Former county administrative officer Mark Uffer’s wrongful termination suit against San Bernardino County ended with a whimper rather than a bang this week. Slightly more than a month before Uffer’s case was scheduled to go to trial on April 2, a divided board of supervisors agreed on February 28  to settle the matter for $650,000.

Mark Uffer

The board voted 3-2 in closed session to bring the matter to a close with a payment that was more than two-and-a-half times the annual $242,000 salary Uffer was receiving when he was fired on a 3-2 vote in November 2009. This week, two of the three supervisors who voted to terminate Uffer – Neil Derry and Brad Mitzelfelt – opposed making the settlement. The other supervisor who joined Derry and Mitzelfelt in that vote 27 months earlier – Gary Ovitt – this week voted with board chairwoman Josie Gonzales and supervisor Janice Rutherford to make the payout. In 2009, Gonzales, along with Rutherford’s predecessor Paul Biane, had opposed sacking Uffer.
Uffer, who had been the administrator at the county hospital when he was tapped by the board to serve as top county administrative officer in 2004, was not removed for cause, such that he was provided with a severance payout equal to one year’s salary and benefits – more than $273,000 – at the time of his firing. Derry, Mitzelfelt and Ovitt claimed at the time that Uffer was dismissed for no one cause but because they were seeking different leadership. The board then hired current county chief executive officer Greg Devereaux, who had been city manager in Ontario when Ovitt was mayor there in the early 2000s. Uffer was an at-will employee and his contract contained language allowing the board to fire him with or without cause.  Nevertheless, Uffer in his claim accused the county of wrongful termination, defamation, fraud and retaliating against him for cooperating with ongoing grand jury and district attorney’s office investigations into allegations of wrongdoing within the county.
In his suit, which was buttressed by hundreds of pages of documents, memos and emails he accumulated during his five years as the county’s top administrator, Uffer maintained that the granting in November 2007 of a six month severance package to the assistant assessor under Bill Postmus, Jim Erwin, who had previously been the president of SEBA, was an indication that Erwin was extorting Ovitt, Mitzelfelt and Biane.  Despite the fact that Biane had opposed his termination, Uffer did not spare Biane in the portrait he painted of a governmental entity mired in corruption.
Before Postmus was elected assessor in 2006, he was serving as chairman of the board of supervisors and chairman of the county’s Republican Central Committee and enjoyed an ironclad alliance with Biane, who was the vice chairman of both the board of supervisors and the central committee. As dual kingmakers, Postmus and Biane doled out party money to Republican candidates they favored and denied funds to those who did not go along with their programs. Backup material Uffer included in his suit, composed mostly of emails between him and Biane and him and Postmus, show that the relationship between Biane and Postmus deteriorated into open hostility in 2006. Profanity-laced emails Uffer provided as exhibits to his claim show that he was directly communicating with Biane about Postmus’s efforts to have him fired in the summer of 2006. Jim Lindley, a former mayor of Hesperia and a Postmus ally, had been provided with political appointments to the position of county director of legislative affairs at Postmus’s behest, and was later hired as the county’s purchasing officer. Emails between Lindley and Uffer offered as exhibits in the suit show that Lindley became aware that during the 2006 election Postmus and his employees were using county facilities to carry out electioneering activities while on the county clock.  Later, when Lindley sought to succeed Postmus as county supervisor upon Postmus’s election to the assessor’s post, Postmus went ballistic, seeking to have Lindley cashiered. Postmus wanted another of his allies, Mitzelfelt, who had been his chief of staff throughout the time he was supervisor, to succeed him. Another of Postmus’s employees, Adam Aleman, threatened Lindley with termination and Lindley sought Uffer’s protection. According to Uffer’s claim against the county, “it became known and evident to the board and Bill Postmus that Mark Uffer was supporting and protecting Jim Lindley. Accordingly, Bill Postmus, aware of this fact, targeted Mark Uffer to eliminate him so that he could reach Jim Lindley.”
According to the suit, Lindley, as county purchasing officer, and Uffer worked together to thwart or otherwise question or hold up what the claim termed “suspicious” requisition orders coming from Postmus in his capacity as assessor, including requisitioning the services of Mike Richman, a political consultant involved with the San Bernardino County Republican Central committee and a Postmus ally. Mitzelfelt, as Postmus’s successor and longtime political associate, joined in with Postmus in making inappropriate or illegal use of county funds and facilities, according to the claim, to assist the county Republican Party as well as Derry’s 2008 campaign for supervisor. Mitzelfelt also sought to have Lindley fired, according to Uffer’s suit.
Uffer maintained that he was called as a witness before the 2007-08 grand jury and that he “submitted findings concerning the pervasive corruption” besetting the county at that time, including information that there was  “fraudulent use of time cards” in the assessor’s office, that “Bill Postmus unlawfully provided contracts of employment to friends without submitting the contracts to the bidding process, that other board members were involved with and/or encouraged Bill Postmus’ known unlawful political agenda and efforts on county time [and] that Bill Postmus’ staff assisted supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt’s political campaign as well as Neil Derry’s campaign.”
In his suit, Uffer submitted evidence, consisting of interoffice memos, emails between various county employees, and Uffer’s handwritten notes which demonstrate that Uffer had personal knowledge of wrongdoing on the part of county officials and acts of commission or omission on his own part as county administrative officer, which he kept under wraps for years.
Three of these pertain to violations of the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law which prohibits a majority of any governmental decision-making body from meeting and discussing official policy or business outside the confines of an advertised and agendized public meeting. Those Brown Act violations allegedly involved Postmus, Biane and Ovitt in 2004; Biane, Postmus and Ovitt in 2006 and Derry, Biane and Mitzelfelt in 2008.
Uffer’s suit also exposed that Matt Brown, Biane’s chief of staff, in 2008 was reporting to Uffer about apparent illegal activity on Biane’s part.
Other documents provided in support of Uffer’s suit demonstrate the Byzantine intrigue and shifting alliances with, among and against various of the county’s top players. At some points Uffer was working with Biane to compromise Postmus’ power; at other times he was conspiring with Brown against Biane; at one point he had opened up a back channel of communication with Erwin through which less than flattering information about members of the board of supervisors was being exchanged. And at various times, for relatively short durations, Uffer appeared to patch things up with Postmus, including at one point in 2008 when both were commiserating about Erwin and embarrassing information they believed he was providing to the press.
The county had already spent roughly $1 million in preparing to defend against the lawsuit and anticipated spending another $400,000 if it went to trial. Though the “county does not believe any new information would have emerged during a trial” and  “the county maintained its disagreement with all of the plaintiff’s claims,” according to a county statement provided simultaneously with the settlement announcement, “the county agreed to settle to avoid the costs of going to court.”
Uffer originally sought  $15 million in the suit.  He later made a settlement offer of $3.5 million, which the county rejected.
Both Mitzelfelt and Derry said they were adamantly opposed to settling with Uffer, expressing certainty that he would have lost at trial. Mitzelfelt called the suit “frivolous.” Derry said that the board was justified in terminating Uffer because he had misled the board about the county’s financial position. “Following Uffer’s termination, it was soon discovered that the financial health of the county was in significantly worse shape than the board was led to believe by his administration.” Derry said. “After his departure it was learned that the county faced an on-going structural deficit in excess of $100 million over the next five years.”
Derry said that Uffer had already received “a generous severance package.”
Caving in and settling set a dangerous precedent, Derry said. “The apparent lesson for all San Bernardino County employees to learn from this is even if you are an at-will employee and are terminated, go ahead and sue us because we are going to give you a lot of taxpayer dollars,” the supervisor said.
Uffer’s attorney, Sanford Kassel, said the lawsuit had achieved its end without airing the particulars in open court. “As much as people accused Mr. Uffer of seeking huge damages, this case was more about opening the books on the behavior of certain elected officials and their staff and less about winning huge awards,” he said.

