The county and the sheriff’s department are purchasing a forklift truck to be used for employment training purposes at the sheriff’s detention facility at Glen Helen and at the Adelanto Detention Facility when it becomes operational.
The board of supervisors authorized the purchase this week.
According to Sheriff’s Captain Steve Higgins, the forklift will be used in furtherance of the department’s Inmate Rehabilitation Through Occupational and Academic Development Systems (INROADS) program.
“On July 25, 2012, the Inmate Welfare Committee, which is comprised of six citizens appointed by the sheriff to oversee the use of inmate welfare funds and acts as an advisory panel, approved the funding for a new INROADS Automotive Education program. The program approval included the purchase of automotive shop equipment and a forklift,” Higgins said. “The purchase of the forklift was competitively bid and Bronson Investments Inc., the lowest bidder, was selected and is being recommended as the vendor for this purchase.”

First District Supervisor Robert Lovingood has renewed the charters of four municipal advisory councils within his jurisdiction.
The El Mirage Municipal Advisory Council, the Oak Hills Municipal Advisory Council, the Searles Valley-Trona Municipal Advisory Council and the Wrightwood Municipal Advisory Council have previously existed, composed of residents and business operators from those districts in the far-flung First Supervisorial District who are tasked to provide input to the supervisor with regard to local issues.
“The municipal advisory councils hold public meetings, pursuant to the Ralph M. Brown Act, in their individual communities for the purpose of receiving information from residents, businesses, and community groups, and to disseminate information to the community about services and resources relative to the county of San Bernardino,” Lovingood said. “Each municipal advisory council will also facilitate the identification of issues within the community and work with the First District supervisor’s office to establish priorities and recommend community-based solutions.”
Pursuant to San Bernardino County Code 12.4501 et seq., all municipal advisory councils and advisory committees dissolve at the end of each term of the county supervisor who represents the supervisorial district in which the respective municipal advisory council or committee is located. Approval of the entire board of supervisors  is required to re-establish the municipal advisory councils.
Lovingood was elected in November, and in December replaced former First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt. This week Lovingood asked his board colleagues to reauthorize the establishment of the El Mirage, Oak Hills, Searles Valley-Trona and Wrightwood municipal advisory councils. The board complied with that request.
The board’s vote authorized the clerk of the board of supervisors, Laura Welch, to post a notice of vacancy to alert members of the various communities they may file an application to serve on the councils. Each of the councils will have five members.
The Wrightwood Municipal Advisory Council will have five voting members who are San Bernardino County residents and two non-voting members who need not be San Bernardino County residents. Lovingood proposed the two non-voting member seats of the Wrightwood council to offer interested residents who live in a portion of Wrightwood that lies within Los Angeles County and Wrightwood business persons who live outside the area to participate.
Lovingood’s field representative, Don Holland, told the Sentinel that Lovingood will consider reappointing the council members who were serving at the time Mitzelfelt’s term elapsed if they reapply along with any others who file an application.

The special elections to find a replacement for former state senator Gloria Negrete-McLeod will cost county taxpayers $1.4 million, the county registrar of voters has predicted.
This week San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Michael Scarpello requested, and the board of supervisors granted, the appropriation of $1,403,100 in general fund contingency money in connection with the conducting of a special primary election on March 12, 2013 and a special general election on May 14, 2013 to fill the vacancy in California State Senate District 32.
That vacancy came about when Negrete-McLeod, who was elected to a four-year state senate term in 2010, was victorious in her run for Congress in November.
“The California State Senate District 32 elections require the use of general fund contingencies because the state is not expected to reimburse the county,” Scarpello told the board of supervisors before that panel approved the provision of the money.

The nearly  two-month-long delay in the appointment of a key member of the boards overseeing the development at and around San Bernardino International Airport  could end next week.
