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COLONIES CORRUPTION TRIAL: OpeningArguments This Weekin News, Ticker / by Michael P. Neufeld / on January 3, 2017 at 12:05 am /

Opening arguments of the Colonies corruption trial involving former Second DistrictSupervisor Paul Biane and three others is set to begin this week at the San Bernardino JusticeCenter. (File Photo)

By G. T. Houts

<< TOP STORIES >> COLONIES CORRUPTION TRIAL: Opening Arguments This Week

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San Bernardino, CA – A jury of six men and six women will hear opening arguments this week in the Coloniescorruption trial involving four individuals including former Second District Supervisor Paul Biane.

The case involves Biane (a former county supervisor who represented a portion of themountain communities), Rancho Cucamonga developer Jeffrey Scott Burum’s investment group (ColoniesPartners LP), Mark Allen Kirk (former chief of staff to Supervisor Gary Ovitt) and James Howard Erwin(former San Bernardino County Assistant Assessor).

The four were charged in May 2011 with numerous felonies, including bribery, tax evasion, criminalconspiracy, and other corruption­related charges having to do with a controversial $102 million settlementbetween San Bernardino County and Colonies Partners LP, Burum’s Upland­based real estate investment group.

The settlement involved flood control improvements on 434 acres of land located in Upland and was approvedby a 3­2 vote with Postmus, Biane and Gary Ovitt voting yes and supervisors Dennis Hansberger and JosieGonzales voting no.

Not guilty pleas have been entered by all four defendants who have seen numerous counts dismissed during alengthy appeals process.

THE TRIAL

The Justice Center in San Bernardino. (Photoby ROTWNEWS.com)

Judge Michael A. Smith will preside over the trial for Biane, Burum and Kirk that reconvenes at 9 a.m. onThursday, January 5 in Department S­21 and is expected to last about six months or more.

Erwin’s trial is being heard by a separate jury of nine women and three men and it convenes at 9 a.m. onWednesday, January 4.

BILL POSTMUS

Bill Postmus (ContributedPhoto)

In March 2011, former Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Postmus entered a guilty plea to 10 felonies inconnection with the Colonies case and a companion corruption case in which he was charged with abusing hiselected office for political gain during his brief tenure as County Assessor (January 8, 2007­February 6, 2009).

As part of his plea bargain, Postmus admitted to taking a $100,000 bribe from Burum in exchange for his yesvote in November 2006 that resulted in the settlement.

During the Colonies trial, Postmus has agreed to testify against Biane and the other defendants in exchange forleniency in his own case.

Also scheduled to testify is former Assistant Assessor Adam Aleman who provided information to the DistrictAttorney’s office that led to the eventual indictment of Biane, Burum, Kirk and Erwin.

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San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

A look at the Colonies corruption case through the years in San Bernardino County

By staff reports

Saturday, December 31, 2016

A long­awaited public corruption trial involving three former top SanBernardino County officials and a Rancho Cucamonga developerbegins Wednesday in San Bernardino Superior Court.

Read more about the trial here: When the San Bernardino County’sColonies corruption trial will finally begin

Here’s a look at the history of the Colonies case and the many twistsand turns it has taken over the years:

1999

• Colonies Partners LP and San Bernardino County Flood Control District negotiate an agreement that Colonieswould design, build, and convey the district title to Basin B, a 5.4­acre regional flood­control basin in exchangefor the district’s release of easements to the first phase of the Colonies’ construction. The agreement furtherstates that the Colonies is to design Basin A, which became a 67­acre basin on Colonies’ property and thesubject of later litigation, and that the parties would later enter into “mutually acceptable agreements”concerning “the overall disposition of flood waters in The Colonies.”

2002

• The 210 Freeway extension is completed. It necessitated construction of a storm drain on 20th Street and a 5­mile concrete channel to withstand a 100­year flood.

• Colonies Partners LP sues San Bernardino County after the county rejects Colonies’ request for $25 million topay for flood­control improvements on county easements at Colonies’ 434­acre residential and commercialdevelopment in Upland, Colonies at San Antonio and Colonies Crossroads, respectively. The lawsuit claimedthat the county’s flood control easements did not permit the county to direct at least 80 million gallons of waterper hour from the 20th Street storm drain onto Colonies’ property.

2003

• Superior Court Judge Peter H. Norell rules against the county in the Colonies lawsuit, finding that the countyhad abandoned its easements because it failed to maintain them in a usable condition from the 1980s onward.The county appeals the decision.

2004

• The county files a new complaint against Colonies for breach of contract relating to the 1999 agreement.Colonies files a counter claim, alleging that the discharge of water and contaminants from the 20th Street storm

drain onto their property was an unconstitutional taking of its land, requiring Colonies to build a storm basin toaccommodate the flow. Colonies sought reimbursement from the county for building the basin andcompensation for the land it claimed the county had taken.

• The county sues Upland, Caltrans and San Bernardino Associated Governments, arguing they were alsoresponsible for the damages to Colonies’ property because those agencies designed and built the 20th Streetstorm drain, which diverted floodwater and contaminants onto Colonies’ property.

• In March and April, the county and Colonies representatives meet for settlement negotiations but are unable toreach a final deal.

2005

• An appellate court panel reverses Norell’s ruling on the Colonies’ first lawsuit, finding that the county’seasements had not been abandoned but were limited and may not have encompassed the storm basin Coloniesbuilt. The case is sent back to determine the extent of the easements, and whether they included the land neededto build the storm basin.

2006

• February to April: The Colonies and the county engage in settlement negotiations with mediator andformer California Supreme Court Justice Edward Panelli. Though four of the five members of the Boardof Supervisors favor a provisional settlement of approximately $78 million, the parties cannot agree onthe details and proceed to trial.

• May to June: Colonies and the county re­try the matter before Superior Court Judge ChristopherWarner, who urges the parties to settle.

• July 31: Judge Warner rules that while the county did not abandon its easements, the newly built 20thStreet storm drain overburdened the easements, and they were therefore extinguished as a result.

• Nov. 28: The Board of Supervisors approves a $102 million settlement with Colonies. Supervisors BillPostmus, Paul Biane, and Gary Ovitt vote to approve the settlement. Supervisors Josie Gonzales andDennis Hansberger vote against it.

2007

• January: Postmus assumes office as county assessor after being elected the prior November. He hires JimErwin, former president of the county’s Safety Employees Benefit Association (now the Sheriff’s Employees’Benefit Association), as assistant assessor.

• January to March: The Board of Supervisors unanimously votes to approve filing a validation judgment tohave an independent court review the Nov. 28, 2006, settlement agreement. Judge W. Robert Fawke approvesthe validation judgment and finds the settlement valid and legal.

• Nov. 6: Erwin quits his job in the Assessor’s Office and is awarded six months’ severance pay.

2008

• April 10: District Attorney’s Office investigators raid Postmus’ office, confiscating computers of top staffers.Investigators said they are looking into Postmus’ hiring practices and whether political operations had been runout of the Assessor’s Office.

• April 17: Postmus places Assistant Assessor Adam Aleman on administrative leave.

• June 30: Aleman is arrested and charged with six felonies of preparing false evidence, destruction of publicrecords and vandalism related to information sought by the county’s Grand Jury in its probe of allegedcorruption at the Assessor’s Office.

• July 30: Aleman pleads not guilty to six felony counts involving the destruction of evidence, altering ofdocuments sought by the grand jury and vandalism.

• Nov. 4: The Board of Supervisors censures Postmus for his reported methamphetamine abuse andmismanagement of the Assessor’s Office.

2009

• Jan. 15: Postmus is arrested when investigators find methamphetamine in his house while serving searchwarrants related to their investigation into malfeasance in the Assessor’s Office. Then Board of SupervisorsChairman Gary Ovitt calls a meeting of the board to discuss taking action to remove Postmus from his assessorposition.

• Feb. 6: Postmus announces he will resign effective Feb. 13.

• March 19: Erwin is arrested and charged with perjury for failing to disclose gifts received from ColoniesPartners LP, including a ritzy trip to New York and Washington, D.C., and a Rolex watch in return for hisservices as a consultant for Colonies during settlement negotiations.

• March 23: Erwin resigns from his post as chief of staff for San Bernardino County Supervisor Neil Derry,whom Erwin helped get elected.

• May 27: Rancho Cucamonga Councilman Rex Gutierrez is arrested on suspicion of misappropriation of publicfunds and grand theft. Prosecutors contend he was hired by Postmus as intergovernmental affairs officer in theAssessor’s Office as a political favor to Colonies co­managing partner Jeff Burum in return for his support forBurum’s projects in Rancho Cucamonga.

• June 30: Aleman pleads no contest to felony charges of destruction of public property, filing a false claim to apublic officer and vandalism, agreeing to cooperate with investigators in return for reduced charges later.

• July 24: The District Attorney’s Office announces it is investigating alleged corruption related to the Colonies’settlement in 2006.

2010

• Feb. 10: Postmus and Erwin are arrested and charged with conspiracy to illegally obtain $102 million in theNovember 2006 Colonies settlement.

• June 30: A hung jury results in a mistrial in the case against Gutierrez. Prosecutors later refile their case,adding a conspiracy charge.

• Oct. 27: A jury convicts Gutierrez of grand theft, fraud and conspiracy. He is later sentenced to two years,eight months in prison. He subsequently resigns from his seat on the Rancho Cucamonga City Council.

2011

• March 28: Postmus pleads guilty to 10 felonies in connection with the Colonies corruption case and thecompanion Assessor’s Office corruption case. He agrees to testify against other targeted defendants in the

Colonies case in exchange for leniency.

• Read more by clicking here to see the indictment filed May 5, 2011.