Barstow Police Chief Dianne Burns returned to her post on February 27, seven months after she took an extended leave.

Dianne Burns

City officials who had previously not specified the reason for Burns’ absence and had said only that it involved a private matter, this week disclosed that she was on paid administrative leave while a review of issues with regard to her performance was ongoing.
She departed for vacation on July 9 but had not returned as anticipated by July 25, leading to widespread speculation in the community that she had quit or had been fired. When Adams had not returned to oversee the department by August 4, 2011, city manager Curt Mitchell placed her on paid administrative leave. Lieutenant Albert Ramirez was installed as the acting police chief in Burns’ absence.
While mystery had attended her hiatus, it appears that an insurrection of the department’s officers may have been at the basis of her unannounced departure last summer.
Even before she returned to the helm of the department on Monday, members of the two union groups which speak for the police department’s sworn employees, the Barstow Police Officers Association, representing 30 officers, corporals and detectives, and the Barstow Police Management Association, representing six sergeants and lieutenants, provided a vote of “no confidence” in Burns’ ability to continue to lead the department.
The unions sent Mitchell a letter referencing a review of Burns’ performance which had been performed by the city during Burn’s extended absence. The letter memorialized that the vote of  reproval had been taken and requesting that Burns’s leave of absence be extended until Mitchell and his management team have an opportunity to look into Burns’ “poor performance” and “favoritism,” as well as a “hostile work environment” that  the unions say is the product of her oversight of the department.  The letter upbraided Mitchell for “failing to adequately address all concerns” the department’s officers had expressed about Burns, the only female police chief in San Bernardino County.
The unions simultaneously released a press release stating, “A majority of both police units are concerned with the past performance of chief Burns and the detriment her return may have on the department and the community.”
City manager Curt Mitchell told the Sentinel, “She was originally put on paid administrative leave in August while we completed a thorough review of her personnel matter and determined she would return to full duties. We came to that decision on Monday [February 20]. We announced that she would return on Thursday [February 23] and on Friday [February 24] the two police unions submitted a vote of no confidence.”
Mitchell said that Burns would remain as chief.
“In taking the votes, the bargaining units are saying they are concerned about her ability to lead the department,” Mitchell said. “When they expressed those concerns, I told them I would be working with the police chief to address the concerns they expressed.” Mitchell said that the vote was an expression of opinion by the department’s officers but that it had no binding impact on the department, the city or him.
Adams’ contract expires at the end of June. Mitchell said the vote of no confidence would “not by itself” impact the decision on whether to renew her contract or bring in a new police chief. “In making any recommendation to the city council I am going to consider all aspects with regard to whether her contract should be renewed,” he said. “We will be discussing that with Dianne over the next few months. We’re looking forward to the future. I’m confident Chief Burns will work with me and the outstanding staff of our police department to provide the best in law enforcement services for the community.”
The Sentinel’s efforts to reach Burns for comment were unsuccessful.

Upland city attorney Bill Curley and his law firm have survived, at least temporarily, the first round of a critical review of the quality and cost of the legal services being provided to the city.

Bill Curley

Since June of 2003, Richards Watson & Gershon, the Los Angeles-based law firm that employs Curley and also serves as legal counsel to 29 cities in California, has received $7.8 million in legal fees from the city of Upland. In recent years, the firm’s billing of Upland has increased, with the city paying the firm $5.7 million since January 2009.
In addition to being paid for routine legal advice the city requires with regard to day-to-day operations, the firm is also making a considerable amount of money for its representation of Upland in several lawsuits. Most, though not all, of those suits are ones that were filed against the city by various entities. In a few notable exceptions, the cases consist of litigation initiated by the city. The most expensive case the city is currently involved in is that of San Bernardino County Flood Control District vs. Upland, Caltrans and the county’s transportation agency, known as SANBAG.  The city has expended more than $4 million in defending that case, which relates to Upland’s approval of the Colonies at San Antonio residential and Colonies Crossroads commercial developments and the $102 million settlement cost the county sustained when the developer, the Colonies Partners, sued the county over flood control issues after the county built the 20th Street storm drain at Upland’s behest in conjunction with Caltrans’ extension of the 210 Freeway across property owned by the Colonies Partners. More than four years ago, the county offered to settle the case with Upland for $2 million. The Upland City Council, upon the advice of Richards, Watson & Gershon, declined  that offer.
The city has also paid Richards Watson & Gershon over $575,000 to defend it in a case brought against it by Robert Mills and Scott Schaller, the owners of the Chronic Cantina, over the city’s April 2009 effort to revoke that restaurant’s operating permits. The city was guided by Curley in its decision to yank those permits. It has since been publicly disclosed that former mayor John Pomierski was extorting the Chronic Cantina’s ownership and was receiving laundered fees in return for assurances by his business associates that the mayor could ensure that the nightspot would have clearance to operate. A federal grand jury indicted Pomierski on conspiracy, extortion and bribery charges a year ago today, March 2, 2011. Pomierski maintains his innocence and his lawyer has demanded that the city cover his legal costs in defending himself in the lawsuit brought by Mills and Schaller.
The city has expended just over $420,000 in an effort to prevent G3 Holistics, a marijuana clinic which opened in 2009, from operating in Upland. The city succeeded in temporarily closing down the G3 Collective in August 2010 after the city filed an injunction in West Valley Superior Court in Rancho Cucamonga, but that injunction was stayed by G3 owner Aaron Sandusky’s appeal of the city’s blanket prohibition of medical marijuana dispensaries. On November 9, 2011 the Fourth District Court of Appeals in Riverside ruled that Upland’s banning of clinics did not contradict Proposition 215, the 1996 law that approved medical marijuana in the state, but Sandusky appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court. Ultimately, however, the city’s legal efforts against the clinic, which have so far failed to shutter the operation, may prove to have been  superfluous as the federal government, in the form of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, have taken steps against such operations throughout the state, including a November raid of the G3 clinic in Upland. Drug Enforcement Agency officers told Sandusky in January that he is in violation of federal law.
In 2011, Richards Watson & Gershon posted monthly bills to Upland ranging from a low of $117,403 to a high of $213,794.
With legal bills of roughly $2 million per year, and the presentation of information to suggest that the city had sustained legal costs in both the County Flood Control District and G3 Holistics cases that were unnecessary, pressure has mounted on the council to rein in the legal work being done by Richards Watson & Gershon.  At the urging of city councilwoman Debbie Stone, the city council met in closed session for an hour-and-a-half on February 27, during which the soundness and expense of the legal services provided to the city were issues.
After the council emerged from that executive session, councilman Brendan Brandt, a member of the city’s legal affairs committee, addressed the public.
“We met in a extended closed session to talk about the city attorney and sealing litigation issues,” Brandt said. “We want to assure the citizens of Upland we are as a council closely scrutinizing and making sure taxpayer money is being used in a very efficient and responsible manner. There has been a lot of discussion about the amount of money paid for attorney services, most notably with regard to the San Bernardino County Flood Control District vs. the city, SANBAG and Caltrans. There is a lot of talk about the money the city is spending to defend itself. I have to put it in context a little bit.  The latest figures I have were reported by the Press Enterprise, which got the information through a public records request. The county of San Bernardino and SANBAG have spent $30 million in legal fees in the county of San Bernardino and county flood control district vs. the city, SANBAG and Caltrans.  At the same point Upland has spent  $4 million. We are being faced with a serious lawsuit in which the demand is $160 million. We have had to spend $4 million to defend ourselves. We cannot crawl under a rock or ignore this or default and we must defend ourselves in this lawsuit. I would like to report the legal subcommittee is going to further whittle down and sharpen and ensure we are getting the best bang in terms of our action and all five of us are keeping an eye not only on the litigation itself but the billings, and we will make sure we are spending our money wisely.”
With regard to the offer by the county to settle the county flood control/Colonies case for $2 million, which is less than half the cost of the legal services provided by Richards Watson and Gershon for representing the city in the litigation, Brandt said, “That was made almost five years ago.  We were not a party to that settlement agreement.  We had at least one public speaker who said if we had settled for that amount it would have been a gift of public funds. Potentially doing that would not have absolved our liability or ended the litigation with SANBAG and Caltrans. We would still be in this fight and involved in having to defend ourselves against Caltrans and SANBAG.”
Councilman Gino Filippi suggested the city has allowed Richards Watson & Gershon too much autonomy in handling decisions with regard to legal matters facing the city.
“In my opinion, there has been a serious lack of oversight by the former mayor and members of the council over the past several years,” Filippi said. “Although I was not on the city council at the time that the city had discussion with the San Bernardino County Flood Control District, and could have resolved the case with the county for approximately $2 million, I am obviously concerned that the city received direction from its legal professionals that such a settlement was inappropriate or unwarranted.  So, instead, and without having a cost/benefit analysis, the city spent approaching $5 million dollars in legal fees when the city could have resolved this matter for $2 million.
“Even if there was perception years ago, as charged by some critics, that settling for $2 million was unwarranted or even a gift of public funds, such an action years ago has resulted in the city spending an additional $3 million dollars with no end in sight on the legal fees,” Filippi continued. “This is just one reason why I fear Upland is on a course of insolvency.”
Filippi said Curley and Richards Watson & Gershon had not kept the counsel informed about important issues related to the litigation that would have allowed the council to make more informed decisions.
“Until stated in Monday’s city council meeting that the county was demanding $160 million, I had not been made aware by our legal counsel that such a huge amount is being demanded,” Filippi told the Sentinel. “Even if the city of Upland were to be found minimally responsible, such a result would be financially catastrophic.  It appears to me at this time that the most prudent thing would be to explore any and all settlement opportunities.”
Curley declined to comment on the outcome of the city council’s closed door evaluation of him and his law firm, referencing Brandt’s statement with regard to the matter.

