The Redlands Planning Commission on June 11 balked at giving its blessing to the architectural plans for a drive-through CVS drugstore in the already approved shopping center to be built at Lugonia and Wabash avenues.
After considering the plan put forth by the architect on the project, Frank Fraga, the commission directed him to return on July 9 with a more imaginative draft. The CVS will be the secondary tenant at the center to be anchored by a Stater Bros. supermarket. The project was approved by the planning commission in October and the first phase of construction on the property is now under way.
Members of the commission said that the property is a highly visible one that will represent the city to outsiders. A report by the city planning department called for CVS to incorporate architectural details found elsewhere in Redlands.
City planner Manuel Baeza was somewhat deprecating  in sizing up Fraga’s proposed design, referring to it as a “typical prototype building with no distinctive features.”
Fraga took umbrage at that, contradicting city staff and maintaining the building is aesthetically coordinated with other elements of the shopping center design. He pointed out that he has had considerable dialogue with city staff over the last six months and that CVS had agreed to change its recognizable corporate color scheme usually provided for its drugstores. He had also augmented the building with a stone veneer and his current plans include a textured stucco exterior, stone accents, wainscoting and a porte-cochere, as well as a portico feature over the pick-up window.
The planning department requested five changes to the architectural plan, to include a tower with Spanish-style roofing at the building entrance, covered walkways with open, wooden beams, and trellises planted with vines.  Fraga said some of the conditions could be incorporated and the commission scheduled him to return with those plans in hand next month.

(June 14) UPLAND –A divided city council on Monday approved the schedule of fees and charges for the controversial  administrative citation ordinance the council ratified in April which gives the city the authority to fine an offending resident or business up to $365,000 per year.
Given a second required reading on April 22, the ordinance went into effect on May 22. The city’s action this week provides guidance to city staff on what penalties are to be assessed against code violators, although the council simply voted to approve staff recommendations on what those charges will be. The ordinance specifies two classes of violations, those classified as “general” and “building and safety.”
General violations, which relate mostly to the maintenance of property, will entail fines of  $100 for a first offense, $200 for a second offense and $500 for a third offense.
Building and safety violations, which cover unpermitted structures, unsecured pools, sewage outflows or buildings in a severe state of disrepair, trigger a $500 fine for a first offense, $750 fine for a second offense and $1,000 fine for a third offense.
In making a case for the ordinance, city officials made two contradictory arguments on its behalf. One rationale was that the stepped up fines would allow the city to force offenders into compliance. The second rationale was that it would allow the city to recover its costs in making the enforcement effort.
Opponents of the ordinance countered that residents without the resources to maintain their own property would likely be unable to pay the fines. Unpaid fines are recorded as a tax lien against the offending property, giving the city the right, after five years, to confiscate and sell the property. The accumulated fines in such cases would far exceed the costs of enforcing the code in each specific instance. City officials initially wanted to charge an hourly rate of $92.50 for staff time in processing code enforcement actions but under the ordinance passed this week dropped that to $55, according to the staff report on the matter. .
Mayor Ray Musser, who with his official municipal advisor Tom Mitchell initially championed the ordinance and voted for it upon its first reading on April 8, voted against it on April 22. Councilman Glen Bozar opposed giving city staff members administrative citation authority on both April 8 and April 22.
Opponents cited constitutional grounds in seeking to persuade the council to reject the ordinance, saying it violates due process by allowing the city to serve as the citing authority, arbitrating authority, hearing authority and fining authority. Musser, after his turnaround, acknowledged this.
“I’m all for good code compliance and saving the city and its taxpayers money,” he said, “but I see now the ordinance gives us too much authority. We are giving out the citations and we are collecting the fines. We say we are putting in the added check and balance of an independent hearing officer but that hearing officer will be getting paid by the city of Upland to resolve the matter and I feel that is just not an arm’s length transaction.”
Bozar and Musser’s votes were not sufficient to keep the ordinance from passing on April 22, as council members Debbie Stone, Gino Filippi and Brendan Brandt supported it.  This week, Stone Filippi and Brandt supported the fine schedule. Bozar opposed it and Musser abstained.

Jjune 7) As has been anticipated for the last two months, the city of Ontario this week filed suit against the city of Los Angeles as part of an effort to regain ownership of Ontario Airport, alleging Los Angeles has in recent years failed to live up to all of the provisions of the joint operating agreement for the aerodrome, exacerbated by the larger city’s alleged deliberate mismanagement of the critical Inland Empire economic asset due to a political and regional conflict of interest.
The lawsuit calls for the return of the airport, which has seen a 40 percent decline in passenger traffic over the last five-and-a-half years, to the city of Ontario. The suit also seeks the abrogation of the 1967 agreement that transferred management of the airfield to Los Angeles as well as a reversal of the 1985 transfer of title on the airport property and its facilities from Ontario to Los Angeles.
Represented by the Washington, D.C.-based law  firm of Sheppard Mullen Richter and Hampton, Ontario lodged the suit in Riverside County Superior Court, naming the city of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners and Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), the entity which operates Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Ontario Airport, which is known by its Federal Aviation Administration acronym ONT,  and Van Nuys Airport for the city of Los Angeles, as defendants.
According to Roy Goldberg, a partner at the law firm of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton “Los Angeles World Airports Chief Executive Officer Gina Marie Lindsey decided to abandon the regionalization objective that previously had united the interests of the two cities to their mutual benefit. Los Angeles is focused on growth and development at Los Angeles International Airport, not Ontario Airport, and the result has been an accelerating decline in Ontario Airport’s fortune.”
