Senator Diane Feinstein has gone on record as being opposed to the Twentynine Palms Band of Mission Indians’ proposal to establish a casino in Joshua Tree.

The Twentynine Palms Tribe’s members abandoned previous plans to develop what they hoped to call the Nüwü Casino on 160 acres of tribal land on their reservation south of Baseline Road and west of Adobe Road bordering Joshua Tree National Park in Twentynine Palms in favor of a 130-acre parcel on the north side of Twentynine Palms Highway west of White Feather Road east of downtown Joshua Tree and just east of Desert View Homes’ metal dinosaurs.

Both proposals called or call for a complex with spacious gaming rooms, a buffet, banquet room, shops, bowling lanes, an outdoor amphitheater, RV park, golf course and other resort-oriented improvements.

But the proximity of the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base and its 8,400 plus service members and dependents, which tribal officials considered a factor that would favor the casino’s success, incited strong resistance from the Department of Defense. When the National Park Service and Twentynine Palms residents registered their opposition, the tribe, led by Darrel Mike, substituted the Joshua Tree site, which is roughly 23 miles away from the reservation.

The 130-acres in Joshua Tree does not lie on what is recognized as the tribe’s ancestral land. To establish an Indian gaming facility there would require filing an application with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to place the land in a public trust. In getting that blessing, the tribe will need to transfer its right from its tribal property to the new site and make a case that the tribe had ancestral roots in the Joshua Tree area, where it had an historical relationship to the property in question by virtue of aboriginal activity, which included hunting, foraging and trading, in particular. This will likely entail an anthropological study to demonstrate the tribe’s ancestors ranged into Joshua Tree.

But even before that filing has been made, the Joshua Tree proposal has met local opposition. Far more Joshua Tree residents oppose the proposal than favor it. Among those opponents is Mark Butler, the superintendent at Joshua Tree National Park, and David Fick, a member of the Joshua Tree Municipal Advisory Council who is a member of the Morongo Basin Conservation Association and a political ally of San Bernardino County Third District Supervisor Neil Derry. Derry to is opposed to the casino locating in Joshua Tree.

That array of opponents was joined this month by the senior senator from California.

On November 10 Feinstein penned a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar registering her opposition to a proposed casino in Joshua Tree. “Placing a casino less than a mile from the (Joshua Tree National) park’s visitor center and park wilderness will forever change the nature of the desert treasure,” she told Salazar in the letter. Feinstein noted Butler’s opposition to the proposed casino being sited so close to the park. She said park officials had expressed concern a high intensity use such as a casino at that location “would impair the Park Service’s ability to preserve natural resources, cause significant noise and light pollution, obstruct scenic viewsheds and adversely impact the desert tortoise population within the park.”

Moreover, Feinstein in the letter to Salazar cited the overwhelming opposition to the casino by Joshua Tree residents, and she said their consensus included a “wide array of concerns about the impacts on regional tourism, crime, poverty, alcoholism and gambling addiction.”

Meanwhile, tribal leader Mike and the band’s chief financial officer, Steve Gralla, insist their proposal makes sense not just to the tribe but to the community as well.

They said local opposition will transform into support once the populace is given to understand the casino will bring in needed economic development to the area, improve and modernize infrastructure near downtown and provide the town with an attraction that will enhance its ambience. Moreover, they point out, the property is near other citified uses and developments and is not hamstrung by the presence of endangered species or flora, such as the desert tortoise.

Mike, Gralla and the tribe are promoting the proposed resort as having, “all the excitement of Las Vegas only minutes away.”

Many residents of the Twin Peaks community expressed wariness over the proposed sports and worship complex to be built by the Church of the Woods along Highway 18 in Rimforest.

Church of the Woods is proposing to clear forest land on the east side of Rim Forest west of Daley Canyon and to fill in the marsh that exists at the headwaters of Little Bear Creek to accommodate the development.

Some local residents and members of the Save our Forest Association object to the plan to remove 350,000 cubic yards of dirt from the area and to cover with soil the wetlands and natural spring, which feeds the blue line creek flowing into Lake Arrowhead.

A preview of the project, which is to be considered by the county planning commission next month, was provided to interested Twin Peaks and Rim Forest residents recently as the public input deadline for the environmental impact review of the project approaches.

Of concern is that the grading and leveling that will be done for the project, which includes filling in a natural depression in the forest will result in potential landslides and increased run-off downstream, together with erosion, flooding and debris saturation into Agua Fria and Blue Jay during rainstorms.