The San Bernardino International Airport Authority is chartered to oversee the conversion of what was formerly Norton Air Force Base to a civilian airport. The Inland Valley Development Authority is an agency devoted to the redevelopment of property around the airport. The airport authority, known by its acronym SBIAA, is a joint powers authority involving the county of San Bernardino and the cities of San Bernardino, Loma Linda, Colton and Highland. Its sister agency, known as IVDA, is made up of the same entities with the exception of Highland.
Since their inceptions, SBIAA and IVDA have had as their county representatives the Fifth and Third District supervisors. In November, former Third District Supervisor Neil Derry was ousted by challenger James Ramos. In December, after Ramos was sworn in as supervisor and elevated to that office and Derry simultaneously left it, vacancies on the IVDA and SBIAA boards ensued, as appointments to those positions are not automatically made but rather are voted upon by the board of supervisors.
Notably, the board did not move to substitute Ramos in as one of the county’s two SBIAA and IVDA representatives upon his succeeding Derry as supervisor.  Thus, during December and at the IVDA board meeting on January 9 and the SBIAA board meeting on January 23, Fifth District supervisor Josie Gonzales was the only county representative on those boards eligible to participate.
The delay in filling the gaps created by Derry’s departure appears to revolve around legal questions concerning Ramos’s ability to assume the SBIAA and IVDA board positions and vote on matters that come before those entities.
Two law firms, Los Angeles-based Prata & Daley and Sacramento-based DLA Piper, have authored briefs asserting that Ramos cannot take on the IVDA or SBIAA board posts without running afoul of the law.
In their briefs,  Prata & Daley and DLA Piper propound the theory that Ramos’s personal financial interests at the former Norton Air Force Base and any role he would assume with regard to directing IVDA and especially SBIAA as a board member bring him head on into a clash with California Government Code Sections 1090 and 1092.
Ramos is a member of and the former chairman of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which operates a casino on its reservation in Highland. That casino generates roughly $400 million in gambling and other proceeds per year. As one of 167 tribal members, Ramos is the recipient of an annual stipend of over $1 million and he owns a share of the investments the tribe makes collectively. Among the tribe’s investments and holdings are properties and other assets within the purview of the Inland Valley Development Authority. Even more pointedly, the tribe has made purchases of property and facilities located on the former Air Force Base. The tribe now owns the areas of the one-time military installation that were used for on-base housing and the facility and property occupied by the U.S. Air Force Combat Camera Operation.
The tribe further is currently party to an agreement with Majestic Realty to develop the former base housing property.
Intrinsic to the conflict highlighted by Prata & Daley and DLA Piper is the convergence of the San Manuel Tribe’s real estate holdings and the authority of IVDA and SBIAA. Government Code Section 1090 prohibits an elected official from participating in any decision or vote, the outcome of which will have an impact on his personal financial circumstance.
It is Prata & Daley’s contention, as it is that of DLA Piper, that given the degree to which the prospects for the growth in the valuation or viability of some of the tribe’s assets and holdings are subject to the direct or indirect control of the IVDA and SBIAA boards, Ramos will have, as a SBIAA or IVDA board member, an unequivocal conflict given the degree to which his material financial interests can be impacted by his decisions in office. These conflicts will be so substantial, according to Prata & Daley, that they will be incapable of being cured by either recusal or abstention.
Under California law, an elected official can involve himself in the governmental decision making process if his interests to be impacted by those decisions are deemed remote. With regard to Ramos and the tribe’s property at, near and around San Bernardino International Airport, however, Ramos’s interests are not remote, but material as the law specifies, according to both Prata & Daley and DLA Piper. As such, any decision affecting the wealth of the tribe impacts Ramos’s interests, such that, according to the law firms, Ramos cannot be installed as an IVDA or SBIAA board member.
The Sentinel’s inquiries made of both San Bernardino County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereux and San Bernardino County’s senior in-house lawyer, County Counsel Jean-René Basle, with regard to the dilemma presented by Ramos’s financial interests at the airport went unanswered as of press time.
According to the clerk of the board of supervisors, Laura Welch, there will be an item on the January 29 board agenda pertaining to the appointment or reappointment of SBIAA and IVDA board members. The full agenda was not available for release at press time, being scheduled for posting at 5 p.m. today, January 25.
