburst Avenue, and vacant commercial land to the west across Mountain View Street,” Romo and Perea stated in a jointly authored report and recommendation. “This area of 29 Palms Highway is designated for commercial development and intended to cater to pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The project is considered a general retail use permitted within the Joshua Tree Community Plan zoning designation subject to approval of a use permit. Therefore, the proposed development and retail use are considered compatible with the surrounding land uses and general plan land use designations.”
Last year, before the project came before the planning commission, local residents militated against the project proposal, objecting to the imposition of corporate “cookie cutter” forms in the rural desert area, resulting in the county land use services division upping the “minor” permit required of Dynamic Development to a conditional use permit. The project opposition culminated in the public comment period for the January 17 hearing before the county planning commission. That opposition included residents, property owners and business operators from the Joshua Tree community.
This time around, the board of supervisors held a hearing that incorporated a video hook-up with the meeting room at the Joshua Tree Community Center, allowing Joshua Tree residents to lodge their protests without having to make the 200-mile round trip to the county seat to be heard.
Peggy Kennedy contradicted Romo, Perea and Ostoich, insisting the project was “inconsistent with the goals and policies in our Joshua Tree Community Plan.”
Levon Kazarian, the owner of Crossroads Café, said the influx of corporate retailers in Joshua Tree would destroy  the community’s “unique rural character.”
Tom O’Key, who owns 20 commercially zoned acres in Joshua Tree, said the county would force an end to the non-corporate ethos of the Joshua Tree business community with the approval of the Dollar General.
Joshua Tree Chamber of Commerce President Eva Soltes  said the county was giving Joshua Tree a “black eye” by approving the project and local artist Shari Elf said the Dollar Tree represented  “a cancer” that would metastasize to consume the town.
One of the appellants, George Kopp, said that Joshua Tree is a vestige of the past that offers a window on the American West before it was besmirched by corporate influence.
“Joshua Tree was targeted by a different type of investor that was focused on quality of life,” Kopp said. “We created a vibrant downtown district. This chain store is out of scale, out of character and out of compliance with our community plan.”
Douglas Carstens, an attorney with Chatten-Brown & Carstens, reminded the board, “The Joshua Tree Community Plan protects independent, privately-owned business in the downtown district.”
Third District Supervisor James Ramos, in whose jurisdiction Joshua Tree lies, joined in with the project’s opponents in criticizing the size and nature of the proposal. “Joshua Tree’s economic plan says to encourage and support small businesses,” Ramos said. “I believe a community has its own right and destiny.”
There were local residents, however, who supported the project. A number of them, including a few who acknowledged they were being paid by the proponent to attend the meeting, wore yellow shirts bearing the slogan, “Dollar General Supporting Local Families.”
One area resident, Julian Gonzales, called the opponents a bunch of namby-pamby “imbecilic personalities” consumed by a “not in my back yard” mentality.  He accused them of being anti-growth. Gonzales said the Dollar General would be a convenience to local residents and would represent a positive economic step for the community. “If you don’t move forward, you die. The Dollar General would provide much-needed services to the low-income people of Joshua Tree,” said Gonzales.
Rahhal said that the county was not bound by the Joshua Tree Community Plan and its precepts, and that it could not be cited as the grounds for keeping a business such as Dollar General from locating in Joshua Tree. “The Joshua Tree Community Plan articulates a vision of the community,” Rahhal said. “lt sets their vision. It is not the sole source of regulation for land use, though.”
Ramos vote was the sole one to overturn the planning commission decision. All four of his board colleagues voted to uphold the January approval of the project.

SAN BERNARDINO — Water rates will increase in the county areas of Morongo Valley, Landers and Pioneertown next month.
The board of supervisors ratified San Bernardino County Director of Special Districts Jeff Rigney’s call for those residents served by the county to shoulder the increased cost of providing water. Morongo Valley, Landers and Pioneertown lie within County Special Districts jurisdiction. Under law, a protest vote was held preparatory to the board’s vote. An insufficient number of residents objected to the increases, allowing the county to up the fees, which Rigney said will cover the cost of providing the service to the communities.
The increases will go into effect on July 18.
The hikes will be graduated over the next four years, amounting to a 50 percent increase.
The Morongo Basin boasts four county water districts. The monthly fees those districts charge vary from to $29.36 to $58.78 on a 3/4-inch meter. The county will initially impose a 19 percent increase on water customers in Landers and Pioneertown. Prolific water consumers in Morongo Valley will be hit with a 51 percent increase once they use water beyond a threshold amount.

YUCCA VALLEY — The Yucca Valley Airport District has called a special election for July 2 proposing a tax to augment operations and maintenance at the airport.
Yucca Valley Airport is located in the town of Yucca Valley,  3224 feet above sea level, the closest civilian aviation facility to Joshua Tree National Park. Yucca Valley Airport is open to the general public and to visiting aircraft 24 hours a day.  It does not have any commercial passenger services but does provide services such as aircraft maintenance and flight training.
Currently, the airport runs on an annual $10,000 endowment from a Caltrans fund that distributes aviation gas tax money as well as the proceeds from private use fees. If the taxing proposal, known as Measure Z, passes,  property owners in the district will be assessed 2 cents per square foot annually, an amount to be adjusted annually for inflation. This will entail an assessment annually of about $250 for typical property owners in the district, depending on parcel size. There are 43 registered voters in the district at present. The measure must be approved by two-thirds of those to pass.
The tax would generate roughly  $146,000 annually, allowing the airport district to soldier on. If Measure Z fails,  the airport district will need to disincorporate  for lack of a stable revenue source. The airport will be able to continue as a private corporation under that scenario.
Yucca Valley is operated with one primary runway, oriented in an east-west direction.   Yucca Valley Airport offers parking for transit aircraft at the west end of the airport. As a public facility, it is used by government agencies utilizing aircraft for firefighting and search-and-rescue operations, as well as by medical teams and medical transport helicopters.