Historically, there has been difficulty with unstable slopes in Rimforest. Less than a quarter mile from the sports and worship complex site, a large scale landslide took out homes in 1993. One issue embraced by opponents of the project was inadequate focus on the impact to endangered species, such as the Southern Rubber Boa, in the environmental impact study. The environmental impact report calls for those matters to “be dealt with later.”

Flow of Little Bear Creek is subject to regulation by the Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Forest Service.

VICTORVILLE—Victorville Superior Court Judge Steve Malone this week turned back California Attorney General Kamala Harris’s effort to prevent Dr. Prem Reddy and his for-profit corporation, Prime Healthcare Services, from moving into a position that will facilitate an eventual takeover of the non-profit and now bankrupt Victor Valley Community Hospital.

For reasons that have not been entirely publicly specified, Harris has taken a stand against Reddy in his effort to acquire Victor Valley Community. Reddy’s Prime Healtcare Services Corporation is the largest operator of for-profit hospitals in Southern California.

Victor Valley Community has been on the financial rocks for some time and last year, staggering under more than $20 million in debt, the institution filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In the same time frame, the 101-bed hospital was put on the auction block, attracting two bidders: KPC Global Care and Reddy’s Prime Healthcare, which runs 14 acute care hospitals in California. KPC Global outbid Prime Healthcare in November 2010 with a $37 million offer at an auction. KPC obtained the state attorney general’s approval for the takeover, but then failed to finalize the acquisition and that deal fell apart. Subsequently, a federal bankruptcy court judge approved an agreement allowing the non-profit arm of Reddy’s for-profit venture, known as Prime Healthcare Service Foundation, to purchase the hospital for $35 million.

On September 20, however, the state attorney general’s office intervened, blocking Reddy, who is the owner and chairman of the board of Prime Healthcare, from absorbing Victor Valley Community into his portfolio. A major consideration was that Victor Valley Community was founded and set up as a non-profit institution. The attorney general’s office had moved to ensure that the High Desert preserve at least one non-profit hospital in an area with a multiplicity of for-profit medical centers, including one already owned by Reddy, Desert Valley Hospital.

“We have concluded that this proposed sale is not in the public interest and will likely create a significant effect on the availability or accessibility of health care services to the affected community,” acting chief deputy attorney general Michael Troncoso said in September.

Victor Valley Community Hospital’s status as a non-profit had seemingly doomed it to insolvency. Its financial outlook was damaged by excessive amounts of uncompensated care to uninsured and low income patients in recent years. According to the hospital’s recently departed CEO, Catherine Pelley, 70 percent of the hospital’s patients are on Medi-Cal, Medicare or charity care.

With Victor Valley Community teetering on the brink of financial collapse, Reddy on October 14, 2011 proffered $6 million in the form of loans and a consulting arrangement to prevent the hospital from having to close its doors. That assistance was codified in the form of what was called a “post-petition revolving credit and security agreement between Victor Valley Community Hospital as borrower and Prime Healthcare Management, Inc. as lender.”

Hospital officials have said Prime Healthcare’s offer is the only way Victor Valley Community Hospital [VVCH] can continue to operate.

Under the terms of the deal, both Reddy and Prime Healthcare are to provide what was referred to as “temporary” financing to keep the hospital up and running. That plan was given backing by a few federal healthcare regulatory agencies. And On October 20, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Catherine Bauer tentatively signed off on the arrangement.

A day earlier, on October 19, a letter was sent by the state attorney general’s office to Victor Valley Community Hospital’s legal counsel stating that the credit, security and consulting agreement was subject to approval by the attorney general’s office under California Corporations Code Section 5194 et sequitur. On October 19, the hospital’s legal counsel responded that the attorney general’s approval is not required.

According to a complaint for injunctive relief filed by the attorney general on October 28, “The consulting agreement transfers control of a material amount of the operations of VVCH to Prime Healthcare management. The loan agreement conveys and transfers a material amount of VVCH’s assets to Prime, Inc. Accordingly, both agreements are subject to approval by the attorney general. Defendants violated the Corporations Code sections 5914 and 5915 by failing to submit written notice and failing to get written consent of the attorney general prior to entering into this agreement. By entering into this loan agreement without the attorney general’s consent, VVCH will incur additional administrative costs by $6 million, thereby increasing the amount of cash necessary for other potential buyers to purchase VVCH. By increasing VVCH’s debt, the parties will be manipulating the market value of the hospital. The loan agreement also subjects VVCH to default. The loan agreement provides that if VVCH subsequently defaults on the loan agreement, all of Prime Inc.’s loan must be paid in full, in cash immediately.”