• May 10: New charges are filed in the ongoing probe of corruption related to the county’s $102 millionsettlement in 2006 with Colonies. A 29­count indictment from the Grand Jury was filed against Burum, Biane,Erwin and Mark Kirk, the former chief of staff for former San Bernardino County Supervisor Gary Ovitt. Thecharges include conspiracy, bribery, conflict of interest, misappropriation of public funds, forgery and perjury.

• August: San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Brian McCarville dismisses five of the seven felony chargesagainst Burum after defense attorneys filed motions challenging the prosecution’s evidence in the case.McCarville also dismissed one felony count of misappropriation of public funds for each of the other threedefendants.

• October: Prosecutors appeal McCarville’s ruling to the Fourth District Court of Appeals in Riverside.

2012

• February to March: Two taxpayer groups file a civil action against the county and its flood­control districtseeking to void the November 2006 settlement agreement and force Colonies to repay the $102 million insettlement proceeds. Colonies files an objection with the court, arguing that the lawsuit should be dismissed fora number of reasons, including a lack of standing to bring the claims and because the claims were conclusivelybarred by the settlement’s validation by Judge Fawke in 2007.

• Oct. 31: The Fourth District Court of Appeals rejects the prosecution’s appeal to reinstate the dismissedcharges against Burum, but does reinstate the dismissed charges of misappropriation of public funds against theother three defendants. The appellate court also ruled that McCarville erred when he refused to dismiss aconflict­of­interest charge against Erwin and Burum and two charges against Erwin alleging that he aided andabetted Biane in committing bribery.

• Dec. 10: Prosecutors petition the California Supreme Court to reinstate bribery charges against Burum.

2013

• January to February: Colonies’ objection to the taxpayer groups’ lawsuit is overruled. Colonies appeals thejudge’s ruling.

• Nov. 5: California Supreme Court hears oral arguments from prosecution and the defense to determine whetherbribery charges against Burum will be reinstated or not.

• Dec. 23: California Supreme Court rules that Burum can in fact be tried on charges of aiding and abetting inthe receipt of bribes, and also reversed the Fourth District Court of Appeals ruling affirming the dismissal of twobribery charges against Erwin.

2014

• July 23: San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Michael A. Smith dismisses a key charge of criminal conspiracyagainst all four defendants, saying the charges are time­barred by a three­year statute of limitations.

• September: Prosecutors appeal Smith’s decision to the Fourth District Court of Appeals.

• October: Fourth District Court of Appeals affirms Smith’s dismissal of conspiracy charge against the fourdefendants, agreeing it was time­barred by the statute of limitations. Prosecutors subsequently petition the stateSupreme Court to reconsider.

2015

• August: The Fourth District Court of Appeals in Riverside rules in favor of Colonies in the taxpayer groups’civil action, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing and that the 2007 court validation of the Coloniessettlement “forever” and “conclusively” barred any challenges to the settlement agreement. The CaliforniaSupreme Court denies the plaintiffs’ petition to review the case, conclusively ending the litigation.

2016

• January: California Supreme Court denies petition by prosecutors to reconsider dismissal of conspiracy chargeagainst the four defendants.

• Sept. 9: After years of legal wrangling and numerous motions and petitions being filed in trial and appellatecourts in San Bernardino, Riverside, Sacramento and Pasadena, attorneys on both sides inform Judge Smith theyare ready for trial. Opening statements are scheduled for Jan. 4.

• Oct. 17: Jury selection begins, with hundreds of potential jurors arriving in court to be selected for two juries,one for Erwin and another for the other three defendants.

• Dec. 20: Jury selection ends, with nine women and three men comprising Erwin’s jury and six men and sixwomen comprising the jury for the other three defendants.

URL: http://www.sbsun.com/general­news/20161231/a­look­at­the­colonies­corruption­case­through­the­years­in­san­bernardino­county

© 2017 San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

Here’s when the San Bernardino County’s Colonies corruption trial will finally begin

RC developer, 3 ex­public officials face felony charges

By Joe Nelson, The Sun

Saturday, December 31, 2016

It began nearly 15 years ago as a complex land rights lawsuit againstSan Bernardino County and over the course of a decade grew intowhat prosecutors have called the biggest public corruption scandal incounty history.

Like in the civil lawsuit filed in 2002, lawyers on both sides have beenbattling it out in court for years in the criminal case, where appeals

have been heard by the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Riverside, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal inPasadena and the state Supreme Court.

And now, with all appeals exhausted, the Colonies corruption case is proceeding to trial on Wednesday.

• Timeline: A look at the Colonies corruption case through the years in San Bernardino County

“For seven years, these false allegations have hung over the heads of four innocent men,” defense attorneyStephen G. Larson, representing defendant Jeff Burum, said in a statement Friday. “From the start thisprosecution has been unjustified and meritless. We look forward to finally having the chance to go to trial andprove it.”

Burum, a Rancho Cucamonga developer and co­managing partner of Upland­based real estate investor groupColonies Partners LP, stands accused of paying $400,000 in bribes to four former top county officials inexchange for approving or facilitating a controversial $102 million settlement in November 2006 between thecounty and Colonies Partners, in Colonies’ favor.

The settlement ended a nearly 5­year­old lawsuit over flood­control improvements at Colonies’ 434­acreresidential and commercial development in Upland, Colonies at San Antonio and Colonies Crossroads,respectively.

A grand jury indicted Burum and the other three defendants — former county Supervisor Paul Biane, formerAssistant Assessor Jim Erwin and Mark Kirk, former chief of staff for erstwhile county Supervisor Gary Ovitt— in May 2011. The three are accused of several felonies in connection with the alleged bribery and allegedmisappropriation of public funds.

All four defendants deny any wrongdoing.

Former Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Postmus, initially a targeted defendant in the case, pleaded guilty inMarch 2011, per a plea bargain with prosecutors, to 10 felonies in connection with the Colonies case and acompanion corruption case in which he was charged with abusing his elected office of county assessor forpolitical gain. He admitted to taking a $100,000 bribe from Burum in exchange for his vote approving thesettlement, and has agreed to testify against the defendants at trial in exchange for leniency.

• The Defendants: These are the key players in the Colonies corruption case

During a lengthy appeals process, some of the charges against the defendants were thrown out, including a keyconspiracy charge that was dismissed by San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Michael A. Smith, who ispresiding over the trial, in July 2014. Prosecutors petitioned the state Supreme Court to reconsider the dismissalof the charge, but the state’s highest court denied the petition in January.

Prosecutors have remained tight­lipped about the case, choosing not to discuss ongoing case developments orstrategies with the media while the matter is still pending adjudication.

“We have maintained all along that it would be inappropriate to comment to protect the integrity of the case aswell as the rights of the accused,” district attorney spokesman Christopher Lee said in a statement Friday.

Erwin will have a separate jury, composed of nine women and three men, because prosecutors assert that muchof what he told friends, colleagues and reporters is inadmissable against the other defendants. The other threedefendants will have their own jury, composed of six women and six men.

Opening statements for Erwin will begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday, and opening statements for the other threedefendants will begin Thursday.

“We’re thrilled that we get this opportunity to present our case to a jury,” Erwin’s attorney, Rajan Maline, saidFriday in a telephone interview. “Once the jury hears the evidence, everyone is going to be vindicated. They’reall innocent.”

He said because a grand jury indicted the defendants, bypassing a preliminary hearing, the defense wasprecluded from having the opportunity to cross­examine the prosecution’s witnesses.

Since the indictment, the defense has been able to get a dozen charges dismissed in the pretrial process, Malinesaid.

“We were able to knock out at least 12 of the original 29 counts,” he said, adding, “our opening statement willlay out what we think the evidence will show, and it will be an eye­opener for many people.”

The prosecution team, attorneys from the San Bernardino District Attorney’s and the state Attorney General’soffices, plans to call 38 law enforcement witnesses at the state and federal level and more than 100 civilianwitnesses including Postmus and former Assistant Assessor Adam Aleman, Postmus’ former right hand andanother key witness who produced information to prosecutors leading to the indictment.

Aleman was a central figure in the Assessor’s Office scandal of 2008, and also worked for Postmus when he wasa county supervisor. Arrested in June 2008, Aleman pleaded no contest in June 2009 to two felony counts oftheft, destruction, alteration, or falsification of a public document, one felony count of presenting a false claim toa public board or officer, and one felony count of vandalism in connection with crimes that occurred at theAssessor’s Office during Postmus’ reign.

Aleman agreed to testify against other defendants in the Assessor’s Office criminal case in exchange for hischarges being reduced to misdemeanors.

While cooperating with authorities in the Assessor’s Office case, Aleman, in November 2008, came forwardwith information about the Colonies case, which culminated in a criminal investigation that led to the May 11indictment.

Aleman has also agreed to testify against the defendants in the Colonies case.

From the outset, the defense has characterized Postmus, an admitted methamphetamine addict, and Aleman,who came forward with the information on Colonies after he was charged with crimes, as weak and unreliablewitnesses.

Among other witnesses prosecutors are calling to the stand include San Bernardino County Supervisors JosieGonzales and Curt Hagman, former County Counsel Ruth Stringer, and eight current and former journalistsfrom this news organization who reported on the case over the years and are fighting to quash their subpoenas ina motion filed with the court, which will be heard on Wednesday.

The defense has its share of top county officials it plans to call to the witness stand as well. Among the 82witnesses, Larson plans to call are county Supervisor Josie Gonzales and former county supervisors DennisHansberger and Gary Ovitt.

Ovitt, along with Postmus and Biane, voted to approve the Colonies’ settlement in 2006, while Gonzales andHansberger voted against the settlement. Ovitt has not been implicated in the criminal case, but Kirk is accusedof persuading Ovitt to vote in favor of the settlement, an allegation both Kirk and Ovitt deny.

Larson also plans to call as a witness retired San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Christopher Warner, one ofthe judges who presided over the Colonies civil litigation against the county, and former County AdministrativeOfficer Mark Uffer.