Scot Spencer’s once-ironclad grip over operations at San Bernardino International Airport has eroded further, as the agencies dedicated to the civilian use conversion of Norton Air Force Base that once viewed him as their deliverer are systematically moving to disengage from him. In the face of mounting evidence that Spencer has utilized his position of authority and trust to benefit himself and his corporate affiliates at the expense of the public facility he was hired to manage, his days as the airport’s contract manager appear numbered.
The San Bernardino International Airport Authority, known by its acronym SBIAA, is a joint powers authority consisting of the county of San Bernardino and the cities of San Bernardino, Highland, Loma Linda and Colton dedicated to transforming the grounds of Norton Air Force Base, which was shuttered by the Department of Defense in 1994, into a viable civilian aerodrome.
Spencer, who has long enjoyed extensive contacts throughout the aircraft industry, was brought in by the San Bernardino International Airport Authority in 2007 under a no-bid arrangement and entrusted with converting the facility into a true international airport. In hiring Spencer, local authorities disregarded a crucial portion of his history.
In 1991, Spencer and financier Jeffrey Chodorow sought to utilize the remaining assets from Braniff International Airways to create Dallas-based Braniff International Airlines, Inc. Braniff Airways, which had been in operation since 1928, had faltered under its corporate successor, Braniff, Inc., which was created after the former company’s 1982 bankruptcy.  Spencer’s effort was unsuccessful and Spencer and Chodorow were both convicted of fraud for absconding with $14 million of the company’s funds.  Spencer served a four-year prison term from 1995 until 1999 as a result of that conviction.
After paying his debt to society, Spencer took up where he had left off, becoming involved in the aircraft industry largely on the strength of his contacts with manufacturers, airlines, mechanics and maintenance companies.
He leased from the San Bernardino International Airport Authority the lion’s share of property at the airport, where several companies he was an owner or investor in set up shop, and in 2007, Spencer entered into the agreement with SBIAA and the Inland Valley Development Authority (IVDA), a joint powers authority overseeing the development of the property surrounding the airport,  to direct what was supposed to be a $38 million renovation of the airport’s passenger terminal and a $7 million development of its concourse. Spencer undertook that assignment amid confident predictions that upon completion of those projects, the airport would attract at least one passenger carrier and as many as a half dozen airlines. The cost of the passenger terminal and the concourse escalated to $142 million and the airport has yet to host any commercial airlines, although corporate jets and other private pilots have been landing at the Million Air corporate aviation facility, for which Spencer was the franchisee, since 2010.
The cost overruns for the terminal project, the failure of San Bernardino Airport to attract commercial airlines and Spencer’s relationship with former San Bernardino International Airport Authority and Inland Valley Development Authority executive directors Don Rogers and T. Milford Harrison as well as Timothy Sabo, the legal counsel for the authorities,  have raised eyebrows and brought SBIAA and IVDA under increasingly critical scrutiny.
On June 30, the San Bernardino County 2010-11 Grand Jury delivered a report that questioned several elements of Spencer’s performance and that of Rogers, calling into question what was characterized as lax oversight of the airport’s operations and favorable treatment accorded Spencer with regard to leasing arrangements.
Spencer’s influence over operations at the airport, where several companies he owns are housed, was perceived by many observers as being in conflict with and counterproductive to the goal of bringing in aeronautics-oriented companies interested in remaining at the airport for the long term. In some cases, Spencer’s pursuit of his own imperatives conflicted with the corporate aims of other companies functioning at the airport, resulting in those companies departing.
One such company was Aeros Aeronautical Systems Corp., a blimp builder which did work on dirigibles and other lighter-than-air craft in Hangar 695, which it had leased at the airport.
In 2008, business was booming for Aeros, and the company was making its lease payments to the airport authority on time and in full. But that year, two companies Spencer was a controlling partner with, SBD Aircraft Services and Norton Aviation Maintenance Services, entered into a subcontract with another Spencer-affiliated outfit, Unique Aviation, which, it was represented, had orders from the Democratic National Committee for the renovation and refurbishing of a then-35-year-old Boeing 727-227 for use in the Barack Obama presidential campaign. Spencer claimed he needed the hangar space Aeros was using to have SBD and Norton Aviation do the work. Despite the consideration that Aeros was a tenant paying top dollar for the space it was using and that it had secured in June 2008 two successive short term leases with 30-day termination notices to undertake tests on a dirigible, Spencer used his leverage with SBIAA to have SBIAA/IVDA legal counsel Timothy Sabo of the law firm Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith author a letter which IVDA general manager Don Rogers signed that essentially evicted Aeros.
In July 2008, before Aeros vacated the hangar, Spencer and SBIAA signed a lease for Hangar 695 at a rate less than half of what Aeros was paying for the space and despite the consideration that Aeros had yet to vacate it. When Aeros did not leave quickly enough to satisfy Spencer, who said he was prevented from completing $750,000 worth of repairs on the 727 to be used by the Democrats, he threatened SBIAA with legal action. Before the incident was over, Aeros, which had offered the promise of remaining as a longtime paying tenant, left in a huff, never to return. The authority kowtowed to Spencer even further by providing him over $1 million worth of concessions, including the forgiving of a $155,000 balance on a previous loan, the extension of another $550,000 loan at 5 percent interest, and an ongoing $315,000 hangar rental subsidy.  It is now alleged that the Democratic National Committee had not commissioned the 1973 Boeing 727-227 from Unique Aviation and had no contract with Spenser or any of his companies.
Also in 2008, Spencer forced the exodus of another paying tenant, Virginia-based BaySys West, from San Bernardino International Airport. BaySys West had established an aircraft maintenance operation in San Bernardino employing 300, which Spencer apparently felt was in competition with Norton Aircraft Maintenance Systems. BaySys left in December 2008 under pressure from Spencer.
Another troubling consideration for many was that by the summer of 2011, Spencer owed the county more than $604,000 in unpaid taxes on property and equipment at the airport since 2005. The airport authority’s relationship with Spencer and the settlement of the dispute with regard to Hangar 695 was mentioned in the June 30 grand jury report.
There are questions as well about Spencer’s relationship with T. Milford Harrison, a one-time Loma Linda city councilman who served for a time as the executive director of IVDA. Harrison was given several lucrative positions with companies involved at the airport which Spencer owns or controls. With Spencer, Harrison is a manager of KCP Leasing and Services. Harrison and Spencer are also listed as officers with Million Air Development Company, LLC, as well as Million Air San Bernardino LLC. Harrison also has an unknown relationship with SBD Aircraft Services. That company had issued to Harrison an American Express Business Platinum card, against which Harrison charged $63,043.45 in expenses and a second Starwood Preferred Guest Business credit card, which Harrison used for $4,642.86 in purchases. There was a question about how those charges were related to airport business and American Express was not paid. Eventually American Express sued Harrison for payment. Harrison did not respond and American Express obtained a default judgment for $75,147.75.
Despite questions over those several issues, the SBIAA and IVDA boards of directors maintained faith in Spencer, preparing a defiant response to the grand jury criticisms that had been leveled at both the authority and Spencer. But on September 21, Spencer’s seemingly charmed existence at San Bernardino International Airport fell into eclipse when federal and state authorities descended upon San Bernardino International Airport, serving search warrants at five offices, businesses or facilities there as part of a comprehensive investigation into allegations that millions of taxpayer dollars were illegally diverted, mismanaged, laundered, misappropriated or siphoned off by officials or individuals affiliated with the airport’s development.  Targeted in the raid led by the FBI were SBIAA and IVDA headquarters, the San Bernardino Million Air Franchise; three hangars, including Hangar 763, where two Spencer-affiliated companies, Norton Aircraft Maintenance Services and SBAM Technics are located; a storage facility at the airport, and Spencer’s Riverside residence. According to the search warrants, the authorities were seeking information regarding suspected misuse of federal funds, bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy.
On September 28, Rogers resigned as SBIAA and IVDA executive director. On November 9, the SBIAA board hired A.J. Wilson, a municipal manager with an extensive list of top administrative assignments inside and outside of California, to the position of interim executive director of San Bernardino International Airport. The no-nonsense Wilson conducted a crash review of the operations at the airport and on November 30, the SBIAA and IVDA boards took a tentative step toward removing Spencer as the contract developer of San Bernardino International Airport. Noting that Spencer had not properly managed the airport’s billing, the board transferred management of the remaining project work from Spencer to itself and Wilson. The board also moved to authorize paying subcontractors for work done on a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility after their bills had gone unpaid by Spencer for months.
On February 17, Superior Court Judge Brian McCarville ruled that the airport authority was legally entitled to assume from Spencer and his company, SBD Properties, control of the airport’s fuel farm, consisting of tanks from which the private jets that fly out of San Bernardino International Airport are fueled.  Spencer had allowed fuel in the tanks, which have a capacity of 150,000 gallons, to dwindle to 1,100 gallons as of February 1. Under the authority’s contract with SBD, a minimum of 20,000 gallons of aviation fuel must be maintained in the fueling system at all times.  On February 7, the authority sought to end its contract with SBD.
On February 21, Million Air Interlink, the Texas-based provider of landing and take-off services for operators of private and corporate jets that had already sued Spencer for $837,290 in long past due franchise fees, revoked Spencer’s franchise. That move significantly attenuates Spencer’s primacy at the airport. Because of previous contractual commitments, Spencer’s Million Air franchise was given exclusivity of use at the plush private jetport, described by one pilot as “opulent beyond anything I’ve ever seen.” The terminal was reportedly offered by Spencer to two of the major principals in both the IVDA and SBIAA, San Bernardino Mayor Patrick Morris and county supervisor Josie Gonzales, who are the co-chairs of the SBIAA and IVDA boards, for use as a forum for campaign fundraising events. Spencer’s granting of these alleged political favors to Morris and Gonzales had dragged them into the FBI investigation and had previously paralyzed the authority in its effort to disengage from Spencer. But the same contract that had provided Spencer’s franchise with exclusivity at the jetport also liberated the authority to separate from Spencer if the jetport remains tenantless for 30 days. If Spencer does not find a replacement for Million Air by March 22, the airport can remove him from the terminal altogether.
Coby King, a spokesman for Spencer as well as San Bernardino Airport Management, SBD Properties LLC, KCP Leasing and Services, SBD Aircraft Services and Norton Aviation Maintenance Services and Unique Aviation, vowed legal action against SBIAA and IVDA if those entities are deprived of their rights to operate out of San Bernardino International Airport.