Claiming that LAWA’s management of Ontario International has neglected marketing while imposing on airlines still operating there exorbitant enplaning and servicing fees that have resulted in the number of passengers flying into and out of Ontario dropping from 7.2 million in 2007 to 4.2 million last year, Ontario asserts the airport has reached “a crisis point.”
“We were disappointed that Los Angeles rejected our administrative claim without addressing the specific and detailed grounds for relief in the claim,” said Ontario City Councilman Alan  Wapner, who also serves as president of the Ontario International Airport Authority. “The rejection leaves us with no choice but to exercise our fiduciary duties by filing a lawsuit as we press our campaign for control of the Inland Empire’s No.1 economic engine. Anyone following Southern California airport conditions over the past five years can only conclude that as long as Ontario International Airport’s fate lies within Los Angeles’ control, the airport’s condition will continue to deteriorate to the detriment of the entire region,” Wapner said.
Los Angeles’ continuing ownership and operation of Ontario Airport represents a conflict of interest, such that LAWA has promoted an agenda to favor Los Angeles International Airport, and has thus proven unwilling to ensure that air traffic is evenly distributed to the regional airports it controls, Ontario maintains. This violates the joint operating agreement’s mandate that Ontario’s interests be served, according to the suit.
“Ontario Airport’s survival is now in jeopardy because Los Angeles has for too long caused ONT’s costs to skyrocket compared with other secondary airports in Southern California and nationwide, has focused on developing LAX’s capacity as an international airport, and has refused to market ONT as a convenient alternative to LAX,” Ontario councilman Jim Bowman, also a member of the Ontario International Airport Authority, said.
“The current administration at LAWA decided to focus its financial and other resources on renovating and promoting LAX, especially to retain and attract more international service, while allowing passenger levels at ONT to dip dangerously low,” Bowman said. “The result is LAWA has breached its contractual and fiduciary duties by failing to promote and expand air service at ONT.”
Furthermore, Ontario represents in the suit’s pleadings, Los Angeles did not live up to a commitment made by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to provide Ontario Airport with up to $7.3 million per year realized by LAWA’s 2008 closing of the Palmdale Regional Airport.
At the time Ontario and Los Angeles entered into the joint powers agreement to allow Los Angeles to use its clout with airlines to increase flights into and out of Ontario International in 1967, the airfield had a gravel parking lot and was servicing fewer than 200,000 passengers per year. Under Los Angeles’ guidance, the airport grew, more airlines began flying out of the facility and improvements were made to its runways and terminals. In 1985, after all of the conditions set down in the 1967 joint powers agreement had been met, Ontario deeded the airport to Los Angeles for no consideration.
Since the airport achieved its 7.2 million passenger high mark six years ago, Ontario officials maintain that LAWA has stifled Ontario International in a deliberate effort to benefit Los Angeles International, where improvements have been made and passenger traffic has continued to rise for the past seven years. In its now-three-year-long campaign to have Los Angeles deed the airport back to Ontario. Ontario officials have publicly insisted that LA should relinquish the airport for no consideration because the airport is considered a public benefit property which has no sale value. Privately, however, Ontario has offered Los Angeles $246 million for the airport. Simultaneously, Los Angeles has sought potential private and public buyers for the aerodrome at reported prices ranging from $225 million to $650 million. Last year Los Angeles revealed the existence of Ontario’s $246 million offer, embarrassing Ontario officials with an exposé of the discrepancy between their public and private statements. Last year, Ontario, with the county of San Bernardino, formed the Ontario International Airport Authority, an entity intended to take over ownership and operation of the airport once Los Angeles relinquishes it.
Los Angeles officials attribute the decline in passenger traffic through Ontario to the recession that has persisted since 2008 and widespread changes in the airline industry in which air carriers have reduced flights to outlying airports or non-centralized hubs. They say the airlines have proven resistant to LAWA’s earnest efforts to lure the airlines back to Ontario.  The terms of the 1967 agreement remain in place and Los Angeles maintains it has consistently and continues to live up to that agreement.
In January, Los Angeles offered to sell the airport to Ontario for $474 million. In April, Ontario rejected that offer.
Maria Tesoro, the spokeswoman for Los Angeles World Airports, on Wednesday told the Sentinel, “We haven’t reviewed the lawsuit, and would not be able to discuss its contents.  However, it has been our hope that instead of a divisive relationship, we would have a partnership with the city of Ontario, to the benefit of all.  A new advertising campaign, ‘Together, the sky’s the limit. Fly ONT!,’ will soon be encouraging people to keep spreading the great news about the Inland Empire’s economic engine and what ONT is best known for – Southern California’s most convenient airport.”
In a seeming contradiction to Ontario’s assertions in the lawsuit, last night Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa met Chinese President Xi Jinping at Ontario International Airport after the latter flew into Ontario for his scheduled summit with President  Barack Obama today and tomorrow relating to cybersecurity.

(June 7) Victorville City Attorney Andre de Bortnowsky’s use of legalisms and qualified terminology in asserting  current city officials had no interest in property acquired by the city for the yet-to-be-completed Victorville 2 Power Plant has raised speculation that city officials may have previously been improperly involved in the acquisition of the land purchased by the city.