The attorney general’s office petitioned the court for “temporary, preliminary and permanent injunctive relief enjoining VVCH, its board members, officers, employees, agents, servants, representatives, successors, and assigns, any and all persons acting in concert or participation with it, and all other persons, corporations, or other entities acting, under, by, through or on its behalf from executing or otherwise entering into the postpetition revolving credit and security agreement between VVCH as borrower and Prime Healthcare Management, Inc., as lender, dated as of October 14, 2011; performing any acts under the postpetition revolving credit and security agreement, including, but not limited to, incurring any debt under that agreement; [and] executing or otherwise entering into the consulting services agreement between VVCH and Prime Healthcare Management, as consultant.”

Harris maintained that in representing Prime Healthcare as a consultant, both entities – Prime Healthcare and Victor Valley Community – were engaging in a ruse to avoid the oversight of the state attorney general’s office in a ploy that would ultimately result in the transference of control and ownership of the hospital to Prime Healthcare.

On November 23, Malone dismissed the attorney general’s assertions, ruling that Victor Valley Community had the autonomy to enlist Prime Healthcare as an independent contractor and that Victor Valley Community is still governed by an independent board of directors, which will have decision-making power over the future of the hospital.

The attorney general’s office has been less than fully explicit in explaining the reasons for opposing Prime Healthcare’s takeover bid for Victor Valley Community, asserting only that Reddy’s ownership of the hospital is “not in the public interest.” Harris has suggested without directly stating that Reddy has a monopolistic motive in seeking to acquire Victor Valley Community since he already controls Desert Valley Hospital. In conferences with her office’s attorneys, Harris has stated that Reddy’s domination of a given region’s medical facilities could deprive the indigent of health care options. In a brief, the attorney general noted Prime Healthcare’s propensity for canceling HMO contracts.

There has been some suggestion that Harris’s opposition to Reddy’s takeover effort is tainted by political considerations. Reddy’s for-profit corporation has had a bruising set of battles with nurses and other health care professionals over wage and benefit concessions. Harris was endorsed by a labor union that represents nurses in her election last year.

Among the contingent of lawyers from the state attorney general’s office was a lawyer for the Services Employees International Union (SEIU), which has represented health care workers in labor disputes with Prime Healthcare and which opposes Reddy’s takeover of Victor Valley Community. When that lawyer sought to go on the record to endorse the attorney general’s call for an injunction against Reddy and Prime Healthcare, Malone denied the request, ruling that the union does not have standing.

While Malone allowed Prime Healthcare to remain involved in the current operation of Victor Valley Community as a consultant and lender, the long term ownership of the facility remains an unresolved issue. KPC Global has now tendered an offer to purchase the hospital, reduced from $37 million to $31.1 million. Victor Valley Community has lodged a suit, asking the court to reduce the attorney general’s barrier to Prime Healthcare’s purchase offer of $35 million.

Malone scheduled the hospital’s lawyers and the representatives from the attorney general’s office to return to his courtroom on December 15 for further briefing of both sides’ positions.

The California Public Utilities Commission on November 10 approved Abengoa Solar’s power purchase agreement with Pacific Gas and Electric for the electricity to be produced at Abengoa’s Mojave Solar Project near Hinkley.

The Mojave Solar Project is a 280 megawatt gross parabolic trough plant. Construction on the project has begun and the solar field, near Harper Dry Lake, will come online in 2014. Abengoa received a conditional $1.2 billion federal loan from the Department of Energy in June,

The project had obtained all of its required construction and operating permits previously and ratifying the power purchase agreement was the final milestone the company, which is based in Spain, needed to achieve full financing to complete the project. The 1,765 acre project will provide power sufficient for as many as 80,000 households once it is completed.

ONTARIO – Ontario has elevated assistant fire chief/city fire marshall Floyd E. Clark to fire chief.

Clark, 53, reached the department’s top spot after 25 years with the department. On November 15, the city council officially signed off on his replacing Dave Carrier as chief. Carrier, who has filled the department’s top slot since February 2010, is retiring on December 23.

Clark was selected for the position by city manager Chris Hughes, who was himself fire chief before he was promoted to city manager when Greg Devereaux was hired by the county as its chief executive officer 22 months ago.

Clark will be the city’s first African American fire chief.

He has been a career firefighter, having started in the profession when he was 20 years old. He has served in every position within the department during the quarter of a century he has worked in Ontario.

Councilman Jim Bowman, himself a former Ontario fire chief, hailed Clark’s selection as a wise one that “will do the city well.”

Bowman said Clark is “well respected, knowledgeable and someone who can get the job done.”