There was no indication whether the item called specifically for the appointment of Ramos to the IVDA and SBIAA boards or whether appointing one of the other supervisors – either First District Supervisor Robert Lovingood, Second District Supervisor Janice Rutherford or Fourth District Supervisor Gary Ovitt – was being contemplated. San Bernardino International Airport lies well beyond the First, Second and Fourth Districts.
County spokesperson David Wert bypassed making a substantive response to the gist of the Prata & Daley and DLA Piper briefs, saying he was unaware of any conflicts, potential or real, besetting Ramos in his capacity as supervisor.
Wert indicated that on January 29, Ramos will be appointed to both the SBIAA and IVDA boards.
“I have not heard that the appointments will be made any differently than they have been done in the past,” Wert said.
While the appointment of a full complement of decision makers on the SBIAA and IVDA boards is pending, the airport’s management team, headed by executive director A.J. Wilson, is engaged in an effort to revitalize the facility in the wake of a scandal that involved the airport’s contract developer, Scot Spencer. Spencer, an airline industry insider who was hired on the basis of his perceived ability to bring in airlines and aviation-related companies as tenants, instead used his position to extend favorable contracts and leases at the airport to companies he owned or had an interest in. SBIAA  reassessed its relationship with Spencer after a scathing grand jury report of his management of the facility was released in June 2011 and the FBI in September 2011 served search warrants seeking evidence of  bribery, conspiracy, money laundering and fraudulent use of federal funds at SBIAA headquarters and the offices of companies controlled by Spencer at the airport.
SBIAA, now being guided by Wilson, has terminated nearly all of its contracts with Spencer and is  undertaking an effort to market the facility to developers, entrepreneurs, aeronautics and aerospace companies and logistics and transportation service providers.

NEEDLES—As determined as ever to unburden the city of the financial liability of operating the Colorado River Medical Center, the Needles City Council in recent weeks has taken several steps to ensure the proposed buyer will be able to complete the deal.
On January 8, the city council extended Community Healthcare Partners Inc.’s escrow closing deadline for the hospital purchase. The council also removed two of the members of the hospital board of trustees.
The escrow extension provides Community Healthcare Partners with a further incentive to create  interim lease and management agreements for the operation of the hospital to further facilitate the transfer of responsibility over the institution. It was previously intended that Community Healthcare Partners would come into full possession of the hospital by now, but complications with regard to the transfer of the land upon which the hospital is located have delayed that.
Community Healthcare Partners, Inc. entered into a $2.577 million purchase agreement for the hospital on August 22, 2012 after a previous sale arrangement to non-profit Needles Hospital, Inc. fell through in April.
The city took back ownership of the Colorado River Medical Center in April 2008 after Brentwood, Tennessee-based Lifepoint Hospitals, a for-profit corporation which had obtained the hospital after the dissolution of the public hospital district that previously operated the facility, embarked on an effort to move the institution’s equipment and personnel to Valley View Hospital, another operation it owned in Arizona, roughly 12 miles from Needles.
Because of long-running inadequate billing practices, including failures to invoice Medicare and Medi-Cal as well as insurance companies and patients in a timely fashion, the hospital has lost money, representing a financial liability to the city. The city created the board of trustees to oversee the hospital, and that panel, together with the city council, has come to a consensus that spinning the facility off to an independent operator is the best solution for ensuring that the community has adequate medical care without soaking the taxpayers.
The purchase agreement with Community Healthcare Partners, Inc., which was founded by Bing Lum, called for an escrow closing deadline of January 3. The full application process for the land transfer has not been completed. The city holds title to the land as well as the hospital itself. However, the hospital was built on what had been Bureau of Land Management Property that had been transferred to the city of Needles under a proviso that the Bureau of Land Management retained a reversionary interest in the property allowing it to reclaim the land if the property is not used for what is deemed “a charitable purpose.”