In the mid-2000s, city officials elected to serve as the project proponent for what would become known as the Victorville 2 Power Plant. They were persuaded to do so after Newport Beach-based Inland Energy in conjunction with Baltimore-based Constellation Energy developed the High Desert Power Plant, sometimes referred to as Victorville 1, the permitting process for which was first undertaken in 1998 and which came on line in 2003 and was widely seen as a lucrative success for the private interests involved and the city, which received tax revenue from its operation.
The city paid Inland Energy $5.5 million to obtain licensing and permits and provided another $182 million to General Electric for fuel generation equipment and related services in an effort to complete the project, which was originally planned as a 663 megawatt “hybrid” plant to consist of a natural gas turbine plant producing 513 megawatts and a solar field producing 50 megawatts. The city had hoped to license and build the plant and then sell it at a profit to an operator and then realize roughly $5 million per year in fees and taxes for hosting the facility near Southern California Logistics Airport.
To complete the project the city had to acquire property on which it was to be built.
Among the properties the city sought to obtain to facilitate the project was land owned by Robert Landwehr, which the city sought to obtain through the eminent domain process in 2007. Landwehr, of Murrieta, protested the city’s use of condemnation to seize a five-acre parcel he owned north of the airport.
Amid rising costs and other considerations, the city eventually put the power plant project on hold. But Landwehr on May 16 resurrected some long dormant issues pertaining to the project and the city’s acquisition of the power plant property when he requested by means of a written complaint that the city address and then “cure and correct” what he suggested were violations of the Ralph M. Brown Act, California’s open meeting and government law. Landwehr suggested there are grounds to believe Victorville officials and its contractors on the project had or have property interests in and around the Victorville 2 site. He asked the city to disclose any documentation relating to such interests.
At the May 28 Victorville city council meeting, de Bortnowsky used tortured language in responding to Landwehr on the record.
“The city is not aware that any outside contractors have ever had any property interests in selecting the VV2 project site location,” de Bortnowsky stated.
He then turned to the issue of city officials having an interest in and potentially profiting by the city’s acquisition of the plant property.
“Mr. Landwehr has asserted that city officials have interests in the properties selected for development for the power plant,” de Bortnowsky said. “None of the current city officials at this point had any interest in those properties. In addition, our research has indicated that no former city officials had any interest in those properties.”
de Bortnowsky’s statement on behalf of the officials, precluding them from speaking on their own, raised the suspicions of many in attendance at the meeting. Moreover, his use of tense in the sentences and the phrase “at this point” seemed to suggest that one or more city official had sold property intended for the power plant.
A title search on property at the site going back more than ten years did not reveal the name of any city officials, past or present, as owners, including Jim Cox, Ryan McEachron, Angela Valles, Mike Rothschild, Bob Hunter, Terry Caldwell, Joanne Almond or Rudy Cabriales. Much of the property, however, is owned by corporate entities or partnerships with fictitious names.
de Bortnowsky denied Landwehr’s allegation that council members had violated the Brown Act or had engaged in any obfuscation or attempts to evade clarity during the power plant site acquisition. “The city has proved to be in compliance with the Brown Act,” de Bortnowsky said. “In respect to Mr. Landwehr’s claim, there is no need to cure and correct the perceived Brown Act violations.”

(June 6) Gambling that he can make a seamless party affiliation shift, Ontario Mayor Paul Leon is looking to capitalize on the residual momentum from the just concluded 32nd California Senatorial District  Race in his current effort to represent the 52nd District in the California Assembly.
For almost a-decade-and-a- half Leon’s political aspirations seemed to take him no further than Ontario’s city limits. Appointed to the Ontario City Council in 1999, he was elected to that council position in his own right in 2000 and re-elected in 2004. In a special election in June 2005 he was chosen mayor and re-elected to a four year term in November 2006 and another in November 2010.
A Hispanic Republican, Leon was content to reign over San Bernardino County’s most financially successful city, a big fish in a medium-sized pond, where he has built up a sizeable following, partially because of his position at the head of municipal government but also in no small measure due to his life’s work, that of pastor at Ontario’s Hope Chapel Foursquare Church.
Ironically, it would be the action of another Republican mayor across the continent  – New York City’s Michael Bloomberg – and the misfortune of a local Hispanic Democratic Congressman – Joe Baca –  that would set off a series of events that has aroused in Leon a heretofore unexplored ambition to function in an elected capacity at the state level.
Baca, who came to Congress in a special election to replace longtime congressman George Brown in 1999, the same year Leon began his political career, had remained in Congress for fourteen years, being reelected by comfortable margins consistently in the Democratic-leaning districts he represented. Indeed, he appeared headed for easy reelection in 2012, having outpaced his only realistic challenger in the June primary, State Senator Gloria Negrete-McLeod, another Democrat. With California having transitioned to open primaries last year, Baca again faced Negrete-McLeod in the November general election. Baca prepared for a cakewalk against Negrete-McLeod, looking past her in anticipation of returning to Washington D.C. for his eighth term as a member of the House of Representatives.
Unbeknownst to Baca until too late, Bloomberg provided Negrete-McLeod with over $3 million from his political action committee, infusing her campaign with far more money than anyone counted on. With it she was able to send out multiple “hit pieces” tearing into Baca on his voting record along with campaign literature lionizing herself, augmented with a television ad blitz in the final week of the campaign. Caught flatfooted, Baca saw the election slip away from him and Negrete-Mcleod prevailed with 61,065 votes, or 54.35 percent, to Baca’s 51,285 votes, or 45.65 percent.