Three years after he crossed party lines and cast a vote to pass California’s 2009-10 budget laden with tax increases that resulted in his ignominious exodus from the state Assembly, Anthony Adams this week announced he will attempt to resuscitate his political career with a run for Congress in the newly drawn California 8th Congressional District.

Anthony Adams

In doing so, Adams sought to reinvent himself as a “no party” candidate. In his earlier incarnation, Adams represented himself as a rock-ribbed, right-wing conservative Republican. He incubated his political career as a member of former San Bernardino County First District supervisor Bill Postmus’s political team. Adams worked on Postmus’s campaigns and was hired by Postmus as one of his field representatives, garnering a reputation for aggressively defending Postmus and his expressed right-wing ideology. Postmus then promoted Adams to the position of senior executive analyst on his staff.  By 2004, Postmus had acceded to the position of chairman of the San Bernardino County Republican Party and from that position, Postmus vectored party support to Adams in 2006, providing him with money from the San Bernardino County Republican Central Committee’s coffers to assist him in overcoming three other Republican stalwarts in the primary race for the Republican nomination in the 59th Assembly District, Henry Scolinos, Barry Hartz and Chris Lancaster. Postmus used his authority as chairman of the board of supervisors to move Adams into the position of director of legislative affairs for San Bernardino County. With the power of the Postmus political machine behind him, Adams in 2006 captured the Republican nomination in the 59th Assembly District, in which the Republicans held a commanding 42 to 33 percent registration advantage over Democrats and in November 2006 he cruised to easy victory in the general election. In office during his first term, Adams hewed to a basically conservative Republican agenda and was handily reelected in 2008, signing a pledge not to raise taxes along the way. Adams’ political career was reaching its apex, with some suggestions that he might be selected as Assembly minority leader upon his reelection in 2010. But seemingly overnight, Adams political career seemed to go into a high speed wobble and then veered sharply left.  2008 was particularly unkind to his political godfather, Bill Postmus, who in 2006 had successfully run for county assessor. Events overtook Postmus when he created four high level positions in the assessor’s office that did not previously exist and installed in those positions political appointees, including two of his boyfriends, who knew nothing about assessing properties. The inability of Postmus’s political appointees to meet the demands of the assessor’s office together with their exploitations of their authority for political purposes led to a series of misadventures and resulting revelations that absolutely undid Postmus’s political career. After investigators with the district attorney’s office began to delve into illegal utilization of the assessor’s office’s facilities and personnel for partisan political purposes, the veil over first Postmus’s drug use and then his homosexuality was pierced. In time, Postmus and all five of his political appointees to positions within the assessor’s office would be charged with crimes.
Meanwhile, in Sacramento, the incipient crisis with regard to Adams and his political identity was beginning to set in. Many of his constituents and supporters were hearing for the first time that the putative conservative right wing political cauldron that Adams had been hatched from was in fact a hotbed of homosexuality and drug use whose principals had cynically manipulated the gullibility of the county’s Republican establishment and voters. The shock to those voters’ socially conservative sensibilities in short order was followed up with Adams’ departure from his long-enunciated fiscally conservative principals.
On February 18, 2009 Adams joined with all of the Assembly’s Democratic members, GOP leader Mike Villines and Republican Assemblyman Roger Niello to muster the bare minimum number of votes required to pass the 2009-10 California budget worked out by then-governor Arnold Schwarzenneger and the Democratic leadership that included $12.8 billion in temporary tax increases, and $11.4 billion in borrowing. In making that vote, Adams said it was not a decision “I make lightly. This will probably be the end of a political career for me.”
A firestorm erupted that ultimately chased Villines, Niello and Adams from office. An effort to recall Adams was undertaken, but ultimately failed when the respective registrars of voters in San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties disqualified a portion of the signatures on the recall petitions. Nevertheless, Adams’ viability as a candidate in the 59th Assembly District was done and in 2010 he chose not to seek reelection.  Further damage was done to his reputation when just weeks after he left the Assembly, Adams was appointed by Schwarzenegger to a $111,845-a-year post on the state Board of Parole Hearings, resulting in charges that Adams had sold out his principals for a cushy governmental sinecure.
Adams passed the California Bar in May of last year and is now “of counsel” with the Riverside-based law firm of Wagner & Pelayes. In tossing his hat into the 8th Congressional District ring, Adams forsook the vitriolic right wing rhetoric he utilized in getting elected to the Assembly in 2006 and reelected two years later. “The citizens of this district are fed up with the partisan bickering that has deadlocked Congress,” Adams said in announcing both his candidacy and his shedding of his Republican Party affiliation. “Democrats and Republicans are putting their party ahead of our country. I believe there is a better way.”
Adams’ strategy is a risky one. Republicans in the 8th Congressional District hold a 42.15 percent to  32.57% registration advantage over Democrats. Adams joins seven other Republicans – Assemblyman Paul Cook, Minuteman Civil Defense Corps of California co-founder Gregg Imus, Victorville Mayor Ryan McEachron; former Hesperia Mayor Bill Jensen, San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, Victorville Councilwoman Angela Valles, and certified public accountant Phillip Liberatore – and one Democrat – Jackie Conaway – in the race. This year a change in the state’s election code dispenses with party primaries for so-called open primaries, such that the two highest vote getters in the June primary of whatever party affiliation qualify for the general election.