Among the 25 witnesses Maline plans to call to testify are District Attorney Michael A. Ramos, his spokesman,Lee, county CEO Greg Devereaux, former county Sheriff Gary Penrod, and former San Bernardino MayorJudith Valles.

On Thursday, prosecutors filed a motion with the court to quash the subpoenas of Ramos and Lee, to keep themfrom having to testify at Erwin’s trial.

Maline declined to comment Friday on the motion, which will be heard Wednesday.

County spokesman David Wert said in an email Friday that the county officials called to testify during the trial,expected to last a minimum of six months, should not disrupt county business and operations.

URL: http://www.sbsun.com/general­news/20161231/heres­when­the­san­bernardino­countys­colonies­corruption­trial­will­finally­begin

© 2017 San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

These are the key players in the Colonies corruption case

By staff reports

Saturday, December 31, 2016

After a nearly three­year investigation by attorneys and investigatorswith the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s and state AttorneyGeneral’s offices, a Grand Jury in May 2011 indicted RanchoCucamonga developer Jeff Burum and three former county officials— former Supervisor Paul Biane, former Assistant Assessor JimErwin, and Mark Kirk, former chief of staff for erstwhile countySupervisor Gary Ovitt — in connection with a controversial $102million settlement between the county and Burum’s real estateinvestor group, Colonies Partners LP.

• Related story: Here’s when the San Bernardino County’s Coloniescorruption trial will finally begin

The November 2006 settlement ended nearly five years of heatedlegal battle over who was responsible for flood­control improvements

at the Colonies’ 434­acre commercial­residential development in Upland, Colonies Crossroads and Colonies atSan Antonio, respectively.

Prosecutors allege Burum paid a total of $400,000 in bribes to the three defendants and former Board ofSupervisors Chairman Bill Postmus, who in March 2011 pleaded guilty, as part of a plea agreement, to 10felonies in connection to the Colonies case and a companion corruption case in which he was accused of abusinghis power as county assessor to bolster his political career. Postmus admitted to accepting a $100,000 bribe fromBurum in exchange for his vote approving the settlement. He has agreed to testify against the four defendants attrial in exchange for leniency.

• Timeline: A look at the Colonies corruption case through the years in San Bernardino County

Prosecutors allege the bribes were disguised as contributions by Colonies Partners to political action committeessecretly controlled by the defendants or members of their staffs.

Here’s a brief history and look at each of the defendants:

JEFF BURUM

Charged with four felony counts of aiding and abetting the receipt of bribes and one felony count of aiding andabetting in the misappropriation of public funds.

——

A Rancho Cucamonga resident and graduate of Claremont Men’s College, now Claremont McKenna College,Burum developed a national reputation as an expert in affordable housing. He has also built thousands of luxuryhomes across San Bernardino County.

In 1990, Burum founded Diversified Pacific Development Corp. in Rancho Cucamonga, followed by thenonprofit Southern California Housing Development Corp. in 1991. In 2005, the nonprofit switched its name toNational Community Renaissance, or National CORE.

In 1996, Burum founded Hope Through Housing, an organization providing programs and day care and jobtraining for adults. A year later, in 1997, Burum co­founded Colonies Partners LP with the goal of building aresidential and commercial development adjacent to the 210 Freeway in Upland, a project that would becomeColonies at San Antonio and Colonies Crossroads, respectively. On behalf of Colonies Partners, Burum sued thecounty in March 2002 after he and county officials reached an impasse over who was responsible for paying forflood­control improvements at the Colonies’ development.

PAUL BIANE

Charged with two felony counts of receiving a bribe, one felony count of conflict of interest and one felonycount of misappropriation of public funds.

——

Biane is the former 2nd District San Bernardino County supervisor. He received his bachelor’s degree inbusiness administration from the University of San Diego in 1987, then embarked on a career in real estate. Heentered the world of politics in 1994, when he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Rancho Cucamonga CityCouncil. He was subsequently elected to the council in 1996, and served until 2002, when he was elected to theBoard of Supervisors. He served eight years on the Board of Supervisors before being defeated in 2010 byJanice Rutherford in the wake of the corruption scandal.

JIM ERWIN

Charged with 12 felonies including: Four counts of aiding and abetting the receipt of a bribe, one count ofmisappropriation of public funds, one count of forgery, one count of failing to file a tax return, three counts ofperjury and two counts of filing false or forged documents.

——

A former San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy and former president of the San Bernardino County SafetyEmployees Benefit Association, which is now called the Sheriff’s Employees’ Benefit Association, Erwin beganhis career with the Sheriff’s Department in 1990. He served as president of SEBA from 1997 to 2005, and wasbriefly the union’s chief of administration until he was appointed assistant assessor by newly elected AssessorBill Postmus in 2007.

In 2008, Erwin headed former San Bernardino Councilman Neil Derry’s successful campaign for 3rd Districtcounty supervisor. Derry subsequently hired Erwin as his chief of staff in December 2008.

Erwin’s arrest in March 2009 on suspicion of failing to report a $15,000 Rolex watch Burum bought him for hiswork on the Colonies case led to Erwin’s resignation as Derry’s chief of staff.

MARK KIRK

Charged with four felonies including one count of receiving a bribe, one count of improper influence of a publicofficial, one count of conflict of interest and one count of aiding and abetting the misappropriation of publicfunds.

——

Kirk began his career with the county as Supervisor Gary Ovitt’s chief of staff upon Ovitt’s election to the Boardof Supervisors in 2004. In June 2010, the board, as part of a restructuring and cost savings process, approved anew unit, the Office of Legislative Affairs, to be run by the County Administrator’s Office. Kirk was appointeddirector of governmental relations for that office. Prior to his work with the county, Kirk worked as districtdirector for former Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, R­Lancaster, and prior to that taught math and science atPinon Mesa Middle School in Phelan and at Victor Valley Junior High in Victorville.

URL: http://www.sbsun.com/general­news/20161231/these­are­the­key­players­in­the­colonies­corruption­case

© 2017 San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

Journalists to fight call to testify in Colonies corruption case

By Richard K. De Atley, The Press­Enterprise

Friday, December 30, 2016

Eight journalists who covered the Colonies corruption case in San Bernardino County will fight prosecutionsubpoenas to testify in the upcoming trial, claiming protection by a state shield law that preserves the integrity ofnewsgathering.

A hearing to quash the subpoenas or at least limit what the reporters can be asked on the witness stand isscheduled before San Bernardino County Judge Michael A. Smith on Jan. 4, the same day the trial is set tobegin.

The subpoenas are “an extraordinary move that stands to weaken press freedoms by converting the resources ofthe press into an arm of the state government — thereby creating a chilling effect on future newsgathering,” themotion states.

The attorney representing the reporters said the prosecution has said it wants to “elicit only publishedinformation from the journalists,” but has declined to be specific about what that information is.

Rancho Cucamonga developer Jeff Burum stands accused of bribing four former top county officials more thana decade ago to settle a nearly five­year­old lawsuit he filed against the county in 2002.

Burum and three other defendants — former county Supervisor Paul Biane, former Assistant Assessor JimErwin, and Mark Kirk, who was chief of staff for former county Supervisor Gary Ovitt — admit no wrongdoingand maintain their innocence.

Burum is accused of paying a total of $400,000 in bribes to former Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Postmusand the other three defendants to facilitate the $102 million settlement in November 2006 between Burum’sUpland investor group, Colonies Partners, and the county.

In March 2011, Postmus pleaded guilty to 10 felonies in connection with the Colonies case and a companioncorruption case in which he was accused of malfeasance while serving as county assessor in 2007 and 2008. Heagreed in his plea deal with prosecutors to testify against the other defendants in exchange for leniency.

The motion to quash the subpoenas claims the California Shield Law for journalists offers absolute immunity“from contempt for revealing unpublished information obtained in the newsgathering process.”

The motion also says the reporters are protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First and 14th amendments.

The shield law’s definition of unpublished information is broad, and can only be overcome by defendantsproving their federal constitutional rights to a fair trial would be impaired without the reporters’ testimony, themotion said.

Unless the prosecution identifies “specifically what information it seeks to introduce through the journalists, itcannot satisfy its burden of showing that the information is highly relevant to the case or that the information isunavailable from alternative sources,” attorney Duffy Carolan wrote in her motion.

The subpoenaed journalists are Southern California News Group Executive Editor Frank Pine, former SanBernardino Sun reporter Jeffrey Horwitz, and current San Bernardino Sun reporter Joe Nelson; Press­Enterprisereporters Imran Ghori and Mark Muckenfuss and former Press­Enterprise reporters Sharon McNary and CassieMacDuff; and former Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reporter Mason Stockstill.

URL: http://www.sbsun.com/general­news/20161230/journalists­to­fight­call­to­testify­in­colonies­corruption­case

© 2017 San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

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San Bernardino among counties with strongest populationgrowth

Friday, Dec 30, 2016

By S.E. Williams

Last Monday, the California’s Department of Finance reported that between July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016, thestate added more 295,000 people to its census and brought the state’s population to a new total of 39.4 millionresidents.

The state achieved this new demographic high even though California’s birth rate has fallen from 13.69 births per1,000 in the 2010 to a current low of 12.42 births per 1,000. In addition, the state’s death rate has increased to itscurrent rate of 6.71 deaths per 1,000 population compared to a rate of 6.26 deaths per 1,000 in 2010.

The Department of Finance also affirmed that within the last year, more than 70,000 individuals have migrated tothe state. This total includes all foreign immigrants—of both legal and illegal status.

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Public Policy Institute of California reported in 2015, that immigration fromMexico to California had slowed dramatically during the last fifteen years ­ by a factor of nearly 70 percent. Chinahas now surpassed Mexico as the primary source of immigrants who now make their way to the Golden State.