Negrete-McLeod yet had two years remaining on her term as state senator. Leon was among six candidates who vied to replace her.  In that race held March 12 were four Democrats – Assemblywoman Norma Torres, San Bernardino County Treasurer Larry Walker, Rialto School Board member Joanne Gilbert and Ontario Councilman Paul Vincent Avila. One other Republican, Pomona Planning Commissioner Ken Coble, ran.  Voter registration in the 32nd Senatorial District overwhelmingly favored the Democrats, with 48 percent registered with that party and 28 percent registered Republican.
Leon was able to run a respectable second in the contest, capturing 8,064 votes or 26.4 percent  in a district stretching from Pomona in Los Angeles County all the way to Colton and San Bernardino  in San Bernardino County. He forced a run-off with Torres, who polled 13,295 votes or 43.6 percent throughout the district.
Leon gamely soldiered on in the follow-up campaign, which concluded with an election held on May 14. Inevitably, Leon lost, but again had a respectable showing, given the voter registration disadvantage he had as a Republican. He garnered 13,445 votes, or 40.6 percent, to Torres’ 19,666 votes, or 59.39 percent.
Because of her victory, Torres has now vacated her Assembly seat in the 52nd District. Though they are not contiguous, the 52nd Assembly and the 32nd Senatorial districts cover much of the same territory. Fresh from a defeat but enjoying a relative advantage because of publicity from the just concluded campaign, Leon has jumped right back into the fray as one of nine candidates seeking to succeed the woman who defeated him.
This time around, however, Leon will be doing things a little differently. He will not be running as Republican. In his filing for candidacy, Leon put himself down as unaligned with any political party.
Several calculations went into the decision to mark the “declined to state” box on  the candidacy application Leon just filed. For starters, the Democratic registration advantage in the 52nd Assembly District  mimics that in the 32nd Senatorial – a 20 point spread. In the 52nd, 47 percent of the voters are Democrats and 27 percent are Republicans. And while Leon did succeed in gathering 40 percent of the vote on May 14, which was 12 percent more than were registered with his party, it was not enough to emerge victorious. This time around he hopes to again capture the Republican vote, but simultaneously reach out to Democrats to pad his totals.
Another reason Leon may find it worth downplaying his Republican Party ties is recent action taken by the city he leads. During the senatorial campaign, Leon hewed to the Republican line of eschewing governmental overregulation and he railed against excessive governmental red tape and environmental protection requirements such as the California Environmental Quality Act. He touted a pro-business agenda of economic revitalization that lambasted environmental lawsuits as anathema to good governance and public policy. But on May 30 the city of Ontario joined with San Bernardino County and the Los Angeles County cities of Culver City and Inglewood in filing a joint lawsuit challenging on environmental grounds the city of Los Angeles’ plan to modernize Los Angeles International Airport, including moving runways by 260 feet to improve airfield safety.
Ontario, which sees the lawsuit as a ploy to give it leverage in its effort to wrest control of Ontario Airport from Los Angeles, is alleging with San Bernardino County and Culver City and Inglewood that Los Angeles World Airports, the agency that operates and manages the airport, failed to provide adequate environmental review of the modernization plan’s effects, including ones on noise, traffic and air quality. The suit is seeking a delay in the project.
It may now be difficult for Leon to campaign using the same themes he did before when he lambasted Democrats for using environmental law to delay progress and economic development and modernization when he himself is a plaintiff in what is a quintessential environmental lawsuit.
Instead, Leon has now cast himself as a politician seeking to elevate himself and his constituents above the partisan fray.
“I’m tired of the dysfunctional nature of partisan politics in Sacramento,” he said. “Ultimately it’s hard-working families who are hurt by this gridlock.  I want to represent all the people of the 52nd Assembly District, not just one faction.  As a councilman and now as mayor of Ontario, I’ve served the people in a non-partisan way.  I want to take that same style of leadership to Sacramento to get California working again.”
He continued with this new theme. “The partisan nature of Sacramento makes representatives vote along party lines rather than what’s in the best interest of the people who elected them,” he said. “If elected, I don’t want to be defined by a political party, but rather by the people who I represent.  We need to stop focusing so much on who’s from what political party and instead focus on the issues candidates stand for.  By registering as a DTS [declined to state], voters can now look at my plan to increase jobs, make sure the Gold Line reaches Ontario Airport, fund our schools and fight for local control of Ontario Airport.”
Leon said he is running because “I look at the direction California is headed and I’m worried for my grandchildren.  I want to take my fiscal conservative principles to Sacramento to balance our budget, fund our schools, and get California working again.”
Leon said he wants to replicate his Ontario success in Sacramento.
“I believe Sacramento should work like the city of Ontario; putting aside petty differences in order to get the job done and better our community,” he said. “Looking at the list of candidates, I truly believe I’m the best qualified to represent our district.”
The other candidates who have declared their candidacies are  Ontario Councilman Paul Vincent Avila, a Democrat;  Chino Councilman Tom Haughey, a Democrat;  business owner Dorothy Pineda, a Republican;  Pomona Councilman Freddie Rodriguez, a Democrat;  Jason Rothman, a Pomona Unified School District board member and a Democrat; former legislative staffer Manuel Saucedo, a Democrat;   Southern California Air Quality Management District staffer Danielle Soto, a Democrat; and political organizer Doris Louise Wallace, a Democrat.