Indications are that the full land transfer to Community Healthcare Partners will not take place until later this year.  Thus, January 3 came and went without Community Healthcare Partners closing escrow. However, according to city attorney John Pinkney, language in the original purchase agreement allows the January 3 escrow closing requirement to be eliminated based upon any government-related delays. That provision of the agreement was invoked and the council extended the escrow closing deadline to February 22.
The Bureau of Land Management is insisting an appraisal of the property be done at  Community Healthcare Partners, Inc.’s expense.
Lum indicated his company will carry out whatever needs to be done to effectuate the transfer and that Community Healthcare Partners, Inc. will proceed with each of the tenets of the August agreement. On the fly, Pinkney has crafted an arrangement by which Community Healthcare Partners is to acquire the hospital property as a land lease until the full transfer takes place. During the gap between the city’s reassignment of the hospital property to Community Healtcare Partners, Lum’s company will serve as the interim manager of the hospital. Community Healthcare Partners will not charge the city for its services in this regard and will instead realize revenue from the hospital’s operation just as if it owned it in full.
Pinkney is to streamline the process and draft the documents for the interim lease and management arrangement in such a way that it does not compromise the original sale agreement or the prospects of the Bureau of Land Management consenting to the land transfer. Community Healthcare Partners will hand over the lion’s share of the $2.577 million to the city to effectuate the hospital purchase to close escrow with the city, though a portion of the purchase price – pertaining to the land purchase – will be withheld. When BLM ratifies the land transfer, the additional money to equal the full $2.577 million will be paid to the city.
The hospital board of trustees joined with the council in the vote to undertake the arrangement and extend escrow to February 22.
The council at the same January 8 meeting on its own voted to remove hospital board members Jeff Williams and Dr. Robert Strecker, effective as of January 11. Williams, a former Needles mayor, and Strecker, a physician whose expertise in medical matters is valued but whose professional standing at times created financial conflicts that prevented him from participating in some votes, were replaced by Georgia Breault and Bob McKeever
The council has also instructed Jon Freeberg, the interim chief executive officer for the hospital, to look into fashioning a “fiduciary and accounting firewall” between the city and Colorado River Medical Center that would prevent financial liabilities at the hospital from having a deleterious impact upon the city’s economic circumstance. This so-called firewall is likely to consist of the city chartering a public corporation or hospital district to oversee the medical center.

Verizon, The Diocese of San Bernardino, Sacred Heart Catholic Church and the city of Rancho Cucamonga have all made a strategic retreat in the face of parental opposition to the Rancho Cucamonga Planning Commission’s January 2012 approval of the placement of a cellular phone tower next to the playground of the Sacred Heart Parochial School.
All four entities have now agreed to instead place the soon-to-be-erected tower at the northern end of the church parking lot. Sacred Heart Church and its parochial school are located near the northeast corner of Foothill Blvd. and the I-15 Freeway.
Parents of students attending the school grew irate when they learned in November that the Diocese of San Bernardino and the church had closed a deal with Verizon to turn a profit by hosting the tower and had not consulted with or notified them before making that commitment. Some parents expressed concern that the tower’s electrical field could negatively impact the health of the students attending Sacred Heart.
Studies done in Scandinavia show a relation between the proximity of high intensity electrical fields and elevated levels of leukemia in children. Other studies completed at the University of Colorado at Boulder show that continuous exposure to electrical fields can have deleterious health consequences.
Verizon was faulted for considering locating the tower so close to where children congregate. The city of Rancho Cucamonga and its planning commission were criticized for approving the erection of the tower next to a school. The Diocese of San Bernardino and its bishop, Gerald Barnes, fell under criticism for their action in the matter. The diocese has staffed the parish with priests from Nigeria, who it has been alleged, were not sophisticated enough to recognize the potential for harm to the students posed by the cellular tower.
The parochial vicar at Sacred Heart, Father Augustine Amadi, referred questions about the circumstance to the church’s pastor, Father Benedict Nwachukwu-Udaku. Father Nwachukwu-Udaku was busy preparing for and celebrating Mass on Tuesday, January 22, was involved in a meeting at the diocese headquarters all day on January 23 and could not be reached despite more than a half dozen attempts on January 24.