The balance of this year’s added residents included those who move to and from California from within the UnitedStates.

The report came as under­whelming news for the state which has experienced slow growth in recent years.Historically, California touted an annual growth rate of approximately three percent; however, a review ofDepartment of Finance Data for a report published by the Sacramento Bee last year, confirmed that during theprevious eleven years, California’s growth rate had slowed to less than one percent per year (the same held truefor this year as well). The decline occurred almost concurrent with the crash of the state’s housing market andwas further fueled by the Great Recession.

The report did however, contain some good news for the inland region—both San Bernardino and RiversideCounties grew at a faster pace than most other places in the state.

The state’s nine largest counties are Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Clara,Alameda, Sacramento, and Contra Costa. Each has over one million residents. These counties represent 70percent of California’s population.

The DOF reported Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego and Orange Counties posted the highestnumeric population gains and accounted for nearly half of the state's growth. The DOF stressed that growth inthese counties was due primarily to natural increase, although most of the counties had positive net migration aswell.

Population estimates are developed using aggregate data from a variety of sources. Those sources include birthand death counts provided by the Department of Public Health; number of driver's licenses and driver’s licenseaddress change data from the Department of Motor Vehicles; housing unit data from local governments; schoolenrollment data from the Department of Education; and federal income tax return data from the U.S. InternalRevenue Service.

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The family of this San Bernardino terror attackvictim is telling his story to anyone who will listen

By Paloma Esquivel

JANUARY 2, 2017, 4:00 AM

he did not shy away from the details.

For more than an hour one day in November, Trenna Meins, with her daughters Tina and Tawnya

nearby, told a class of undergraduates at Cal State San Bernardino about the 36 years she spent

building a life with her high school sweetheart — and about the horrific moment of violence that ended his life.

Trenna Miens, center, outside her home with daughters Tawyna, left, and Tina. Their husband and father Damian Meins was killed in the2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino. (Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

FROM OURPARTNERS:

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Damian Meins and 13 others were killed in the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack at Inland Regional Center in San

Bernardino.

Meins was standing by a Christmas tree that day, taking photos at an office party with his co­workers, when a

couple in tactical gear walked in and opened fire with semiautomatic rifles.

He didn’t have a chance to run or duck, his widow told the students. He was shot five times and died by the

tree.

At Meins’ funeral, which was held at the same Catholic church in Riverside where he and his wife were

married, the Rev. Art Mateo told mourners the attack would lead to changes that would make society safer.

“That is the only way I can make sense of the violent death of Damian Meins,” he said. “I know good will come

of this.”

The family of four was as close as a family can be.

The attack made them three — a mother and her adult daughters, who have lived a year of countless moments

of unbearable sadness, anger and numbness at the loss of the man they each adored.

“

But they push through those moments, telling their story to students, to legislators, to whoever will listen,

because they believe good will come of this, in the form of tightened restrictions on guns.

::

Damian Meins, 58, was remembered at his funeral as “one of the good guys.”

He was dedicated to his family, having cared for both of his parents when they were dying. He was smart and

good at his job. He was “really fun. Insanely fun,” said his daughter Tina.

When Tina and her sister were young and their mother was away at night school, their father would turn off all

of the lights in the house, use paper to cover up any clocks, and the three of them would chase each other, their

giggles filling the rooms.

When his daughters were older, the three of them became travel companions — exploring Europe and Asia

together.

“All the time … It was him and the kids,” said Trenna Meins, 59.

They even had a family motto — “amplecti possibilitate,” a reminder to “embrace the possibility.” Over the

years, Damian developed an obsession for decorating the family home for holidays — Christmas, Halloween, St.

Patrick’s Day, Valentine's Day, even Mardi Gras.

The day of the attack, he woke up early, put on a snowman Christmas tie and left for work.

Trenna stayed home with the flu; Tina, 34, went to work in Irvine. Tawnya, 29, went to her job in Riverside.

They saw the news on television and quickly realized that Damian had been in the room where the attack took

place.

Soon enough, reporters were camping outside their door. FBI agents were in their home. Politicians they had

never met were calling, asking to speak at the funeral. Family members, filled with fear, were anxious to

buy guns for protection.

In those moments, “everything is in the air and you have absolutely no control over anything,” Trenna said.

The days after the attack were filled with immediate tasks — calling loved ones, arranging their travel,

coordinating with the coroner’s office to plan the funeral.

When you go to the counselors, they don’t knowhow to handle this as well. They end up crying and

you end up trying to help the counselor.— Trenna Meins

All around them, they could feel people were filled with anger at the injustice of the attack. But Trenna and her

daughters were determined not to allow anger to overtake them.

“Even in our time of great sadness, we have gratitude; we know that the world is still filled with love,” Tina

wrote in a tribute to her father on a Gofundme page in the days after the attack.

The weekend after Meins’ funeral, Tina and Tawnya took their father’s stored holiday lights and wrote the word

“Love” in lights on the roof.

It was a message to their father — and to those whose sense of tolerance had been rocked Dec. 2.

They also immersed themselves in the details of the attack, thinking that if they could decipher what went

wrong, they could prevent more attacks.

They learned that the shooters, armed with semiautomatic rifles, had in just two or three minutes fired more

than 100 rounds.

They learned that when the couple were killed, they had more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition in their SUV

and thousands more in their home. They learned that they had tried to modify a rifle to make it automatic.

When President Obama flew to San Bernardino that December to visit with the families of those killed, Trenna

asked him how many people would have to be killed in a single incident before legislators would change the

laws.

They “didn’t do anything when all those kids were killed at Sandy Hook” in 2012, she told him. “Is there a

number? Give me a number where [they] might do something.”

In the months that followed, they would add their voices to an ever­growing list of families torn apart by gun

violence, including families who have lost loved ones to mass shootings, and began pushing the nation’s

legislators to do something about gun control, knowing that it would be a battle with little immediate payoff.

Like many of those families, they have carried Damian’s picture at vigils and told his story at news conferences

and in the halls of Congress. They have written op­eds.

They are sympathetic to gun owners. Their extended family includes members of law enforcement and the

military and avid hunters. But they have come to see some kind of restrictions on guns as the only solution.

They are also careful to emphasize that they do not support a ban on Muslims or efforts to blame the religion

for the attack.

The work gives them something to focus on.

“When everything is quiet at night, when you sit down for a minute, that’s when things are the hardest,” Tina

said. “Trying to advocate and make change, that’s easier for me.”

They also find solace in working together, because outsiders have a hard time understanding their situation.

“People want to do something to help you but really, there’s nothing they can do,” Trenna said. “When you go

to the counselors, they don’t know how to handle this as well. They end up crying and you end up trying to help

the counselor.”

On June 13, the day after a man killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Tina wrote a letter to

representatives in Congress: “With every shooting since December 2nd, I find myself asking, how many more

incidents will occur and how many more people will die before we make changes?”

That Sunday, Father’s Day, the three of them mailed a letter to every U.S. senator, asking them to consider

taking action on proposals including background checks, banning people on the no­fly list from purchasing

weapons, an assault weapons ban, tracking of ammunition and increased funding for gun violence research.

“Some people point out that nothing will bring my father back, and they are right about this,” Tina wrote. “But

I write to you because I do not want more Americans to feel the devastation and heartbreak my family and I

feel.”

The 100 letters elicited four responses.

They knew that pushing on a heated issue like gun control would not be easy. But they are resolute.

“Just because there is not a 100% right answer for all of this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t move forward,” Trenna

told the Cal State students. “You have to trust me when I say what we have is not working.”

[email protected]

For more Inland Empire news follow me @palomaesquivel

MORE ON THE SAN BERNARDINO ATTACK

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In a dark year of terrorism and record homicides, San Bernardino also showing signs of hope

First Times photographer at San Bernardino mass shooting recalls a mad dash with police

Copyright © 2017, Los Angeles Times

This article is related to: San Bernardino Terror Attack

Redlands Daily Facts (http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com)

Welcome assistance for SB terror victims

By The Editorial Board, Redlands Daily Facts

Thursday, December 29, 2016

The survivors and family members of those killed in the Dec. 2, 2015terror attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino will getmuch­deserved financial support, thanks to a $4­million grant fromthe U.S. Department of Justice.

The financial relief package, for victims’ short­ and long­term needs,was announced last week by Rep. Pete Aguilar, D­San Bernardino,who had said a few days earlier that he was in discussions with theDOJ and the California Victim Compensation Board to securemillions in federal grant money to assist the victims with theirongoing care.

The grant funds come from the DOJ’s Anti­Terrorism and Emergency Assistance Program to the state VictimCompensation Board, which will reimburse San Bernardino County for expenses and projects funded by thegrant, according to a release from Aguilar’s office.

“One year later, survivors and victims’ families are still fighting to heal and move forward, so as they navigatethis process it is our responsibility as their leaders and advocates to ensure they have access to the care theydeserve,” Aguilar said in the release.

Several of the terror attack survivors, employed by the San Bernardino County Public Health Department, havecomplained that the county has not made sure they have access to the care they deserve. A dozen survivors wentto a Board of Supervisors meeting Nov. 28, and three of them spoke movingly about their medical or mentalhealth treatments being delayed or denied by the county’s self­insured workers’ compensation program.Afterward, supervisors Chairman James Ramos vowed the county would hire a firm to help the survivors getthrough the medical process.

Supervisors allocated $100,000 to hire a firm at their Dec. 6 meeting. On Dec. 19, Ramos announced the hiringof IW Care Connection Inc. to assist victims with their claims. Presumably, now the county will be reimbursedthrough the DOJ grant.

It’s one of those perverse mysteries of bureaucracy: Why would the county have to hire an outside firm to helpits own employees navigate the county’s own, self­insured workers’ compensation process?