(June 7) CHINO HILLS –As the first of potentially scores of lawsuits over what the city maintains are encroachments by residents on city-owned open space is heading to trial, city officials are contemplating defusing the issue altogether by offering  to sell the strips of property in question to those residents.
Michael and Kimberly Denton sued the city in 2011 after the city’s code enforcement division informed them in 2010 that the furthest extension of their backyard was encroaching on city-owned open space and that they had to remove their pool and spa along with landscaping that was already extant when they purchased the home in 1999 from Gloria Vitagliano.
The Dentons, who live on Hunters Gate Circle, offered the city $10,000 for the property, but the city rejected that offer, instead saying it would provide them with a 15-year easement for the continued use of the property.  The Dentons then retained the firm of Gresham, Savage, Nolan and Tilden to sue the city.
The Dentons claim the city allowed the Vitagliano/Denton encroachment, which was conspicuous and open, to stand, and did nothing to interfere with Ms. Vitagliano’s or their occupation of the approximately 1,574 square feet of land for more than 15 years. Nor did the city act in a timely manner to prevent them from removing a wrought-iron fence and replacing it with a glass wall and block fence, the Dentons assert.
After attempts by the city to have the case dismissed outright, assistant city attorney Elizabeth Calciano made a motion to strike portions of the complaint. On March 11, Superior Court Judge Joseph Brisco ruled the case will go to trial September 30 with all of its causes of action intact.
The Denton case is of considerable significance in upscale Chino Hills, since it will conceivably impact about 300 other property owners in the city who are alleged to have encroached on public open space. Those encroachments include trees, shrubs and other forms of landscaping in city-claimed open space in the most benign of the cases and consist of fences, walls, pavement and structures in more serious cases.  In some instances, those improvements were undertaken by the present owners of the properties. In others, they were completed by previous owners.
A “global” solution is apparently in the works, with city officials discussing among themselves at present the viability of agreeing to sell most of the disputed encroached-upon property to the homeowners.
Next month the city will host a public meeting/workshop at which the conceptual terms of the property sales can be discussed.  If a staff report on whether there is a community consensus to move ahead with the sale/purchase solution can be formulated in a timely fashion, the council could conceivably have a program in place that could be applied to the Dentons, who have already indicated a willingness to make a purchase similar to what the city is contemplating.  The city has already paid Calciano and her colleague, city attorney Mark Hensley, more than $200,000 for legal work relating to the encroachment question and the pending Denton lawsuit.

(June 7) This week Second District Supervisor Janice Rutherford obtained clearance from her colleagues to hire controversial political figure Joshua White as a policy advisor on her staff.
The 24-year-old White is to be provided a total annual compensation package of $98,469, consisting of a $57,190 salary and $41,279 in benefits.
Five years ago, then county assessor Bill Postmus fell under a cloud of suspicion that eventually led to his resignation when it was revealed that he had installed several cronies with little or no practical experience in the realm of assessing properties or businesses as political appointees in his office. Among these was the then-19-year-old White, who was given a simplistic make-work assignment of compiling readily available and already prepared data into the 2007 Assessor’s Annual Report, an assignment for which he was paid $40,000 as an exempt-status employee.
According to a 2009 report by  senior district attorney’s office investigator Hollis D. “Bud”  Randles and district attorney’s office investigator Schyler Beaty, White did little or no actual work related to the function of the assessor’s office during his tenure there. Rather, according to Randles and Beaty, another Postmus political appointee, assistant assessor Adam Aleman, reported that much of White’s time in the assessor’s office was spent making postings to the Republican Party website www.redcounty.com.  Aleman had been hired by Postmus at the age of 22 into the $130,000 per year post of assistant assessor. Aleman was active in Postmus’ political campaigns and served for a short time as a contributing editor to www.redcounty.com.   Postmus was formerly the chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee. He was drummed out of office in some measure for having allowed his office to be used for partisan political purposes.
A grand jury would later conclude that Aleman, White, and two other Postmus political appointees, Greg Eyler and Michael Richman, were engaged in activities related to Postmus’s “public image” instead of the “core functions” of the assessor’s office. Postmus, Aleman and Eyler were prosecuted and all eventually pleaded guilty. White avoided prosecution by turning state’s evidence.
White had come to Postmus’ and Aleman’s attention as a paid employee of the Central Committee. More recently, White worked as a field representative for Rutherford and was writing for a website,  www.iecrookwatch.com, which was dedicated to the electronic publication of derogatory information pertaining to former San Bernardino County supervisor Neil Derry.
Rutherford also successfully sought to have the $61,337 total compensation contract her office has with Leanna Kobaly, who serves as her executive aide, extended through July 25, 2014.

(June 6) The Highland City Council last week turned back politician-turned-developer Glenn Elssmann in his effort to achieve a breakthrough project success, at least temporarily stymieing his effort to obtain entitlement to construct a shopping center and accompanying 800-unit residential unit complex along Greenspot Road east of Highway 210.
Elssmann has been going eyeball-to-eyeball with Highland planning division employees and city council members for months. His proposal is to strengthen Highland’s sales tax base by putting a shopping center into what the city refers to as its Golden Triangle, on Greenspot Road across from the existing Highland Crossings Shopping Center. Elssmann says he will bring in tenants to the center he is contemplating that will be every bit as good as the Highland Crossings’ anchor, Lowes Hardware and Garden Center. Simultaneously, he proposes to develop a three-story apartment complex north of the shopping center, providing the center with a ready store of customers.