A phone call to Bishop Gerald Barnes was referred to diocese spokesman John Andrews.
Andrews confirmed that proposals for the placement of the tower varied over time and that the city had a part in dictating the tower location that had led to the controversy.  “We were having informal discussions and in the process of that the setbacks became an issue for the city, so another location was selected and eventually approved,” he said. “That was not the first place it was going to be put.”
Andrews insisted the location approved by the planning commission last year was a suitable location that represented no health risk to Sacred Heart’s students.
“There is no way we would have agreed to put that there if we thought that location would be a health threat to the children or anyone else who would be on that property,” Andrews said. “The issue was studied and the conclusion was the emissions from the tower would be about ten times below the limit set by the Federal Communications Commission.”
As to the suggestion that Father Nwachukwu-Udaku’s naïveté had been exploited to the potential detriment of the children at the Sacred Heart Parochial School, Andrews said, “I think that is completely off base and insulting to the priest. If you know the pastor of the church, he is a brilliant man. He is a published writer and has several degrees. That is just a cheap shot. This decision was made before he became pastor by the man who was at that time serving as the pastoral coordinator of the church, who is no longer there.”
That the positioning of the planned tower is going to be modified, Andrews said, “is not a vindication of their [the complaining parents’] position [that the earlier intended location of the tower represented a health threat to their children].  You need to understand that we had made plans to expand the school and it was discovered at some point that where the tower was to be was in the footprint of where we want to expand.”
With regard to the parents’ concerns, he said, “While we did not feel there was any health threat to the children, the ministry of the parish and the school is to be hospitable and receptive to the concerns the members of church and the parents express.”

ONTARIO–Sam Crowe has been returned to the Ontario-Montclair School Board, just two months after he was defeated for reelection.
On November 6, Crowe, an incumbent, captured 10,621 votes or 24.49 percent of the vote and was turned out of office by voters who selected J. Steve Garcia, who received 13,208 votes or 30.45 percent, and Maureen Mendoza, who received 11,638 votes or 26.83 percent. A fourth candidate, Elizabeth Ricci, received 7,903 votes or 18.22 percent.
On the same day, however, another incumbent who had two years remaining on his school board term, Paul Vincent Avila, was elected to the city council.
Avila’s departure created a vacancy, which last week the four members of the school board chose to fill. By a vote of 3-1, with Garcia dissenting, Crowe was selected to replace Avila.
The board, consisting of Kristen Brake, Elvia Rivas, Mendoza and Garcia interviewed Crowe and five other candidates – Robert Anthony Ortega, an 18-year-old student; Sandra Kaye Escamilla, a retired district employee; Flora Martinez, parent and community activist; and two college professors,  Michael Cory Flores and Joseph J. Laponis.
Crowe, who lives in Ontario,  was challenged by Garcia, who suggested that his defeat in November constituted a rejection by voters. Others, as well as Garcia, suggested that the board should select someone from Montclair to sit on the board, as currently all of the members are from Ontario. Moreover, it was alleged, it turned out inaccurately, that Crowe has a hidden agenda to terminate the district superintendent, James Hammond. In actuality, Crowe was a key supporter of Hammond’s hiring and the two had worked closely on district issues over the last two years.
Crowe, a lawyer who was formerly the city attorney in Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and Hesperia, was on the Ontario City Council four decades ago. He commanded the respect of his fellow board members, who had elevated him to the position of board chairman. Over the last four years, Crowe had championed several education programs, including creating academic classes in science, history and mathematics that double as Spanish immersion classes for non-Spanish speaking students, revamping special education and including in that curriculum a cooking class for special education students, priority class selection for graduates of the Ontario-Montclair School District at several colleges, including Chaffey College, Cal State San Bernardino, Cal State Bakersfield, Cal Poly and the University of La Verne, and a program to teach English, math and computer skills to the parents in the district who do not speak English.