Well, whatever it takes to help the victims of the San Bernardino terror attack is worth doing.

URL: http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/opinion/20161229/welcome­assistance­for­sb­terror­victims

© 2017 Redlands Daily Facts (http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com)

A

Deputy arrested for allegedly having sex withteenage girl in Explorer program

By Associated Press

JANUARY 1, 2017, 7:25 AM

uthorities say a deputy with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department has been arrested on

suspicion of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a teenage girl participating in the

department's youth Explorer program.

The department says in a statement Deputy David Israel Ceballos was arrested Friday on charges of sexual

intercourse and sexual penetration with a foreign object on a minor. His bail was set at $100,000.

San Bernardino (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

FROM OURPARTNERS:

The best and most underrated movies of 2016

It says the 14­year veteran started a sexual relationship with the 17­year­old after meeting her in mid­2016. She

is now 18.

They say other Explorer scouts reported Ceballos to a deputy serving as an Explorer advisor and that started an

investigation. There are no other known alleged victims at this time.

The department says 34­year­old Ceballos was placed on paid leave pending a separate administrative

investigation.

Copyright © 2017, Los Angeles Times

This article is related to: Crime

San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

Embattled San Bernardino health clinic slapped with another lawsuit

By Joe Nelson, The Sun

Friday, December 30, 2016

Two former X­ray technicians at Inland Behavioral and HealthServices in San Bernardino have sued the clinic, alleging they werefired for refusing to work without a radiation safety officer as requiredby law.

Gregorio Fernandez and Thuy Nguyen worked at the nonprofitmedical clinic for indigent residents since 2014 before they were bothfired on Jan. 12, allegedly for refusing to perform their duties unlessthe clinic employed a radiation safety officer as state and federal lawmandates, according to the lawsuit, filed Nov. 16 in San BernardinoSuperior Court.

IBHS attorney Lawrence Yang said in an email that the clinic “is aware that plaintiffs Fernandez and Nguyenhave recently filed a lawsuit just before Thanksgiving, over ten months after their separation of employmentfrom IBHS.”

“Out of respect for the ongoing legal process, IBHS will not respond to plaintiffs’ unsubstantiated allegations inthe press,” Yang said. “IBHS intends to vigorously defend itself against plaintiffs’ lawsuit, and has no furthercomment at this time.”

In the last three years, the clinic has been sued by 11 former employees alleging they were fired or forced toresign due to unsafe patient practices, fraudulent activity, breach of contract, and a work environment rife withnepotism, discrimination and racial divisiveness. One of the lawsuits was dismissed because it was time­barredby a one­year statute of limitations to file, the plaintiff’s attorney, Tristan Pelayes, said.

With the exception of one plaintiff, Lisa Rogers, Pelayes represented all the other plaintiffs in their lawsuits, andis representing Fernandez and Nguyen in theirs.

IBHS has denied all the claims, but has reached out­of­court settlements with some of the plaintiffs to date,court records show.

Fernandez was hired on Jan. 13, 2014 and Nguyen on July 7, 2014. Upon his hiring, Fernandez asked IBHSCEO Temetry Lindsey and COO Olaf Neumann if the clinic had an off­site X­ray supervisor. Both Lindsey andNeumann, according to the lawsuit, lied to Fernandez and told him the clinic did in fact have an off­site X­raysupervisor. When Fernandez asked for the supervisor’s name and phone number, he was “repeatedly blown offand ignored by management” and told he would eventually be forwarded the information.

Nguyen also requested information about the clinic’s X­ray supervisor after she was hired, and was told thesame thing, leading both Nguyen and Fernandez to believe they were operating aboveboard, the lawsuit alleges.

Lindsey has repeatedly declined requests for interviews.

In March 2015, an official with the California Department of Public Health, in preparation for an onsiteinspection scheduled that month, called Fernandez and asked him to provide information about the clinic’s X­ray supervisor, but Fernandez didn’t have the information because he was never informed himself, according tothe lawsuit.

The state official threatened Fernandez and Nguyen with fines and jail time if they were performing X­rayswithout an off­site supervisor, the lawsuit states.

Shaken by the state official’s threats, Fernandez and Nguyen threatened to halt operations in the clinic’s X­rayand mammography departments until the matter was resolved.

“We are pretty much hanging ourselves without an (radiation safety officer). Hopefully we are able to find asolution soon,” Nguyen wrote to Lindsey in an e­mail, the lawsuit states.

The day before the scheduled inspection, IBHS hired an X­ray supervisor, who resigned eight months later.

On Dec. 1, 2015, Fernandez and Nguyen informed their supervisors that the clinic’s X­ray and mammographydepartments would be closed until they received confirmation that an off­site X­ray supervisor had been hired,the lawsuit states.

Fernandez and Nguyen were both fired on Jan. 12 “under the pretext that IBHS would not be resumingoperations within its X­ray and mammography departments,” according to the lawsuit.

But within days of Fernandez’s and Nguyen’s departure, IBHS had posted help wanted ads online for X­raytechnicians.

“Currently, IBHS is operating its X­ray and mammography departments out of compliance with Californiahealth and safety laws and regulations,” the lawsuit states.

Martin Kramer, spokesman for the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, which administersgrants to health clinics nationwide providing services to underserved populations, could not be reached forcomment Friday.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to correct a misspelled name.

URL: http://www.sbsun.com/general­news/20161230/embattled­san­bernardino­health­clinic­slapped­with­another­lawsuit

© 2017 San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

Longtime San Bernardino judge, former prosecutor Brian D. Saunders dies

By Joe Nelson, The Sun

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Brian David Saunders, a San Bernardino Superior Court judge ofnearly 20 years and a former county prosecutor, died Tuesday at hishome. He was 63.

Elected San Bernardino Superior Court judge in 1998, Saunderspreviously served as a county prosecutor for 12 years. He joined theSan Bernardino District Attorney’s Office on Feb. 18, 1986, as amember of its felony trial unit, district attorney spokesmanChristopher Lee said in an email.

As a county prosecutor, Saunders also worked in the career criminalprosecution unit and handled many significant cases, including the

1991 prosecution of former Adelanto police Chief Philip Genaway, charged with 36 felony counts ofembezzlement, Lee said.

In a statement Thursday, District Attorney Mike Ramos called Saunders one of his mentors and someone helooked up to when he first started as a prosecutor at the office.

“He was an excellent prosecutor and judge who sought justice with ethics and integrity. He will truly bemissed,” Ramos said.

Prior to joining the DA’s Office in 1986, Saunders served as a judge advocate general for the U.S. Navy.

As a San Bernardino Superior Court judge, Saunders presided over criminal, civil, juvenile and family lawcases, as well as serving as a drug court judge. In 2010, he was re­elected to serve another six­year term on thebench.

“Saunders was a longtime friend and colleague in the DA’s Office and on the bench. He was well­respected forhis hard work and willingness to take on challenging judicial assignments,” said San Bernardino CountyPresiding Judge Raymond L. Haight III in an announcement to court staff via email Wednesday informing themof Saunders’ unexpected death.

At the time of his death, Saunders was working in the court’s Family Law and Probate division.

Saunders is survived by his wife and two sons.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

URL: http://www.sbsun.com/obituaries/20161229/longtime­san­bernardino­judge­former­prosecutor­brian­d­saunders­dies

© 2017 San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

Regional advances on homelessness

By The Editorial Board, San Bernardino County Sun

Friday, December 30, 2016

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recently awarded a combined $10.3 million to 20 SanBernardino County agencies and nonprofits providing services and housing to the homeless. The announcementrounds out a year that has seen significant gains in homelessness reduction in the Inland Empire and sets thestage for what we hope are greater improvements in 2017.

“What we are seeing is a unified, community­wide effort to promote self­sufficiency among individuals andfamilies experiencing homelessness,” said San Bernardino County Supervisor and Interagency Council onHomelessness Chair Josie Gonzales.

Indeed, there has been consistent progress in homelessness reduction in recent years throughout the InlandEmpire, thanks to a deliberate effort by local agencies.

At the start of 2016, the Point­In­Time Count and Subpopulation Survey revealed 12 percent reductions in bothRiverside County and San Bernardino County homeless populations compared to 2015.

There have been notable accomplishments in targeting particular subgroups, especially homeless veterans.

Riverside County, the 10th largest county in the country, became the largest in the nation to reach “functionalzero” veteran homelessness, meaning it has “a well­coordinated and efficient community system that assureshomelessness is rare, brief and non­recurring and no veteran is forced to live on the street.” San BernardinoCounty has reported being well on its way to meeting this benchmark.

In addition to efforts at the county level, increasing numbers of cities throughout the Inland Empire have beenholding serious discussions about how to tackle the homeless problem.

The city of San Bernardino recently authorized construction of a privately funded permanent housing facility forchronically homeless men. A Regional Homeless Alliance has been formed by Lake Elsinore, Menifee,Murrieta, Temecula and Wildomar.

Given the complexity of homelessness, this multi­layered approach is sure to help. We hope these efforts andothers continue, for while we are unlikely to ever truly end homelessness, we can significantly mitigate itsconsequences and reduce its prevalence.

URL: http://www.sbsun.com/opinion/20161230/regional­advances­on­homelessness

© 2017 San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

With bankruptcy ending, will normalcy return to San Bernardino in 2017?

By Ryan Hagen, The Sun

Friday, December 30, 2016

SAN BERNARDINO >> The coming year has the opportunity to bewhat no year in this city has been for a long time: normal.

Serious challenges remain in the year to come — and, city officialsacknowledge, in the years after that — but some of the seriousrestraints the city has faced in recent years will be gone early in 2017.

There’s no bigger sign of that than, for the first time since August2012, San Bernardino will be free of the burden — in reputation andin court­related costs — of being bankrupt.