Having dubbed his energetic development proposal the Greenspot Marketplace and Village, Elssmann has been seeking to forge an arrangement by which the corporate entity that will undertake the project, Mission Development, will provide the city with infrastructure to offset the impact of the development on the city’s ability to provide basic services. In this case, Elssmann has said he is amenable to purchasing a ladder truck for the fire department that will provide protection for the apartment complex.
That firetruck, built in Wisconsin and costing in excess of $900,000, would be staged out of Highland Fire Station 1, at 26974 Baseline Avenue, and be available to the entire community.
Elssmann said he would be willing to purhase the ladder truck but balked at defraying the cost of paying the annual salary of a firefighter to boost one of the city’s three-man engine teams to four-man strength to provide the ladder truck with a full complement.
Because the three story apartment project would be the sole structure in town requiring the safety provision of a ladder truck, a majority of the council was insistent that Mission Development pick up the city’s added costs in manning the truck. Elssmann failed to strike a compromise with the council over that issue.
Elssmann,  a school teacher who was elected to the city council in Loma Linda in 1994 but lost the 1998 election to Robert Ziprick, moved on to serve as a consultant to and representative of developers coming before the Loma Linda City Council. He subsequently reinvented himself as a developer.
In those capacities, Elssman represented both the Lewis Operating Corporation,  the successor to Lewis Homes, in its efforts to proceed with the University Village project, a 1,500 homes and apartment subdivision and accompanying commercial uses north of Mission Road in Loma Linda, and Washington-based Holland Partners Orchard Park LLC, which wanted to build 900 residential units on adjoining property to the University Village project between Redlands Boulevard and Mission Road.
Both of those projects were approved by the Loma Linda City Council in 2005 but were never completed after citizens groups in that city protested their approval. During those protests, Elssmann’s role as a developer who had traded upon his former position as a councilman became an issue utilized by the low-growth and no-growth movement opposing the projects.
Elssmann since 2001 has been associated with a growing list of development companies, including Cb Land Company, LLC, Deer Park, LLC, Mission Development and Loma Linda Village Center, LLC., all of which are located in Redlands. While success with large projects such as Orchard Park or University Village have eluded him, his development company has had direct or indirect involvement with construction or design work on some smaller residential projects in Loma Linda.
Though the approval of Greenspot Marketplace and Village was not granted by the council, Mayor Larry McCallon told Elssmann he was free to come back with a more definitive plan in keeping with the council’s wishes in the future. Elssmann is hopeful that success with the Greenspot Marketplace and Village will advance him to the next tier of developers in San Bernardino County.

(June 7) In anticipation of the Upland City Council’s approval of  the upcoming 2013-14 budget, city manager Stephen Dunn shot down reports that the city was going to be more than million dollars short of its earlier anticipated revenue for the upcoming year.
Dunn said he is confident 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 generate $1.5 million in reserves.
In 2012-13, Upland functioned on a balanced general fund budget that took in $39.8 million in revenues matched by $39.8 million in expenditures.
Dunn said there may be declines or delays in the receipt of some of the income the city receives. “Our revenue remains flat,” Dunn said. “This year, we expected $4.5 million in property tax but only got $3.9 million, mostly because of delinquencies in some of our residents paying. We will eventually get that money but there will be a delay. Property tax comes in twice a year, in April and December. The housing market is starting to burn hot in San Bernardino County and banks are no longer hanging on to foreclosures, so that should clean the slate and we will get those delinquencies.”
Dunn also said that the city may not receive $100,000 in what he called “surplus” money from the county, which is passed along to municipalities by the board of supervisors from leftover funds they have to spend within their districts at the end of each fiscal year. He said the city will be able to make do without that windfall.
In the run-up to the preparation of the  2013-14 budget, which he  said he hoped to have approved at the last council meeting this month, Dunn indicated he instructed the city’s department heads to start with the assumption that the city will have roughly the same amount of general fund money in the upcoming year – $40 million – that it had in the current fiscal year.  He told the department heads his goal was to have the city build a $1.5 million reserve into the budget.
The department heads returned, Dunn said “with $1.8 million more in expenditures than the $40 million in expected revenue.  We have since made adjustments and at the last round we were at a break even point, with revenues matching expenditures.”
He said the exercise will be performed again and again until the $38.5 million goal is reached.
“We have to look at lowering our expenditures because we really can’t control revenue,” he said.
Dunn said he is relatively sure the city will have $40 million in revenue into its general fund. He said that revenue model assumed a three to five percent property tax delinquency.
The city would eventually be able to hold the expenditure line, he said, because of contract concessions the city had earlier achieved with employee bargaining groups.

(May 31)Residents in the San Bernardino Mountains are growing increasingly anxious over the recent proliferation of residential facilities intended to house recovering drug and alcohol addicts in their community, accompanied by drug and alcohol treatment centers catering to the residential facilities’ clientele.
At issue is the residents’ demand that the county, which normally exercises land use authority in the county’s unincorporated areas, undertake some form of regulatory action to rein in what they perceive as a growing nuisance and activity  incompatible with the sedate rural mountain ambience. County officials’ insist that state law pertaining to such rehabilitation residences eclipses local ordinances and planning authority. By meeting a minimum set of standards which include limitations on the number of occupants per unit, county officials maintain, the proprietors of the homes are free to maintain and operate those facilities without interference. After initiating a revamping of the permitting process for such operations, the county has suspended that effort.