Governor Jerry Brown appointed San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael A. Ramos to the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, a fifteen member group of city, state, educational and law enforcement officials who oversee law enforcement training guidelines.

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The board of trustees for the San Bernardino City Unified School District this week postponed until December 6 determining what protocol will be used in the hiring of a new superintendent. Former superintendent Arturo Delgado abruptly departed from the district in June to take up the position of superintendent of schools for Los Angeles County. Since then, he has been replaced on an interim basis by associate superintendent Mel Albiso, followed by journeyman school administrator Richard Bray and, since October, Yolanda Ortega, SBUSD’s assistant superintendent of employee relations.

On November 8, the district picked up three new board members and the current board, which has already had an unsuccessful go-round in trying to select a new superintendent, deferred a decision on the means of selecting a top district administrator until the three new board members, Mike Gallo, Sharon Perong and Margaret Hill, are in place.

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The county of San Bernardino and its department of agriculture have entered into an agreement with the State of California, Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to utilize pass-through federal funds to maintain two dog teams for pest infestation detection and prevention.

According to John G. Gardner, the county’s agricultural commissioner, the county will use $371,300 in federal money to be applied retroactively to July 1, 2011 for the continuation of services and funding first authorized in 2006, which, he said “consist of two dog teams to conduct surveillance inspections at parcel sectional centers to detect the presence of any unwanted pests found in unmarked parcels entering the State of California, a violation of law. Once a pest or plant is located within a package, the plants are inspected and if pests or disease symptoms are observed, the samples/specimens are submitted to the CDFA Plant Pest Diagnostic Laboratory for identification. So far, canines have been utilized with great success to detect plant materials from within unmarked agricultural parcels.”

For several years the Boy Scouts of America have teamed up with the San Bernardino Salvation Army Corps to help feed the hungry. On Saturday November 7, 124 Scouts and 63 scout leaders put in over 400 volunteer hours in front of nine Stater Bros. Markets; where they asked customers to help out with a list of food items. Those that could give were pleased to do so. Bob Garza from San Bernardino was one of those giving people. Bob said that “he was in a position to help out and that not everyone was.”

Major Steve Ball of the San Bernardino Salvation Army Corps said that “the timing of this food drive is perfect, supplying additional food for our holiday programs.” About 7000 pounds of food were collected. Enough to provide food boxes for 350 families. In these past few years, the “Scouting for Food” program had made a significant difference in the amount of food that was provided for those in need.

At the Stater Bros. Market on 40th St. in San Bernardino, Austin Fields of Troop 114 handed out a list showing desired nonperishable items. The items on the shopping list included: green beans, corn/vegetables, peaches, cranberries/fruit, beans and rice (1 lbs. bags), soups and stews, and pumpkin pie filling.

Scouting for Food kicks off the holiday season for the Salvation Army. Starting around Thanksgiving, the Salvation Bell Ringers will be out in front of many stores with the traditional Salvation Army kettles. Funds from these kettles go towards this year’s Christmas programs. The cooks at the Salvation Army Corps kitchens are starting preparation of the two major holiday meals served on Thanksgiving and Christmas days. A list of volunteers is being created to keep track of those who wish to volunteer this season. On a side note, it should be known that the San Bernardino Salvation Army Corps provides meals 360 days a year, not only to those in the shelter, but to anyone that shows up during dinner time.

There are several volunteer opportunities available including bell ringers, giving tree program, toy & food distribution, food preparation, and food service.

If you or your organization (i.e. church, school, social club, workplace, etc.) wish to donate goods, money, time, or if you are in need of assistance; contact the San Bernardino Salvation Army Corps located at 746 W. Fifth St., San Bernardino, CA or call 909-881-1336.

The county this week doubled from $1.5 million to $3 million its contract with Norco-based D. Burke Mechanical Corporation for the provision of mechanical contracting services at county facilities.

On March 1, 2011 the board of supervisors awarded three individual one year job order contracts for general construction services, paint and carpet services, and mechanical services.

Thirty-seven projects have been issued to contractors thus far under the 2011 job order contracts. Eighteen of the projects were issued to the mechanical contractor, D. Burke Mechanical Corporation, for a total value of approximately $1.3 million spent under that contract to date.

With the mechanical services contract nearing its available limit, several yet outstanding mechanical jobs could be delayed if an increase of the contract allowance for D. Burke is not made.

According to Carl R. Alban, the county’s director of architecture and engineering, much of that work involves improvements mandated on the county by the Air Quality Management District (AQMD).