With U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury’s oral confirmation of the city’s bankruptcy exit plan in December,San Bernardino officials expect to exit bankruptcy in March. More certainty is expected after a Jan. 27 hearing,turning attention to the longer term.

“So now the big question is, is the city really going to be better off, and have they been conservative enough intheir projections so that they can now live within the framework that they have established within the plan?”said Michael Sweet, a bankruptcy attorney with Fox Rothschild in San Francisco. “Because what you’ve seen inVallejo, now — eight years after they filed (for bankruptcy) — a lot of people are saying that the underlyingassumptions that they made may not have been reasonable and arguably the city is still not in great shape.”

That, San Bernardino officials say, is one reason they took so long in bankruptcy, making preparations they saygive them hope in the future.

“The city is poised and setting the stage for quite a bit of continued growth and improvements for 2017,” MayorCarey Davis said.

Much of that is due to milestones reached in 2016.

The bankruptcy ruling was preceded by major agreements with the most of the city’s creditors, many of whomhad challenged the city at various points along the way. The last large creditor with an objection, the BigIndependent Cities Excess Pool, reached a mediated agreement with the city shortly before the confirmationruling.

The post­bankruptcy plan is also built on big changes outside the courtroom, which include:

• The city’s unique charter, blamed by city leaders for enabling dysfunction and hamstringing progress, wasvoted out in November. Once Secretary of State Alex Padilla confirms the election results, the city will beginimplementing a new charter much more similar to those of other, successful cities.

Many of the changes in the new charter — such as moving to a system where the City Council votes with themayor to set policy that is then implemented by the city manager — will take effect immediately after that,while other changes will need to be implemented by the City Council approving changes to the municipal code.

The bankruptcy plan didn’t hinge on voters approving the charter, but it was discussed heavily, and Judge Jurypraised the result.

“(City officials) successfully amended their charter, which will give them modern­day, real­life flexibility inmaking decisions that need to be made,” Jury said in court in December. “There was too much political powerand not enough management under their charter, to be frank, compared to most cities in California.”

• In October, for the first time since 2010, the city caught up on its audits, perhaps allowing it to operate in 2017under less suspicion and with eligibility for more state and federal grants.

• Significant outsourcing — most visibly transferring the 137­year old Fire Department to county control —meant big monetary savings.

• The Police Department will be a continued focus in 2017, as the city plans to move ahead with a five­yearpolicing plan that was included in its bankruptcy documentation and the crime prevention plan OperationCeasefire.

• Waterman Gardens, which completed Phase 1 in 2016, looks to continue construction in the Base Line andWaterman Avenue area. The aim is to transform the traditionally crime­ridden area.

• Redevelopment at the Carousel Mall and attempts to alleviate homelessness, including Mary’s Village, are alsoon the agenda, Davis said.

“As you can see, there’s a full plate ahead of us in 2017,” Davis said. “I’m sure there will be some unexpectedneeds that will be in place with a stronger city hall, a city hall that is doing a much better job with our financialreporting, but I think that with the changes of 2016 we’ll have a strong front to show investors.”

URL: http://www.sbsun.com/government­and­politics/20161230/with­bankruptcy­ending­will­normalcy­return­to­san­bernardino­in­2017

© 2017 San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

This is how San Bernardino officials are working to address 2016’s homicide surge

More than 60 killed in 2016, the deadliest since 1995

By Beatriz Valenzuela, San Bernardino Sun

and Ryan Hagen, The Sun

Saturday, December 31, 2016

SAN BERNARDINO >> On the evening of Dec. 15, Luis SanchezAguinaga had just pulled up to his San Bernardino home afterwrapping up a long day of laying flooring. His wife, ElizabethLorenzano, and her mother, heard the familiar sound of his car park onthe street and they expected him to walk through the front door in justa few minutes.

“Usually it takes him a little bit because he has to gather up his lunchbox and his water bottles and things like that,” said Aguinaga’sbrother­in­law Pedro Lorenzano.

The women were chatting in the living room when they heard a pop.

“At first they thought it was a popping tire or something,” the 19­year­old said, “but when he didn’t come inside,they looked outside and they saw two guys walking away and (Luis) was on the ground.”

The 34­year­old had been shot.

The family called 911, but Aguinaga later died at the hospital. His death marked the 62nd homicide for SanBernardino, one of which the district attorney has ruled justified. Since Aguinaga’s death, another man wasfatally shot the day after Christmas in the 1900 block of 19th Street.

2016 homicide surge

San Bernardino has consistently struggled with violence, but 2016 stands out: the deadliest in more than 20years. In 1995, 67 people were killed.

This year’s toll is 50 percent higher over the average of the previous five years, when on average nearly 42people were killed — a sudden surge that’s hard to account for.

In fact, statistically, some kind of jump every few years isn’t unlikely, said Cal State San Bernardino professorStephen Tibbetts, who studies the risk factors and causes of criminality.

And San Bernardino, he says, is full of risk factors — not just this year, but for decades.

“A huge problem there is they’re just in a bad state as a city,” Tibbetts said, noting the major loss of employmentfrom the closure of Kaiser Steel in 1984, then the repair functions at the Santa Fe Depot, then Norton Air ForceBase in 1994.

“When all those employment opportunities evaporate, you don’t have much to work with,” Tibbets said.“Adding 100 cops, that’s easy. It costs money, and this is a bankrupt city, but that’s nothing compared to fixingthe systemic problems in an entire city.”

Mayor Carey Davis, while bullish on the city’s future, also acknowledges the same risk factors Tibbetts does.

Work is underway to fix those problems, he says, but it will take time.

Operation Ceasefire

Central to the city’s response is Operation Ceasefire. The City Council voted 4­0 in October to move forwardwith that crime­prevention approach, and Davis expects to have a contract in January with a consultant,California Partnership, to begin customizing the plan for San Bernardino and then implementing that plan.

That will be more than a year after Inland Congregations United for Change began a series of marches in favorof the program. Even before that, in 2015, police and elected officials traveled to Chicago to study that city’sversion of the program.

The elephant in the room, Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said in October, is that Chicago’s homicides remain outof control, and no one wanted to rush into an unsuccessful program.

“The city has tried other programs with limited success and it’s left a residual impact on the community, so Ithink we owe it to the city to put forward something that is sustainable and that we can document and report,”Davis said Thursday.

Operation Ceasefire has shown success in multiple cities, including California cities that officials believe shareimportant similarities with San Bernardino.

Since implementing Ceasefire, homicides have dropped 30 percent in Oakland, 55 percent in Stockton and 63percent in Richmond, according to California Partnership.

The model is customized for each city — San Bernardino won’t do the same thing as Chicago — but cityofficials say the key points to them are an in­depth analysis of risk; direct, respectful communication; intensive,relationship­based case management — a blend of outreach and case management; intelligence­based, targetedenforcement informed by the principles of procedural justice; and doing this as a part of a closely coordinated,joint strategy to reduce shootings citywide.

Tibbetts agreed that Ceasefire is one of the most successful approaches available.

“Two pretty critical experts — Anthony Braga, David Weisburd — did a very well­done study, and it actuallyshowed a lot of success,” Tibbetts said. “It was pseudo­randomized, so it’s not just another factor influencingcrime and so crime goes down.”

Increased police staffing and improved police technology and equipment are also on the agenda in the form of a$56 million five­year police resources plan.

Currently, that plan is only 40 percent funded, and Davis also expects continued challenges in recruitment,which he attributes to many competing law enforcement agencies ramping up hiring that had fallen during theGreat Recession.

Davis praises Burguan for working with a ratio of police per 1,000 residents that’s well below nationwideaverages and Davis’ goal, but he says the solution can’t be policing alone.

“We are solely in need of that targeted focus that comes with the California Partnership program,” Davis said,referring to Operation Ceasefire. “There is an ongoing need, I think, to help our community improve our

educational attainment, and we’re working with the school district, Cal State and Valley College to do that.”

Unemployment and housing

“We have high unemployment in some very entrenched areas of the city, and that certainly does not aid inkeeping potential vulnerable areas of our population from living a dangerous lifestyle,” Davis continued. “Andpart of it’s housing.”

Davis expects unemployment to drop and median income to improve as major retailers like Amazon move in,along with other economic development efforts.

And housing — an early focus of Davis’ administration — will be more effectively focused on now, he hopes.

“We made inroads in a number of (priorities),” Davis said. “One that I think is still needing more attention ishousing to strengthen not only those codes, but then also to have the enforcement as effective as possible giventhe reduced resources that we do have. Maybe some help with the community itself as far being goodlandlords.”

The crime­free multihousing program and ordinance are designed to develop partnerships with property ownersto combat and prevent crime within the community.

The program is credited with helping make positive changes at an apartment complex at 1700 E. Date St.,according to police officials.

For years police were being called out to the apartments for assaults, incidents of domestic violence andshootings. In 2011, the same year the city passed the crime­free multihousing ordinance, police had 420 calls forservice for the complex.

After the property was declared a public nuisance and the owner was forced to clean up the property and providebasic necessities for each unit including making sure each unit had a working smoke detector, the calls forservice began to decline.

Gang ties

Trying to find a single cause for the uptick in homicides is difficult, according to Lt. Mike Madden, spokesmanfor the San Bernardino Police Department. However, he did say there are some recurring themes in some of thekillings.

“Close to half have a gang­related element,” he said explaining that could mean the suspect, the victim or bothcould have ties to gangs.

According to Lorenzano, Aguinaga and his family felt their straight­and­narrow lifestyles protected them fromthe violence that plagued the city.

“We knew the city was not that safe but we weren’t involved in anything bad, so we thought we were safe here,”said Lorenzano, who described his brother­in­law as a hardworking man without any nefarious criminal tieswhose life revolved around his wife and three children.

“Anything they wanted, that’s what he worked for,” Lorenzano said. “He didn’t have anything fancy. It was allabout his kids.”