In response, mountain community members suggest that county officials are underestimating the limits of their regulatory authority and are shying away from applying other forms of their authority such as policing, code enforcement and prosecutorial powers to prevent behavior detrimental to the community.
Indeed, the county’s own zoning codes show what is now the centerpiece of the mountain community’s rehabilitation operations is a “use not allowed.”
Ground zero in the growing controversy is a company – Above It All Treatment Centers – and the company’s owner, Kory Avarell. More than four years ago, in seeming anticipation of California legislation – Assembly Bills 109 and 117, which cycled what were defined as low-level inmates out of state prisons into county facilities and had the secondary effect of prompting the release of drug offenders into the community, in many cases into state-licensed halfway houses or treatment centers – Avarell opened nine six bed residential facilities for recovering drug addicts and alcoholics in the San Bernardino Mountains.  Six of those were in Lake Arrowhead, two in Crestline and one in Twin Peaks.
In making his application for the facilities, Avarell adroitly did not refer to them as “treatment centers, treatment homes or treatment facilities,” but rather as “sober living homes.”  Whereas a treatment facility requires a state license, a sober living home with fewer than seven residents does not need a license.
Avarell began advertising the residential services he offered, including a drug and alcohol rehabilitation strategy in a sober living environment, at a national level. The spaces he offered were quickly filled.
In relatively short order, nearby residents became alarmed at the activity and behavior of some of those living in the sober living homes. In time, complaints would manifest. Inquiries were made, but county officials claimed they had no rubric under which to take action against the homes.
Complaints, however, persisted. A common element in such complaints was that the homes were incompatible with nearby residential uses.
In what he would maintain was a compromise intended to ameliorate the concerns of those objecting to the homes, Avarell last fall announced his willingness to close down homes on West Shore Road, Alder Lane, Montreal Drive in Lake Arrowhead and another in Crestline on Kissing Rock Road.  To offset those closures, in December he acquired the 17-unit Storybook Inn hotel in Skyforest, agreeing to pay its owner,  Rob Perrin, the full list price of $1.2 million, conditional upon being able to move the residents that had been displaced from the Lake Arrowhead and Crestline sober living homes into Storybook immediately.
While that transference may have seemed to be a positive development for the residents on West Shore Road, Alder Lane and Montreal Drive in Lake Arrowhead and those on Kissing Rock Road in Crestline, it proved something of a coup for Avarell, who for more than a year had been operating a rehabilitation clinic within short walking distance of the Storybook Inn in a building at the corner of Highway 18 at Kuffel Canyon Road in Skyforest. Skyforest lies just one mile southeast of Lake Arrowhead on Highway 18.
In the intervening months, the influx of recovering addicts into the commercial district has exacerbated an already deteriorating situation. As early as 2011, a nearby businessman, Dr. Carl Melville,  a chiropractor whose office was located within the same building as the rehabilitation clinic Avarell has been operating at the Kuffel Canyon Road/Highway 18 intersection, lodged a complaint with San Bernardino County Supervisor Janice Rutherford, referencing sexual activity in a nearby public restroom involving  the clinic’s patients, sexually explicit graffiti, twenty-to-thirty patients of the rehab clinic lining up in front of the clinic with urine cups, physical fights between the clinic’s clientele, second hand cigarette smoke, displays of public nudity and raucous behavior and the harassment of his patients.
Melville further cited the incompatibility of a marijuana clinic next to the rehab clinic and said he had witnessed patients smoking marijuana in front of his office, which is proximate to a school bus stop. He said that the number of his own patients had decreased as a result of the proximity of the drug recovery clinic to his business.
On April 4 of this year, the county planning commission took up the subject of licensed and unlicensed residential care facilities, including sober living and drug and alcohol treatment facilities, ultimately voting unanimously to recommend that the county implement an amendment to the county development code related to such homes and facilities.
The newly drafted regulations recommended by the planning commission would not impact upon individual homes housing six or fewer people, which are permitted to exist in residential neighborhoods containing single family homes. The major changes envisioned by the planning commission in its non-binding recommendation to the board of supervisors extend to larger facilities accommodating seven people or more, defining them as incompatible with single-family residential neighborhoods and require that they be located within areas zoned for multiple family residential uses, i.e., apartments, dormitories and hotels. While noting that “state licensed alcohol/drug treatment homes with six or fewer residents are considered a permitted residential use under state law, and the county must allow this type of facility in a single-family residential district,” the planning commission did provide for a regulation that larger such facilities be limited as to location and be subject to a stringent permitting process. At the same time, the commission called for the county to be empowered to undertake a permitting process for the smaller – six occupants or fewer – treatment homes that allows them to be located in single-family residential areas, while subjecting them to “reasonable” limitations such as requiring that they not be clustered or concentrated in a single area, be located at least 300 feet from one another, one to a block, so that “group home uses do not become the dominant residential use in a neighborhood.”
The planning commission’s action would have little or no impact on the Above It All Treatment Center’s operations, which adhere to the proposed new county standards in nearly all particulars and would be exempt, i.e., grandfathered in, as a use that pre-existed the new regulations.
Avarell this week spoke with the Sentinel about the controversy his operation has generated. He maintained that much of the protest against Above It All was wrongfully directed and that his operation was an ordered and well-run one.
He said the residential facilities are sedate and unobtrusive.