Crowe, as a well-established local attorney long involved with the Inland Empire’s business community, had also founded a nonprofit corporation dedicated to raising money for scholarships for district students.
A program Crowe was pursuing but had not completed when he was defeated in November was a joint educational class involving a video link-up with instructors and students in Africa.
Crowe’s appointment was supported by the Ontario-Montclair Teachers Association and the Ontario-Montclair Classified Employees.
“We welcome Mr. Crowe back,” said school board president Rivas.

Four Democrats and two Republicans have filed candidacy papers in the special March 12 election to replace Gloria Negrete-McLeod as state senator in the Democratic-leaning 32nd District.
Negrete-McLeod, who was elected to a four-year state senate term in 2010, successfully ran for Congress last year against incumbent Joe Baca in the newly redrawn 35th Congressional District. She resigned as state senator to go to Washington, D.C.
Because of the voter registration advantage Democrats hold over Republicans in the 32nd District, it is widely assumed Negrete-McLeod’s successor will be a Democrat. But the catfight that is brewing between at least two of the four Democrats, along with the larger number of Democrats vying overall, raises the possibility that a Republican could emerge victorious.
If one candidate fails to garner a majority of the vote – meaning at least fifty percent plus one vote on March 12 – then a run-off between the two top vote-getters will be held.
The four Democrats in the race are Assemblywoman Norma Torres, San Bernardino County Auditor-Controller-Treasurer Larry Walker, Ontario Councilman Paul Vincent Avila and Rialto Unified School District Board Member Joanne Gilbert. The two Republicans are Ontario Mayor Paul Leon and Pomona Planning Commissioner Ken Coble.
Already, a rivalry between Torres and Walker has developed over the circumstances that brought Walker into the race. He was, essentially, recruited by Negrete-McLeod to run, it has been reported, to prevent Torres from stepping into Negrete-McLeod’s shoes. Torres, who was formerly the mayor of Pomona, offended Negrete-McLeod when she endorsed Baca in last year’s Congressional race. Baca, like Negrete-McLeod is a Democrat.
Reportedly, Negrete-McLeod is in the process of making money remaining in her state electioneering fund available to Walker, himself a former county supervisor and Chino mayor. It thus appears that Walker and Torres will be better funded than Avila or Gilbert. Both Leon and Coble are looking forward to the prospect of a knockdown drag-out fight between Walker and Torres involving multiple negative ads targeting one another that might have the effect of dividing the Democratic camp and vectoring some of the Democratic vote toward Avila and/or Gilbert. In this way, the prospect of Leon and Coble, the two Republicans in the field, qualifying for the run-off could be increased.
Avila, a former Ontario-Montclair School Board member who was elected to the city council in November, has cultivated significant name recognition among voters by running for office, sometimes successfully and sometimes unsuccessfully, consistently each election cycle for the last 20 years. Coble vied unsuccessfully against Torres for her current assembly position. Should Torres, Walker, Leon, Avila or Gilbert win, their victories will likely result in the need for another election to fill the vacancy that will be created by that victor’s leaving of the office he or she presently holds.
The 32nd District entails all of Pomona in Los Angeles County, and all of Bloomington, Fontana, Montclair, Muscoy, Ontario, and Rialto as well as parts of Colton and San Bernardino in San Bernardino County. It is a peculiarity of the California electoral process that the lines of some State Senate districts remain intact four years after the U.S. Census is conducted while others change two years after the census is completed. In the case of the 32nd District, its boundaries, drawn up after the 2000 Census, will remain until the four year term that Negrete-McLeod was elected to in 2010 elapses.

Two of the four candidates vying to replace Wilburn “Bill” Kruger on the Chino Hills City Council in the upcoming special mail-ballot election were candidates in the just concluded November 2012 city council election.