San Bernardino police agree Aguinaga had no gang ties. No one has been arrested in Aguinaga’s slaying andofficials have not said whether they believe the 34­year­old’s killer is a gang member.

Still, a criminal influx from areas like Los Angeles, Pomona and Pasadena could account for some of theincrease in the city’s overall crime rate, Madden said.

“We’ve had a surge in recent years of gang members from outside of San Bernardino,” he said.

The gang connection is something San Bernardino has seen before — when homicides were at their worst, in theearly 1990s, Madden said.

In 1993, the number of people killed in the city reached an all­time high of 82 people. Another 77 people werekilled in 1994, and 67 in 1995.

“San Bernardino has had its ups and downs, but how this year looks depends on what you compare it to,”Tibbets said. “In ’93, it was atrociously bad, so compared to that we’re still doing relatively good. But if youcompare it to the better times more recently, it looks worse.”

Crime prevention tactics

The connection between gang activity and drugs led the department to form its Specialized Enforcement Teamin September, which pulls detectives from individualized details including gang and narcotics.

“We are sharing information between the teams, which in the past may have not been easily accessible,”Madden said.

The newly formed team along with other agencies, including the FBI, California Highway Patrol and the SanBernardino County Sheriff and Probation departments, labored for months under Operation No Boundaries.

The task force’s work culminated in the arrests of 41 people and the seizure of 43 firearms, some of which werelinked to other crimes within the city and beyond.

The monthslong operation utilized tactics, such as wire tapping and proactive patrols and intelligence, whichofficials say resulted in the prevention of five potential homicides.

“We intercepted five shootings just before they happened,” Burguan said during a November press conferencehighlighting the results of Operation No Boundaries.

It’s the team’s ability to be proactive, which Madden says could make a difference in trying to keep violentcrime numbers down.

“We’re not waiting around for crimes to happen,” he said.

But that doesn’t take back the crimes that have happened.

Like many residents in the city, the Lorenzano family was aware of the climbing homicide rate and werediscussing whether or not to return to Colorado before Aguinaga’s death.

“Now after this happened, it’s for sure that we’re going to go back,” brother­in­law Pedro Lorenzano said.

The family now lives in fear, he said. They jump at sudden noises and the women can’t fall asleep untileveryone is safely at home in their beds.

“It’s changed how we live,” Pedro Lorenzano said. “We’re scared to be in our own home.”

URL: http://www.sbsun.com/general­news/20161231/this­is­how­san­bernardino­officials­are­working­to­address­2016s­homicide­surge

© 2017 San Bernardino County Sun (http://www.sbsun.com)

Flood warning for Riverside, San Bernardino counties givesway to freezing temperatures in the mountainsBy JOHN BLODGETT2016­12­31 17:58:28

Heavy rains Saturday evening flooded roads throughout the Riversidearea and caused rocks and mud to fall onto roadsides and into roadwaysin parts of the San Bernardino Mountains.

As temperatures dipped later in mountain areas, chains were required onall vehicles except those with four­wheel drive and snow­treaded tires.

About 6 p.m. Saturday, the National Weather Service issued an urbanand small stream flood advisory for San Bernardino County and RiversideCounty after half an inch or more rain fell in some places between 5 p.m.and 6 p.m.

From 5 to 6 p.m. Saturday, almost half an inch (.47 inch) of rain fell at Cal State San Bernardino, according tothe NWS.

"This (heavy rainfall) will likely cause urban and small stream flooding in the advisory area, especially in low­lying areas and on freeway ramps," the advisory stated.

Flooding was particularly bad in the vicinity of University and Chicago avenues, where drivers had to slow downto navigate roads covered with fast­flowing water.

The California Highway Patrol reported that the HOV lanes on the westbound 91 freeway at McKinley Street inCorona were flooded because of the downpour.

Heavy rain was also reported in the Moreno Valley area.

Rainfall was heaviest until about 7 p.m., an hour before the advisory ended.

Rains began to ease about 7 p.m. as predicted, but at about the same time CHP logs indicated rocks and mudwere reported on Highway 18 at both locations where it intersects with Old Waterman Canyon Road north ofSan Bernardino.

About 8:15 p.m. Saturday, another CHP log reported numerous vehicles stuck along Highway 18 toward BigBear Lake as temperatures dipped to 32 degrees and road surfaces became slick.

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Human jawbone found in Apple Valley starts deathinvestigationRYAN HAGEN2017­01­02 13:43:17

APPLE VALLEY >> San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies opened adeath investigation Sunday after hikers found a human jawbone.

The hikers reported the bone shortly before 4 p.m. Sunday in the area ofApple Valley Road and Wato Road, according to a statement from theSheriff's Department.

Deputies sent a photo of the bone to the coroner's office, which confirmedit was a human mandible. Detectives are now trying to determine theidentity of the victim. They don't know how long the bone has been in thedesert, according to the statement.

Officials urge anyone with information to contact Detective Mike Cleary orSgt. Greg Myler of the Specialized Investigations Division at 909­387­3589. Callers wishing to remainanonymous may call the We­Tip Hotline at 1­800­78­CRIME (27463) or the We­Tip website at www.wetip.com.

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Snow slowing traffic on San Bernardino Mountain highwaysALICIA ROBINSON2017­01­02 11:08:55

For a second day in a row, snow in the mountains – and the people whodrove up to play in it – caused problems on the mountain highways.

Starting Monday morning and lasting through evening, Caltrans and theCalifornia Highway Patrol reported jammed roads and accidents alonghighways 18, 38 and 330 in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Just between 6 and 7 p.m., for example, the CHP handled reports of avehicle – with an open bottle of alcohol inside – that hit someone on the18 near Crestline; a vehicle involved in a head­on crash while driving thewrong way to get through traffic on the 330 above Highland; and anothervehicle that rolled over and landed upside­down along the 38 in the

Seven Oaks area.

Earlier in the day, traffic was slow between Interstate 15 and Highway 2 about 10:30 a.m. Several driversabandoned their vehicles in the road after getting stuck in snow, causing an estimated delay of an hour and ahalf, a CHP dispatcher said.

A New Year’s Eve storm brought anywhere from a few inches to almost a foot of snow to the area’s mountains,luring crowds of people over the holiday weekend.

Traffic was bumper­to­bumper all day Sunday, not helped by the fact that people were stopping their vehicles inthe road so they could get out and frolic in the snow ­­ or put on required tire chains.

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Why big changes may be coming to Riverside CountygovernmentBy JEFF HORSEMAN2016­12­30 17:41:22

Riverside County’s top elected body will have a much different look twoyears from now.

Supervisor John Benoit’s Dec. 26 death created a vacancy on the five­member Board of Supervisors. Two other supervisors, Marion Ashley andJohn Tavaglione, don’t plan to seek re­election when their current termsexpire at the end of 2018.

Ashley was first elected supervisor in 2002 while Tavaglione, a supervisorsince 1995, is the board’s longest­serving member.

That leaves Kevin Jeffries and Chuck Washington as the only current supervisors who will be in office come2019. Jeffries has been on the board since 2012 while Washington was appointed to fill a vacancy in 2015 andelected to a full term in November.

The five supervisors, who serve staggered terms, oversee a government with close to 20,000 employees and abudget exceeding $5 billion in a county with more than 2 million people.

Jeffries, a former GOP assemblyman, called the looming transition “a mixed bag.”

“On one hand, we are going to lose two veteran board members who have been a driving force in shaping anddirecting the county on a number of issues including healthcare, transportation, criminal justice and budgetpriorities,” he said.

“On the other hand, you hope the county will benefit from new board members who bring a new level of energyand enthusiasm to dive into ongoing budget and policy issues.”

The upcoming changes also could alter the complexion of a governing body that doesn’t match its county’sdemographics. Close to half the county’s population is Latino and more than 1 million residents are women, butthe current board is made up of three white men and Washington, who is black.

Though the office of supervisor is technically nonpartisan, the board’s political makeup also could change. Rightnow, Washington is the only Democrat, but Benoit’s and Ashley’s districts have more registered Democraticvoters than Republicans.

Gov. Jerry Brown will pick someone to serve the remainder of Benoit’s term, which expires at the end of 2018.Benoit represented the Fourth District, which goes from the Coachella Valley to the Arizona border.

Brown, a Democrat, will probably choose a Democrat and might be inclined to seek diversity. Rep. Raul Ruiz,D­La Quinta, whose congressional district overlaps the Fourth District, has already taken himself out of therunning.

“His work protecting seniors and veterans, and improving access to quality, affordable health care is bestpursued in Congress,” Ruiz spokeswoman Alex Macfarlane wrote in an email.

Cathedral City Councilman Greg Pettis, a Democratic Party superdelegate, has said he will apply for theappointment. Another possibility is former Democratic Assemblyman V. Manuel Perez, who ran against Benoitin 2014 and represented much of the Fourth District territory in Sacramento.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Perez, now a Coachella councilman and executive with Borrego Health,said it was too soon to talk about replacing Benoit. “The county right now is deep mourning,” Perez said.

The governor is under no set timetable to choose Benoit’s replacement. “Our goal is to select the most qualifiedperson from a broad and diverse pool of applicants, and that ultimately dictates timing,” Gareth Lacy, a Brownspokesman, wrote in an email.

Brown’s choice will have to run for a four­year term in the June 2018 election if he or she wants to stay on theboard.

IN THE FIELD

Some candidates for Ashley’s and Tavaglione’s seats already have declared their intentions to run.

Jaime Hurtado, Ashley’s chief of staff, wants to succeed his boss in the Fifth District, which covers the Pass,Cabazon, Moreno Valley, Perris and Menifee. Retired Marine Corps officer and Iraq War veteran Altie Holcombalso recently announced plans to run.