Congressman David Dreier on February 29 announced on the House floor that he will not seek re-election to Congress.
Dreier, a Republican who was first elected in 1980 with the Ronald Reagan landslide who has now risen to be chairman of the House Rules Committee, is departing in large measure because his logical area of representation is now in the redrawn 32nd Congressional District rather than the 26th Congressional District which he currently represents. In the 32nd, Democrats hold a decided voter registration advantage over Republicans. The current 26th District is a Republican bastion straddling San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties, and includes La Canada, Flintridge, La Crescenta, Pasadena and  San Dimas along with Upland, San Antonio Heights, Mt. Baldy  and Rancho Cucamonga. Members of Congress are not required to live within the district each represents.
After this year’s redistricting, Dreier’s options included running in the 32nd, which contains heavily blue collar Duarte and El Monte, or seeking election either in the newly drawn 26th Congressional District, where Democrats hold a slight majority and incumbent Congressman Elton Gallegly had been considered a likely contestant along with Democratic Ventura County supervisor Steve Bennett, or running in the redrawn 31st Congressional District, where the Democrats have a narrow registration advantage and well-financed Gary Miller, an incumbent Republican, is running. Dreier opted to retire, as did, curiously, Gallegly. Bennett has also chosen not to run for Congress.
Despite Gallegly’s and Bennett’s change in plans, Dreier’s withdrawal from Congress appears irrevocable, given his announcement on the House floor. “Mr. Speaker, I have chosen to leave Congress at the end of this term,” Dreier said. “I take the unusual step of announcing this from the floor of Congress for two reasons. First, this is where my fellow Californians sent me to represent them. Second, I am a proud institutionalist, and I believe that this institution is as great as it has ever been.”
Dreier, 59, has had an extraordinary career as an elected official, given the conflicts in his personal and political life. As a self-described conservative Republican, he voted in support of the  Defense of Marriage Act,  against gay adoption, against inclusion of homosexuals as a protected class in hate crime legislation and against the repeal of the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell” policy. Nevertheless, Dreier is an uncelebrated homosexual, having quietly maintained a domestic relationship with his partner of more than 20 years, Brad Smith, who is also his chief of staff and earns a $156,600 salary before benefits, the highest possible salary allowed by law for a committee staff member in Washington, D.C.
Dreier’s domestic situation has gone unremarked in most of the press within his district, although it is widely known in Washington, D.C.  Within the nation’s capital, Dreier’s sexual orientation has been recognized in several circles, partially because in the 1980s, as a rising young Republican Congressman, he briefly dated but then spurned Dorothy Bush, the daughter of then-vice president and later president George H.W. Bush.  Dreier’s sexual orientation became internationally known in June 2005, after the British press addressed the issue when then-British prime minister Tony Blair’s son Euan went to work as an intern for Dreier’s committee.