Both Rossana Mitchell, an attorney, and Ray Marquez, a retired firefighter and current real estate broker, were among the five candidates in the November race, in which two positions were at stake. Art Bennett and Cynthia Moran prevailed in that contest. Two months before the election, Kruger abruptly resigned, creating a vacancy that could not be filled by appointment. That was because at that time, two of the incumbents – Bennett and Gwen Norton Perry – had themselves been appointed to the council in 2008 when they had been the only candidates in the race and the city council had decided to forego the election and elevate them by fiat. A state law prohibits a majority of the members of what is normally an elected body from being appointed.
Kruger’s September resignation had come too late to schedule the special election to select his  replacement to coincide with the general election last November. His unfinished term is set to expire in 2014.
Rather than hold an election administered by the county registrar of voters at the city’s normal precinct polling places that would cost in excess of $200,000, the council has opted to hold the mail-in polling on March 5, at a cost of $135,000.
Mitchell attended and graduated from John Rowland High School and UC Irvine, where she majored in Social Ecology. She graduated from Western State University of Law. She is a practicing attorney. Divorced, she has two children. She has lived in Chino Hills for 22 years.  She previously served on the Chino Hills City Council, having won a special election to replace James Thalman after his death in 2003. The following year, she lost to Kurt Hagman. Mitchell has also served four years on the Chino Valley Unified School Board.
“I think one of the major challenges the city council has is building our economic base,” Mitchell told the Sentinel in September. “We’ve brought some good businesses in but we need to bring more small businesses into the community, which will bring in jobs for our city. We also have to retain our rural atmosphere. We have been good at preserving our rolling hills. When it comes to zoning, we need to look at the densities and how many homes should be built in any given area.  We want a balance. We want to keep the rolling hills but bring in a sufficient economic base so we can prosper.”
Mitchell said she believed the council had erred when it had taken property that was traditionally zoned institutional and rezoned it to multi-dwelling. She said the city should no longer count  on developer fees as a major source of revenue and that upping density for a short term influx of cash would have untoward long-term consequences for the community.
“I do not believe it was proper for that property to be rezoned multdwelling,” Mitchell said. “That decision will come back to haunt us every time someone wants to build apartments in the city. The city was built along the lines of a certain vision and philosophy. That is being challenged now. We need people on the council who will stand firm and not sway. When Chino Hills was incorporated, it relied heavily on developer fees. Now, as we are getting closer to build-out, those developer fees are starting to decrease and there is pressure to change density and allow more intense development. There is a conflict because the city wants funding from the development. I think we need a council that will stand firm when it comes to our philosophy. We have always maintained a family-oriented, rural community. We have maintained that balance, but in the last year-and-a-half there have been decisions that reverse that.”
Mitchell maintains that her previous experience on the council, her experience on the school board which oversees a larger budget than that of the city and her legal acumen render her the most qualified in  the field of candidates.
Marquez is a graduate of John Glenn High School in Norwalk and he attended Rio Hondo, Cerritos and Pasadena City colleges, where he studied fire science. Married with three children, he has lived in Chino Hills since 1984. Marquez is a retired firefighter who worked for 28 years with the Santa Fe Springs Fire Department. He is currently on the Chino Valley Independent Fire District’s board of directors.
In 1990 and 1991, Marquez was  involved in the Chino Hills incorporation drive,  and was appointed to the city’s first planning commission, serving on it for one term. He served three terms on the city’s park and recreation commission. An airport commissioner for San Bernardino County, Marquez serves on the advisory council for the Frontera Women’s Prison. He is also on two state legislative committees, the California Special District Legislative Committee and the California Special District Finance Committee.
“I am concerned about community facilities districts, which are entities that exist to provide services and infrastructure,” Marquez told the Sentinel last year.  “When a developer comes in, they spend money to put in things and we have to pay them back, so the city forms a district to do that. There are assessments the residential property owners pay over 20 to 25 years. Chino Hills has millions of dollars going into these CFDs [community facilities districts]. There is an overhead that pays certain city department staff salaries. My concern is about the impact on the general fund budget once the assessments expire and the revenue no longer exists and we have to come up with new income or lay off people. I want us to think about that before it happens.”