“AQMD has mandated several boiler retro-fit projects which could be delayed, even though they are approved and funded either through the capital improvements project budget, incentive funds available from the AQMD, or the county’s Energy Efficiency Partnership Program,” Alban said. “The delay in completing these projects could result in the AQMD issuing noncompliance notices or fines to the county.”

Alban told the board before its November 15 vote that “Approval of this item will increase the not-to-exceed maximum mechanical job order contract amount to $3,000,000, enabling the current mechanical services contractor to complete several important projects mandated by Air Quality Management District Rule 1146. This rule requires the reduction of nitrogen dioxide emissions and applies to two boilers at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga and one boiler at the Government Center Central Plant in San Bernardino.”

Measure F, the parcel tax initiative sponsored by the county fire union that would have imposed a $100 per year parcel tax on property in Hesperia, was overwhelmingly defeated in the balloting on November 8.

Hesperia residents voted more than four-to-one against the measure, with 81 percent against it and 19 percent in favor. Because the money to be generated by the tax was to be restricted to specific uses, it required a two thirds majority to pass.

Proponents of Measure F said the money would be used to maintain service levels, particularly paramedic coverage, functioning from the city’s fire engines.

In the aftermath of the measure’s failure, Hesperia mayor Mike Leonard, a former firefighter with the city before the department was merged with the county and later a firefighter with the county before he retired, said firefighting and safety service in Hesperia would now suffer.

“We’re going to have a meeting with the chief and see what he suggests,” Leonard said of the city council. “We want to see what the fire department suggests that we can do. I don’t know if we will discuss it publicly or in closed session. It will probably come during our meeting next month. I want to wait to see what they might have to suggest, but one way or the other what it is going to come down to is eliminating nine positions. It could be one guy off each engine or shutting down a station and parking one fire engine. There could be other things they have in mind, but I don’t know what.

“Either way you go, there is a safety issue,” Leonard continued. “If we cut engines, there will be a longer response time to at least some parts of the city and if you reduce firefighters on the trucks, there will be an equal concern about firefighter safety.”

Leonard defended the effort to seek passage of a measure that was dedicated to providing funding for the fire department instead of seeking an extension of a recently discontinued half cent sales tax override, the money from which could have been distributed by the council as it saw fit. That measure could have been passed on a simple majority of fifty percent plus one vote.

“If we would have put the sales tax on the ballot and it passed, that money would have gone into the city’s general fund. This council would have used it for public safety, but two or four years from now the council could change and a new council could spend that revenue anyway they want to. I know that when we said the money would go for public safety we had to get two thirds. But if we did it differently, there is no guarantee in further years that the money would be used for public safety. If new members were voted onto the council and they wanted to use that money for roads, then it would be sent over for roads and we would be where we are now, having to lay off firefighters. There would have been no guarantee.”

Leonard said the public sentiment had changed to the point where citizens are not cooperating with city officials.

“I don’t know what the problem is,” Leonard said. “People don’t trust government anymore. I don’t know where we are going to go from here. There are for sure going to be cuts and it will be up to the county fire chief and his staff to make safety suggestions and the council will act on one of them. That’s life. It is what it is.”

Al Vogler, the husband of former mayor and councilwoman Rita Vogler, was a major advocate against the parcel tax.

He called the measure “deceptive,” saying that it was designed to increase the pay for firefighters rather than to enhance safety.

“Had the tax passed, it would have meant an approximate $100 per year new tax to all Hesperia property owners,” Vogler said. “When the tax was originally proposed by the Hesperia city council, taxpayers were led to believe that the measure would be for $5.5 million. Instead, when the measure was written, it morphed into a $13.6 million deception. Three members of the Hesperia city council voted to place the measure on the ballot at a cost of over $150,000. All three are firefighter union-backed politicians and two of them signed a “no new taxes” pledge in 2010. It didn’t take long for the pledge to be violated and voters quickly realized that it was the “no new taxes” council members who were pushing for passage of the measure.”

Vogler criticized the firefighters union president, Brett Henry, for statements in mailers to Hesperia residents to the effect that 1,500 Hesperians had recently been evacuated during a fire. “This event never happened but was rather a scare tactic by the union,” Vogler asserted.

Moreover, Vogler claimed, the failure of Measure F is a harbinger of political change.

“The Measure F campaign result sent a shock wave to the status quo arrangement between the fire union and the county board of supervisors,” Vogler said. “The union has for years financed political campaigns for candidates who, should they win the election, were then expected to vote favorably for items which benefitted the fire union and their employees. We believe that candidates for election in 2012 have already been selected by the union. However, when the union gives campaign funding to candidates who are already in disfavor with the voters, the backlash from the pro-Measure F campaign will result in an election loss for some of the candidates.”