The county’s architecture and engineering department has crossed up 14 contractors who submitted bids and undertook a tentative surveying of two of the county’s courthouses for advertised improvement projects there.
On January 2, 2012, the county architecture and engineering division advertised for competitive bids for nine informally bid Americans with Disabilities Act improvement projects in the Southern California Construction Bulletin and on the county website.
On January 12, 2012, 16 contractors attended a mandatory pre-bid meeting for the Big Bear Courthouse improvement project and 32 contractors attended a mandatory pre-bid meeting for the Rancho Cucamonga Courthouse improvement project
On January 26, 2012, ten bids were received for the Big Bear project and nine bids were received for the Rancho Cucamonga project.
According to Carl R. Alban, the director of the architecture and engineering division, “Following the opening of the bids, architecture and engineering conducted a review of the bid documents and determined the advertised plans and specifications contained incomplete information that required clarification. In order to be fair to all bidders and to ensure that both projects are constructed as required by the county, A&E [architecture and engineering] is recommending that the board of supervisors reject the bids received and therefore allow A&E to re-bid the Big Bear ADA [Americans With Disabilities] and Rancho ADA building improvements projects.”
A new mandatory pre-bid meeting and a new bid date for each of these projects will be scheduled in March 2012. A&E will re-advertise the two projects following guidelines set forth for informally bid projects and submit the contracts to the county’s  chief executive officer for approval following receipt of the bids.
Alban did not disclose what information was left out of the previously advertised plans and specifications for the projects.
Accordingly, the county rejected the bids received from B.W. Simmons Inc., of Calimesa; Laura A. Dahlem Inc. dba LAD Construction of Upland; R&R Design & Construction Corp. of Riverside; Dalke & Sons of Riverside; JM Builders of Redlands; O’Connell Engineering & Construction of Winchester; Fast Track Construction of Culver City; Arrowhead Construction Inc. dba Trinity Construction of Blue Jay;  CoreAccess Inc. of San Bernardino; and DJD Group Inc. of Riverside for the Big Bear Courthouse project and rejected the bids received from Laura A. Dahlem; Incotechnic Inc. of Buena Park;  R&R Design & Construction Corp.; Damon Inc. of Downey; KKG Inc. of Montclair; Fast Track Construction; IBN Construction Inc. of Orange; CoreAccess Inc.; and DJD Group for the Rancho Cucamonga Courthouse project.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is intensifying its now 18-month long inquiry into accusations of fraud and misuse of bond money by the city of Victorville and its former redevelopment agency.
In August 2010, the SEC launched an investigation of Victorville’s various bond offerings totaling more than $475 million. In complying with subpoenas, city officials have provided over 70,000 pages of documentation relating to representations to bond holders and how the bond money was actually spent.
On February 9, 2012 the SEC requested even more documentation from Victorville, widening its inquiry into the issuance of more than $700 million in bonds.
It is known that proceeds from bonds issued for redevelopment purposes as well as the civilian makeover of the former George Air Force Base into the Southern California Logistics Airport were diverted to other purposes. Moreover, Victorville has engaged in a host of questionable financial practices exacerbated by accounting irregularities, leading to other investigations by the FBI, the county grand jury and the district attorney’s office.
An audit by the accounting firm of Mayer Hoffman McCann released in March of 2011 indicated “substantial doubt about the city’s ability to continue as a going concern.”  Mayer Hoffman McCann questioned whether Victorville can remain solvent, and uncovered tens of millions of dollars in internal loans that were never approved, three funds that were $180 million in the hole and dwindling cash reserves. Mayer Hoffman McCann said that as of March 2011 the city’s utility fund was $78 million upside down and that cash in the water district had dropped from $15 million in 2009 to $8 million as of June 30, 2010 despite a $20 million loan made to the district from the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority.
In 2004, the city earnestly set about to construct the Foxborough power station on east Nisquali Road. City officials confidently predicted that for $22 million to be appropriated out of the redevelopment agency budget they could build a 14-megawatt capacity electrical generating plant that would bypass the state power grid.
The Foxborough project failed to meet its April 2006 target opening date and in October 2006, construction on the project, the price tag for which had escalated to over $54 million, was abruptly halted.
After the city restarted work on the project there were further construction delays and cost escalations as changes in state law went into effect that mandated that at least 20 percent of all energy produced in California by 2010 come from renewable sources. In an effort to comply with that standard, the city jettisoned earlier plans for gas-fired combustion turbines, the pricey components for which were already purchased.
The city then found itself in the position of having to buy even more costly generators capable of running on biodiesel, while looking for purchasers of the never utilized gas turbines. That obsolete equipment had to be sold at a fire sale price because it was considered “used.”
The hemorrhaging of red ink on the project  increased each year thereafter, such that it had reached an annual operating  deficit of  $8 million by fiscal 2007-08.  In 2007, the city began borrowing from its general fund to shore up the project.
With good money being thrown after bad, the city council, as quietly as it could get away with, issued $90 million in bonds to cover the entire cost of Foxborough.
In April 2008, all of the bond money had been eaten up by the Foxborough power plant project and another $5 million beyond that was consumed, bringing the total cost on the facility to $95 million even before the facility’s permanent turbines had begun to generate electricity. Further insult was wrought when city officials, attempting to salvage something from the debacle, declared their intention to connect the plant to the state power grid, in absolute contravention to the original intent for the plant, which was to bypass the grid, thereby avoiding the surcharge the state levies on electricity carried over the system, to provide low-cost energy to attract industry and jobs to the city’s industrial parks.
Eight years after the project was undertaken, the city has failed to see that project through to fruition and the city council abandoned it altogether last year, after having sunk $126 million into the project.
The city was simultaneously pursuing the development of another, much larger power plant, dubbed Victorville 2. The city was assisted in developing that plant by Newport Beach-based Inland Energy, which had successfully developed the 830-megawatt High Desert Power Plant with Baltimore-based Constellation Energy Group a decade ago. The High Desert Power Plant is now referred to as Victorville 1.  Inland Energy had also served as a consultant with regard to the development of the Foxborough plant, receiving more than $5 million for that work.
In November 2007 the Victorville city council authorized a $173 million purchase of natural gas-fired turbines from General Electric for the 563-megawatt Victorville 2 plant.
The city, which owed $126 million to General Electric for equipment for the Victorville 2 power project, fell into arrears on its payments to General Electric and in May of 2010, simply surrendered a $50 million deposit it had made with the company for components. The Victorville 2 project was originally scheduled to include a 513-megawatt natural gas-fired generating plant on 133 acres coupled with an adjohining 250-acre solar power field capable of producing 50 megawatts of electricity. The solar component of the project has since been entirely abandoned and the remainder of Victorville 2 shelved, although in recent months some discussion has taken place between the city and Massachusetts-based QGEN about that company taking on the completion of the project.
More than $80 million of the $300 million in outstanding bonds floated specifically for airport operations actually funded city of Victorville operations or projects off Southern California Logistics Airport property, including $1.8 million utilized to acquire land for a city library. According to Mayer Hoffman McCann, at least $21.8 million was not spent in accordance with the bond covenants. Other airport money was used to further work on the Victorville 2 power plant. The city also loaned $20 million in 2007 airport bond proceeds to the water district to help build a wastewater treatment plant. Those expenditures were made without informing or getting the consent of the bonds’ insurer, Radian.
The Southern California Logistics Airport Authority (SCLAA) has accumulated debt of  $102 million, twice the burden  it had in 2009-10.
One issue repeatedly raised by Mayer Hoffman McCann is that staff has not properly documented and sought city council approval for its numerous interfund loans. The city had nearly $90 million in outstanding interfund loans as of last June. But only $30 million in loans had been formally approved by the council, according to the audit report.
For example, the report states staff did not properly document $20 million loaned between the city’s development impact fee funds, representing the city’s road developer impact fee account as having more than $20 million cash when essentially all of that money was spent through the public buildings developer impact fee account to construct City Hall and Green Tree Clubhouse.
And when SCLAA ended 2009-10 with an $11 million cash overdraft, the audit report states Victorville brought the cash balance to zero by borrowing money “for a term greater than one year” from its solid waste, rail authority and storm drain and street lighting funds. The city’s redevelopment authority, which was decommissioned by state action last year, also loaned the airport more than $11 million to keep the fund afloat.
The depth and breadth of the grand jury’s probe of Victorville is substantial. At the end of the 2009-10 grand jury term in June 2010, six of the grand jury’s members were requested to remain in place to serve on the 2010-11 grand jury for the purpose of completing that investigation. In the spring of 2011, the grand jury questioned then-city manager Jim Cox; former city deputy city manager and now city manager Doug Robertson; economic development director Keith Metzler; city attorney Andre de Bortnowsky and deputy city attorney Joan Stevens Smyth. The 2011-12 Grand Jury has continued the inquest into Victorville’s finances.
The FBI has been investigating Victorville since 2010. In October 2011,  word leaked out that a special task force devoted to Victorville operations involving FBI agents and investigators from the district attorney’s office had formed and that a number of grand jury members who had served in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 terms had been sworn in as special task force members.
City officials have denied any untoward activity and explained away a portion of the multimillion losses sustained in the running of the utility division as a consequence of unforeseen state environmental regulations that went into effect after the city had committed to the project and purchased the gas turbines, entailing costly design changes.  The city claims that many of the expenditures of proceeds from bond money issued for improvements at the airport which provided infrastructure outside the airport, such as the wastewater treatment facility, will serve the airport property.
Robertson said he and city staff are now working to comply with the SEC’s subpoenas

Even as its board members undertook to redress serious shortcomings and challenges that are threatening to bring the Public Safety Academy to ruin, the headlong rush to institute reforms at the school resulted in yet another wave of adverse publicity last week.
In this case, the controversy arose out of the charter school board’s failure to conduct a fully  open public venue in choosing a new administrator.
Last week, the board of the Public Safety Academy quietly tapped one of its own members, Peggi Hazlett, to serve as its executive director.  Hazlett, who was a special assistant to San Bernardino Mayor Pat Morris and a special assistant to Morris’s mayoral predecessor Judith Valles, abruptly resigned from her position with the city of San Bernardino to take on the position with the charter school. The announcement of her hiring, which is effective March 1, touted Hazlett as the charter school’s “new CEO.” But in the brouhaha that ensued, even one of Hazlett’s supporter’s stated that she was not qualified to be chief executive officer.  Moreover, one member of the board publicly claimed to have been blindsided by Hazlett’s elevation. And as word of the matter spread, there were suggestions that there was a conflict of interest inherent in a board member being appointed by the board to a paying position with the charter school.  That fed recurrent charges that the Public Safety Academy, like some other charter schools in California, is more focused on enriching its operators than educating students.