“Another main concern I have is open space in Chino Hills and what is going to happen to it,” Marquez said. “I know that right now city officials are trying to figure out a way to make money as revenue sources are drying up. They are figuring on ways of selling off that open space. I think we have to keep our open space, keep it as oak trees and rolling hills covered with grass. I don’t want it to become windmills or solar panels or even orchards.”
Marquez said he merits serious consideration by the voters of Chino Hills because “experience counts. If you look at any of the others, seriously look at all of the others, they have no more experience, meaningful experience, than I do. I can bring that experience to bear on issues that the city faces,” he said. “We have to go to work on revising the city’s general plan. We want to provide better customer service for the community. We have issues with pension reform.”
The recipient of a hefty public agency, taxpayer-supported pension himself, Marquez said he has the stature to bring about change. “I think pension reform needs to be done. We need to set aside money to offset future expenses. We did a lot of pension reform when I was president of the firefighters union in Santa Fe Springs. We need to get rid of many existing retirement benefits for new employees. If we are carrying extra people, we can go to fewer employees, since paying overtime to our other employees will not entail greater pension costs down the road.”  In his advocating of  pension reform, however, Marquez stopped short of endorsing a proposal of having current pension recipients unilaterally give back or surrender a percentage of their entitlements.
Debra Kay Hernandez attended Pasadena Community College, where she studied economics and business law. She is married with one daughter and has been a Chino Hills resident  since 1995. She is employed as a certificated facilities manager. Hernandez is the chairwoman of the Chino Hills Public Works Commission. She is also a member of the Chino Hills Community Foundation, a charter member of the Citizens for the Alternate Routing of Electricity (CARE), which has evolved into the grassroots group Hope for the Hills, and a member of the Friends of the Chino Hills Library. She recently has been active in the opposition to the maternity hotels established in Chino Hills, specifically with the group NotInChinoHills.org.
With regard to Southern California Edison’s approved but now suspended plan to utilize 197-foot-high towers to convey electricity from the Tehachapi Renewable Energy Project across Chino Hills, Hernandez told Chino Hills.com, “This isn’t just a battle for Chino Hills. It is a battle for communities across the United States. It is a precedent-setting project that allows far too high a level of electricity in too small a right-of-way. If they do it in Chino Hills, they are setting a precedent to do it anywhere they want.”
She said she will embody “an independent voice and common sense leadership” on the city council if elected.
Twenty-six-year-old Jesse Singh has lived 22 years in Chino Hills. A UCLA graduate who completed law school at Loyola and is now a practicing attorney, Singh said that if elected to the city council he will strive to “practice strong financial stewardship that acknowledges both our long and short-term financial goals and utilizes innovative ideas to increase city revenue without penalizing current or future residents, ensure the availability of resources and programs for our schools and police and fire personnel so that they can carry out services vital to our city, and protect our open spaces and public land without impeding quality and sustainable development.”
Singh further stated he will “champion residents’ property rights, including those impacted by the unprecedented, proposed power lines and improve infrastructure to meet the needs of our residents and businesses and explore strategies for effective infrastructure-sharing.”
He said he will “promote small business growth by streamlining certain processes, actively recruiting quality businesses, and opening channels of communication between local government and businesses. I want to facilitate the growth of our city and preserve our resources through collaborative efforts within our city and with surrounding municipalities.”

San Bernardino County Land Use Services Director Christine Kelly will retire, effective March 15, twenty-five months after she assumed the position of the top planning official overseeing building and development in the unincorporated county areas.
Kelly was the city of Chino Hills’ development director when she was hired by the county in February 2011.  Kelly had drafted much of the city of Ontario’s current general plan while she was working for a consulting firm that provides planning and economic development guidance and assistance to cities.
Previously, Kelly had 18 years experience in the planning, community development and building divisions in the cities of Pomona, Brea and Cypress.
The County of San Bernardino Land Use Services Department includes the divisions of current planning, advanced planning, building and safety, code enforcement, and environmental health services.