“Out of all the houses we have, I am trying to think of anywhere the actual neighbors complain,” he said. “Those that drive by do complain but that is the 10 percent that complain about everything. One of our homes, the houses on both sides burned down, so there is no one to complain. At another, the houses across the street are burned down.  At another house, we have new neighbors who love us. At one of the other houses, the neighbors have never complained. We have been around for over four years. Four years ago, one of the neighbors who was selling his house had trouble doing that because we were next door. That was the first and only time we’ve had an issue with an actual neighbor. Before that and since then we have operated without anyone knowing we are here because we are so quiet.”
Avarell addressed Melville’s litany of complaints, saying there was tension between Melville and himself because his treatment clinic had ended up displacing the chiropractic business.
“He was back due about nine months on his rent and the landlord let him go on that and we offered to move into his space and pay for it,” Avarell said. “He got angry, because we kicked him out, so to speak. If it had not been for us, the landlord probably would have let him stay on.”
Avarell did acknowledge that when both businesses were present, “We congregated there.” That conflict is no longer an issue, Avarell said. “He has been gone about a year.”
Averall said the nearby medical marijuana clinic is likewise old news. “Right next door we had a marijuana clinic,” he said. “It’s been gone for about eight months.” He suggested that bothersome activity previously cited at that location was attributable to the marijuana clinic rather than Above It All’s clients.
It is true that there is a school bus stop proximate to his operation, Avarell said. He said Above It All had been sensitive to concerns about that.
“We have standardized our sessions so that our clients are not outside when those two drop offs and pick- ups are scheduled,” he said.
The treatment clinic is located in a commercial district, Avarell said, and as such is compatible with its surroundings.
“Closest to us is a commercial office and post office, a restaurant, and Charter Cable, which are all commercial,” he said. “Across the street is all commercial. There is a pizza place.”
Within relatively close proximity, Avarell conceded, “There is one house that is zoned neighborhood commercial, which includes a cabinet shop. Those people bought that fully knowing that we were here  and are now complaining about it. Our center was disclosed to them when they came in here in about October. I actually talked to them about it. I think they are bothered now by the [cigarette] smoke that blows up toward them. We have a designated smoking area in a fire cleared area approved by the fire marshal. They are complaining about that but we are complying with what the law says and the fire marshal’s directive by having our smoking area in the only place it is permitted.”
To the Sentinel, Averall expressed surprise at reports of untoward behavior by Above It All’s clients in the proximity of the treatment center and the various residences.
“No one has brought that up to me,” he said. “If that had been brought to our attention, we would have dealt with it.”
In a promotional video for Above It All, Avarell indicated that those being treated may  be temporarily out of sorts.
“When people  get here, especially during that first week, it is hard for them, because they want to run,” Avarell said. “They don’t want this. They are giving up control. That’s a big thing. Everyone wants control and they are completely having to give that up. They are not feeling well because they are detoxing and they want to go. Of course it is our job to make sure that they stay if it is at all possible, but we know what that person is going to be like. It’s just ten days, or whatever. We know what’s going to happen.”
Nevertheless, Avarell insisted to the Sentinel, those undergoing treatment at Above It All “are very well supervised 24 hours a day.” Avarell said Above It All, which employs 80, averages roughly 40 clients at a time moving through a treatment period that lasts 30 days.  That clientele fluctuates, he said, moving to as high as 65 and down to 25 from time to time.
Averall said negative publicity about Above It All has intensified in recent weeks and that much or all of it is based on falsehoods.
“I heard just a few days ago someone accused us of having sexual predators in here,” he said. “That is not true. There was a posting on [the internet reviewing site] Yelp saying that we were engaging in unethical treatment of our clients and violating their privacy. The only one violating their privacy was the one who came in here taking pictures and then making the accusations.”
Avarell said Above It All is in compliance with all zoning codes.
“It is a state law, not a county ordinance and we do comply with state law, which is that we have six or fewer residents in our homes,” he said.
Those opposed to Above It All are misinformed and misdirected, Avarell said.
“We serve a good purpose,” he said. “We’ve treated over 120 people over the last two years absolutely free, at our cost, no cost to them. Almost 100 percent of those were local people. You will never find drugs in our house. The people here want to be here. None are court-mandated. Most have insurance. For the most part they have pretty good jobs.  We employ 80 people. What other industry up here [in the San Bernardino Mountains] provides that number of jobs? We are an important part of the local economy. I was born here and I care about my community.”
Those who believe Above It All and other drug and alcohol treatment facilities and sober living homes can be shut down are wrong, Avarell said.
“No one is going to be able to change the laws,” he said. “Newport Beach spent $2.5 million to get treatment houses out of that city and lost in court and then went to the higher courts and lost there. As long as you are obeying the law, you just can’t be removed. It is never going to change. No one is going to force us out because we are 100 percent legal. The law is on our side and the laws will not be changed. The courts have proved that through lawsuits in other cities and counties.”
The draft revised ordinance to amend the county code with regard to residential care facilities was scheduled to come before the board of supervisors on June 18. Mountain residents had asked county staff to harden elements of the county’s existing code and reinforce provisions prohibiting a rehabilitation center from being located in both neighborhood commercial and residential zones.  Their advocacy transformed into consternation, however, when they learned that the draft of the ordinance would actually expand the permitted locations of sober living homes from one to 12 zones. After meetings with representatives of Supervisor Janice Rutherford and Assemblyman Tim Donnelly did not result in any substantial change to the draft, a rising level of dissatisfaction with the county’s intention with regard to the code amendments was expressed. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that the ordinance had been taken off calendar for the June 18 meeting. It remains on hold.