Peggi Hazlett

The California Education Code provides for the formation of charter schools under the aegis of a sponsoring local school district. Charter schools function outside the normal parameters of normal schools and can offer a curriculum and educational smorgasbord unavailable in traditional public schools while meeting the requirements of both special needs students and accelerated scholars.
The Public Safety Academy fell short of both educational and accounting goals over the several years of its operation, then plunged into chaos last year, resulting in lawsuits that now may end up costing its sponsoring district hundreds of thousands or perhaps even millions of dollars.
What was to become the Public Safety Academy was founded as an unaccredited educational seminar in 2000 by Michael Dickinson, a one-time arson investigator, to prepare its attendees for careers in law enforcement and firefighting. In 2005, the school was given accreditation when Dickinson convinced the San Bernardino City Unified School District to charter the school as the Public Safety Academy. The academy appeared to have found a niche, with students intent on pursuing a career in fire science or law enforcement, as well as parents wishing to steer their children in that direction.  A number of local luminaries in those fields participated in the school as instructors, sponsors, mentors, and board members.
But the academy, which has its campus at the former Norton Air Force Base, encountered difficulties along the way. Four years ago a financial review revealed the school had not kept accurate payroll and accounting records, and had spent $164,000 that was not budgeted for. There were also questions about $20,000 worth of expenditures for laptops that were either never delivered, misappropriated or stolen.  In January of last year, a report commissioned by the district found the academy’s accounting practices deficient and cataloged arrearages with regard to accounts payable.
Last spring, Michael Dickinson’s wife who served as a principal at one of the school’s campuses, Susan Dickinson, fell under the charter school board’s focus after a report surfaced that she had crossed the line in prepping her students for questions contained in the state’s Standardized Testing and Reporting exam. According to an inquiry into the matter, Susan Dickinson reviewed some of the material contained in the test with students at her school before the test was administered and recommended that other instructors at the academy do likewise.
The charter school’s  principal, Kathy Toy, had recommended that the board of trustees terminate Susan Dickinson. Before that vote took place, Michael Dickinson sacked the board of trustees.
On June 20, 2011 the Public Safety Academy board, led by Hazlett, filed suit against Public Safety Academy Inc., an adjunct to the academy which was set up and controlled by Michael Dickinson, who received $121,000 per year in salary for his services. That suit sought to restore the authority of the board that Michael Dickinson had terminated. In July, the court ruled that the board had legal authority to run the charter academy, and the contracts of Michael Dickinson, as the chief executive officer, and Dickinson’s hand-picked chief financial officer, Mike Davis, who was paid $120,000 per year, were terminated.
Subsequently, the district was sued by the parents of one of its students, a 16-year-old girl. In that suit, it is alleged that the girl, who was then 15 years old, had repeated sexual encounters with San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy Nathan Gastineau, who was the girl’s mentor in her Police Explorer Scout activity coordinated at the academy. According to that suit, another student in October 2010 reported to officials at the Public Safety Academy an inappropriate relationship existed between the girl and Gastineau. A teacher told the principal at the school, who did not contact authorities, the lawsuit alleges. Depending on the outcome of the case, the San Bernardino City Unified School District, which chartered the Public Safety Academy, could be on the hook for millions of dollars.
In recent months, the Public Safety Academy has scrambled to maintain its existence. In that way, the board for the charter school has been looking for a dynamic leader to function as CEO. At its February 8 meeting, the board, during the absence of one of its members, San Bernardino Fire Chief Michael Conrad, took what was deemed by the members of the board present as an emergency action that appointed one of their own – Hazlett – as the top administrator of the charter school. The appointment was not previously agendized. In making the appointment, the board said the appointment of someone qualified to oversee the charter academy was paramount.  Hazlett, who in addition to serving as assistant to Morris and Valles over the past decade was an environmental projects assistant with the city of San Bernardino prior to that and was also the chief financial officer, administrator and instructor at the Dikaios Christian Academy in San Bernardino from July 1994 to July 1996, was deemed by the board to be qualified to serve as charter academy CEO.  Hazlett has some college coursework in public administration at San Bernardino Valley College, but no college degree.
Upon learning of her appointment after the fact, Conrad went public with statements to the effect that he disapproved of the process by which Hazlett had been elevated from the non-paying board of directors to the paid position of chief executive, in which Michael Dickinson was paid $121,000 per year. He said he had heard no previous discussion of Hazlett’s appointment to the post whatsoever.
Upon getting the paying position with the charter academy, Hazlett resigned from her post as Morris’s special assistant.
Under fire for the surprise appointment and Hazlett’s thin academic credentials, board members seemed to lose their footing. Richard Lawhead, who is a lieutenant with the San Bernardino Police Department and the board president, while defending Hazlett as right for the job, acknowledged that she likely lacked the qualifications to serve as the CEO of an academic institution.
On February 20, the board came together to smooth out the rough edges and do some damage control and public relations work. Hazlett, it was publicly disclosed, will be given the title of executive director rather than chief executive officer. Her area of responsibility will be to oversee the academy’s daily operations, finances and business affairs on an interim basis.
She will remain in that position at least until the end of June.  There will be further consideration of who will fill the position on a permanent basis. Hazlett indicated she will compete against any others who apply for the job.
While Conrad on February 20 complained about a lack of transparency in the events leading up to Hazlett’s appointment and indicated he believed the board should have conducted a more open, public and extensive search before making the appointment, he said he was now prepared to have the charter academy move forward with Hazlett in the executive director role. Conrad said he felt Hazlett was qualified to hold the position on a temporary or interim basis, but that he wanted to see a competitive process conducted to find a CEO in which candidate qualifications are clearly specified.
Hazlett will replace Toy, who has been functioning as principal and academy director for more than six months.
Hazlett is and will remain a board member until March 1, at which time she will resign to take on the paying position. The board has agreed to appoint Elizabeth Cruz, who has a child attending the academy, to Hazlett’s vacant position on the board.

Both the city of Colton and its former police chief, Ken Rulon, are in the final stages of preparation as Rulon’s wrongful termination suit over his April 2007 firing heads to trial February 27.

Ken Rulon

Rulon, who was provided with a $132,000 base salary and more than $60,000 in benefits,  is seeking $10 million for wrongful termination, defamation, damage to his reputation and harm to his current and future earning potential because of the city’s actions. He maintains that he was fired because he had acted as a whistleblower by sending a report pertaining to an embezzlement of public money by a former city council member and dereliction on the part of other city officials to the district attorney’s office.
City officials contend  the oftentimes abrasive police chief’s dictatorial management style was an impediment to the smooth function of the police department and the city was acting within the scope of its authority when it sacked him.
At the basis of the firing and resultant lawsuit is the action of former city councilman Ramon Hernandez and a series of charges made against his city issued credit card. Those cards are issued to certain senior city officials in Colton, including the mayor and city council members, to cover the cost of doing official business, such as traveling to or attending conferences, conventions, seminars or intergovernmental functions.
On December 22, 2004, a $98.91 charge was logged on Hernandez’s city credit card for an overnight stay at the Amerihost Inn in Fontana, less than ten miles from Hernandez’s home. Hernandez reimbursed the city for the bill. In May, June and July 2005, Hernandez made a spate of charges against his city issued credit card totaling $2,928 at a variety of hotels and motels in the Inland Valley area. In late May 2005, Hernandez told then-city manager Daryl Parrish and then-mayor Deirdre Bennett that he believed the card had been stolen by his nephew. Hernandez pledged to recover the card and see that the city was reimbursed for the charges. No police report was taken. Nor was the credit card cancelled.  Beginning on June 11, 2005, unauthorized calls on Hernandez’s city issued cell phone began, mostly to phone sex lines, consisting of adults-only chat lines based in Iowa, Northern California and Riverside. Hernandez claimed that his cell phone had been “cloned.” For a time the unauthorized calls from his number ceased but between January and May of 2006 the calls resumed, entailing charges of $675. Also between April 20 and June 3, 2006, Hernandez ran up another $1,854 in charges against his city-issued credit card for local hotel rooms.

Ramon Hernandez

The full council was not informed of the unauthorized activity on Hernandez’s credit card. Rather, according to Bennett, she was initially informed about the matter by Parrish in May 2005, who assured her the matter would be handled discreetly and expeditiously. She said Parrish provided her with an assurance at that time that the unauthorized billings would not occur again. When she learned early in 2006 that the unauthorized charges against Hernandez’s credit card were continuing, she said she asked Parrish for a full accounting of the matter and the charges to that date against Hernandez’s city credit and phone accounts. She said Parrish again assured her that the matter would be resolved and counseled against bringing the police department into the matter. Parrish advised her against withholding payment on the credit and phone bills to avoid damaging the city’s credit rating and she accordingly signed off on the expenses under her authority as mayor without the remainder of the council, with the exception of then-councilman John Mitchell, being informed. Mitchell, who was also Colton’s mayor pro tem, on one occasion signed off on the city’s payment of the credit card bills, as did Parrish.  Bennett said Parrish told her reimbursement of the bills from Hernandez would be forthcoming.
Over the next several months, however, Hernandez made no payment to the city and on June 7 the city’s finance department cancelled his credit card.
On June 20, Rulon learned of the unauthorized charges against Hernandez’s credit card and initiated an investigation of the matter. Later that day, just before that evening’s city council meeting commenced, Mitchell used his personal credit card to reimburse the city for the $5,457 outstanding against Hernandez’s city-issued credit card. Hernandez would later claim he repaid Mitchell after the meeting concluded. A week later, on June 27, Rulon questioned Hernandez about the credit card billings. Rulon phoned the public integrity unit of the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office to provide a tentative synopsis of his findings, and forwarded his report of the alleged embezzlement and the delay in city administrators’ handling of the issue to the head of the public integrity unit, Frank Vanella, sometime thereafter.
On August 18, 2006, district attorney’s investigators obtained warrants to search Hernandez’s City Hall office and home, where they seized two computers, a BlackBerry and documents. On August 24, 2006 Hernandez was arrested at his home and booked into Central Detention Center in San Bernardino on 24 felony counts under California Penal Code Section 424 related to the misappropriation of public funds stemming from the improper use of his city credit card and cell phone.
In the weeks thereafter, the public integrity unit was reported to be looking into whether other Colton city officials had acted illegally in assisting Hernandez or delaying or obstructing an investigation into his action.
In October 2006, Parrish without city council authorization hired an outside investigator to look into accusations made against Rulon in anonymous letters delivered to City Hall. The letters alleged Rulon had misused his authority and was creating a hostile work environment within the police department. One letter reported Rulon bought an ATV and a motorcycle from Quaid Harley-Davidson in Loma Linda while in his police uniform and on duty; had imposed citation and arrest quotas on Colton police officers that were charted on a bulletin board on a wall at the police department headquarters and that he had not promoted deserving Latino officers, creating morale problems that prompted some officers to leave the department for positions elsewhere. Rulon was also accused of sexually harassing female employees.

Daryl Parrish

In March 2007, while the investigation commissioned by Parrish was yet to conclude, the Colton Police Officers’ Association cast an 85-6 vote of no-confidence against Rulon, questioning his ability to lead the department. On March 6, 2007 Parrish put Rulon on paid administrative leave. A month later, Rulon was terminated.
In his lawsuit, Rulon is represented by attorneys Bradley Gage and Virginia Keeny. They maintain that the city had no grounds to fire the police chief and that he was shown the door because he had informed the district attorney’s office of the matter involving Hernandez and the apparent effort of Parrish and others to cover the embezzlement up.
They maintain that Rulon undertook to investigate the embezzlement and inform the district attorney against the wishes of other city officials. Rulon prepared a statement relating to the case but before it was released, according to Keeny, Parrish commandeered that statement, tore it up and issued another self serving version of events that credited City Hall rather than the police department with undertaking an aggressive accounting of Hernandez’s actions.
Rulon maintains that City Hall, and Parrish in particular, discouraged and resisted the matter being taken up by prosecutors. Rulon is counting on Vanella testifying on his behalf to the effect that it was Rulon who brought the matter to the district attorney’s office’s attention.  Keeny further believes she can demonstrate that Parrish defamed Rulon when he stated to a reporter that Rulon was a “psychopathic megalomaniac,” was otherwise mentally unstable and that he was incapable of maintaining authority over the officers in his department.
In this way, lawyers for both the city and Rulon are likely to reference an event that occurred after Rulon was terminated from Colton. In July 2010, then-interim Montebello city administrator  Randy Narramore hired Rulon to serve as Montebello’s police chief to permanently replace previous Montebello police chief Dan Weast, who resigned under pressure in January 2010 after 13 officers with that department filed a lawsuit against Weast in 2009, accusing him of retaliation and cronyism. Narramore, who was chief of police in Huntington Park from 1995 until 2006, had supervised Rulon for eight years. Rulon was on the Huntington Park police force from 1986 until he left to become police chief in Colton in 2003. Narramore, who went on to a career in municipal administration after he retired as a law enforcement officer, served as Montebello’s interim city administrator from April 2007 to January 2008 and was brought back as Montebello’s interim city administrator in December 2009. A month later, following Weast’s departure, the Montebello city council saw fit to allow him to serve in the dual capacity of city administrator and police chief. But Narramore’s move to hire Rulon six months later proved disastrous. Rulon lasted only two days as police chief in Montebello before a firestorm of controversy erupted, based in large measure upon his forced exodus from Colton and the vote of no confidence by the police union there. Rulon was sent packing from Montebello 48 hours after he arrived, despite Narramore’s claim that Rulon was chosen from a field of 47 candidates by Bob Murray and Associates, a search firm hired to recruit for the position. Narramore then fell victim to his selection of Rulon and was forced to resign as interim city administrator for having engaged in cronyism for hiring his former underling.
While Colton’s lawyers are likely to point to the debacle in Montebello as evidence that other municipal officials see Rulon’s leadership credentials as questionable, Keeny is intent on portraying Rulon’s forced departure from there before he had an opportunity to demonstrate his proficiency as a police chief as an outgrowth of the damage that was done to Rulon’s reputation and professional standing in Colton. Rulon has not been successful in finding other work in law enforcement and now supports himself with work as a licensed private investigator.
Keeny maintains material in the possession of the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office will establish that Rulon submitted evidence to prosecutors indicating Parrish was attempting to bury details pertaining to Hernandez’s misappropriations. Ultimately, the case came to a conclusion in January 2008, when Hernandez pleaded guilty to 24 charges of misuse of public funds. Because Rulan reported the matter to the DA’s office, Keeny maintains, Parrish retaliated against him.
In the city’s defense, attorney John Higginbotham is prepared to show that Rulon’s contract clearly and unequivocally stated that he could be fired without cause at any time for any reason and that he served at the sole discretion of the city manager. Higginbotham is prepared to demonstrate the Colton Police Officers Association had expressed a clear and overwhelming lack of faith in Rulon’s ability to lead the department.
City officials made motions to have the case dismissed, but in October 2010 San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Frank Gafkowski ruled that Rulon’s claims of retaliation, defamation of character and intentional infliction of emotional distress should be heard by a jury.