In Tavaglione’s Second District, which includes part of the city of Riverside along with Corona, Norco, JurupaValley and Eastvale, Corona council members Karen Spiegel and Eugene Montanez plan to run, as doesRiverside Councilman Mike Gardner.

Francisco Sola, who heads the Riverside­based Latino Voter Registration Project, said it’s time for the Board ofSupervisors to have Latino representation.

“If you see the last elections, Latinos dominated this area,” Sola said, referring to the election last November ofassemblywomen Eloise Reyes, D­Grand Terrace, and Sabrina Cervantes, D­Riverside.

“That demonstrates the maturity of the Latino vote,” Sola said. “Latinos are looking for representation, andthey’re accomplishing it.”

Sola said there is a large pool of Latino candidates who can fill Benoit’s vacancy. One person who comes tomind is Perez.

“He has the credentials. He has the support of the community,” he said.

If recent elections show anything, it’s that Latinos are “maturing as a political power in the Inland Empire,” Solasaid. It signals that Latinos can raise the money and mobilize the community, he added.

Contact the writer: 951­368­9547 or [email protected]­368­9462, [email protected], or on Twitter@alemolina

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Will Kamala Harris keep Barbara Boxer's Riverside office?By JEFF HORSEMAN2016­12­30 14:28:41

Senator­elect Kamala Harris is still deciding whether to keep outgoingSen. Barbara Boxer’s downtown Riverside office.

The office at 3403 10th Street is one of six statewide branches for Boxer,who is retiring. It’s the only Inland office maintained by either ofCalifornia’s U.S. senators.

A spokesman for Harris, who was elected in November to succeedBoxer, said Wednesday, Dec. 28 that Harris is “setting up a stateoperation and analyzing office locations.

“All Californians will be able to access important services and (the) senator­elect’s staff no matter where theylive,” Nathan Click said.

But the lack of an Inland office would force the 4 million­plus residents of Riverside and San Bernardinocounties to drive to Los Angeles or elsewhere to bring a matter to a U.S. senator’s attention or get face­to­facehelp with the federal bureaucracy.

It also would mean no standing presence for either of California’s senators in one of the state’s fastest­growingregions.

The Inland delegation to the House of Representatives has its own local offices. For instance, Rep. MarkTakano, D­Riverside, has a Riverside office, Rep. Pete Aguilar, D­Redlands, has an office in San Bernardinoand Rep. Ken Calvert, R­Corona, maintains an office in Corona.

Harris, the state’s former attorney general, continues a trend of Northern California politicians in the state’shighest elected posts.

Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College, noted that Gov. Jerry Brown used to beOakland’s mayor, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinsteinand Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom were mayors of San Francisco andHarris was once San Francisco’s district attorney.

Brown, Boxer, Feinstein, Harris and Newsom all are Democrats.

“Elected officials with roots in one part of a vast state have to make an extra effort to stay in touch with otherparts of the state,” Pitney said.

Click said Harris and her team “are deeply committed to representing the entirety of the state, including theInland Empire, just as the senator­elect has as attorney general.”

It’s not as though Harris, who will be sworn in Tuesday, doesn’t know where the Inland Empire is.

She made Inland stops on the campaign trail, including a visit to Service Employees International Union Local721’s Riverside office in February. As attorney general, Harris helped broker a 2013 lawsuit settlement tomitigate the air­quality effects of a warehouse/business park project in Jurupa Valley.

Harris’s office also hosted a public forum on immigration in Riverside – one of eight statewide – in 2015.

While the Inland Empire is more politically conservative than other parts of California, Riverside and SanBernardino counties went for Harris – her opponent also was a Democrat – and Democrats have made gains inthe region in recent elections.

MORE INLAND POLITICS

Big changes are coming to Riverside County government.

Supervisor sent letter to governor before he died.

Group believes California should form its own nation

Contact the writer: 951­368­9547 or [email protected]

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A

Quake swarm near the California-Mexico bordergets scientists' attention

By Rong­Gong Lin II

JANUARY 2, 2017, 3:00 AM

swarm of more than 250 small earthquakes have struck since New Year’s Eve near the California­

Mexico border, causing unease among residents and attention from scientists.

The strongest earthquake in the sequence was magnitude 3.9, striking directly underneath the town

of Brawley, about 170 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

This map, generated about 5 p.m. on Jan. 1, 2017, shows the Brawley earthquake swarm that began on New Year's Eve. (U.S.Geological Survey)

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The earthquakes struck in the southern end of the Brawley Seismic Zone, a seismically active region where

tectonic plates are moving away from each other and the Earth’s crust is getting stretched out “and basically

adding land,” said Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson.

The Brawley Seismic Zone is particularly important to watch because it is the region that connects the San

Andreas and Imperial faults, both of which can produce damaging earthquakes. The seismic zone extends for

about 30 miles from the city of Brawley, across the Salton Sea’s southern half, and ends near Bombay Beach.

Hauksson was closely monitoring the swarm that began Saturday, as there was a chance that an earthquake of

magnitude 5 or larger could be triggered.

“There’s always reason to be concerned for a bigger earthquake,” Hauksson said. But by Sunday night, the

possibility of the swarm triggering a larger event had largely receded.

The southern Brawley Seismic Zone is close in proximity to the Imperial fault. The Imperial fault has caused

two major earthquakes in recent decades.

In 1979, a magnitude­6.5 earthquake sent violent shaking into El Centro, injuring 91 and causing so much

damage to the concrete Imperial County Services Building that it had to be demolished.

There was major damage to the irrigation system in the Imperial Valley, a desert region that is a prolific

producer of salad vegetables during the winter. Levees lining the All­American Canal, which funnels water from

the Colorado River, collapsed along an eight­mile stretch.

The magnitude­7.1 earthquake that hit El Centro in 1940 claimed nine lives and swayed buildings as far away

as Los Angeles. Irrigation systems were damaged, and railroad tracks were left warped where they crossed the

fault.

Earthquake swarms that occur in the other end of the Brawley Seismic Zone — to the north — could trigger a

major event on the San Andreas fault, one of California’s most dangerous, that could send catastrophic shaking

into Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties.

In late September, one such swarm began in the northern Brawley Seismic Zone, with three measuring above

magnitude 4. That event led the U.S. Geological Survey to warn that chances of a magnitude 7 or greater

earthquake on the San Andreas fault had risen as a result of the swarm.

Another swarm of small earthquakes, topping out at magnitude 3.5, struck the town of Niland near the eastern

shore of the Salton Sea on Halloween.

The last major earthquake to hit Brawley was in 2012, registering at magnitude 5.4.

Brawley Mayor Sam Couchman said the earthquakes have placed the city of 26,000 on edge since Saturday

afternoon. The combination of the earthquakes and New Year’s pyrotechnics spooked some of the town’s

dogs, who went missing, he said.

“We’re just kind of listening to it, and when you can hear it coming, it’ll rattle things,” Couchman said. “Last

night, we had the rain, the earthquakes, and the fireworks.

“All we needed were frogs and locusts.”

[email protected]

Twitter: @ronlin

ALSO

Drizzle could make the Rose Parade damp, but not drenched

L.A. sheriff's deputies disciplined after horrific torture death of 8­year­old boy

At one warehouse in L.A.'s Chinatown, artists feel blunt impact from deadly Ghost Ship fire

Copyright © 2017, Los Angeles Times

This article is related to: Earthquakes, Mexico

I

L.A. sheriff's deputies disciplined after horrifictorture death of 8-year-old boy

By Richard Winton and Cindy Chang

JANUARY 1, 2017, 3:00 AM

t was the worst case of child abuse that local officials had ever seen.

The death of 8­year­old Gabriel Fernandez became a grim symbol of the failure of Los Angeles County’s

child welfare system, prompting criminal charges against four social workers and far­reaching reforms

of how authorities oversee abused and neglected children. Gabriel’s mother and her boyfriend were charged

with his murder.

Gabriel Fernandez, the 8­year­old Palmdale boy who was allegedly murdered by his mother and her boyfriend in 2013, is shown here inan undated family photograph. (Family handout)

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But far less public scrutiny has been given to the role of L.A. County sheriff’s deputies who investigated Gabriel’s

situation in the months before his 2013 death.

A Times review of grand jury testimony, child welfare records and recently filed court documents shows that

deputies visited Gabriel’s home multiple times during the eight months prosecutors say he was being tortured

and beaten. But the deputies found no signs of abuse and did not file paperwork that would have led specially

trained detectives to do more investigating.

One deputy went to the boy’s Palmdale home after his teacher said he had been beaten with a belt. Another

deputy, responding to a report that Gabriel was suicidal, left the home without examining or interviewing him.

When a security guard called to report that Gabriel had bruises on his face and what looked like cigarette burns

all over his scalp, he was rebuffed by a sheriff’s deputy who screamed that a child being burned was not an

emergency, according to court records. Another deputy who eventually went to check on the boy decided that

the injuries were caused by a fall from a bicycle.

The department’s final investigation came a week before Gabriel’s death. A sheriff's deputy tried to find him

after school officials reported that he had been absent for a long period and might be a victim of abuse.

Gabriel's mother said that her son had moved to Texas, and the deputy soon halted the inquiry. In fact, Gabriel

was still in Palmdale, being beaten with a bat, shot with a BB gun, starved, locked in a small box and forced to

eat cat feces, according to prosecutors.

None of the nine deputies involved in Gabriel’s case have been criminally charged, and all still work for the

Sheriff’s Department. But prosecutors said in court papers that some were disciplined internally.

The Sheriff’s Department declined to provide specifics, citing state laws preventing the disclosure of peace

officer discipline. Through an attorney, each of the deputies declined to comment.

A county blue ribbon commission recommended a series of reforms in the wake of Gabriel’s death, including

better training for law enforcement officers and better sharing of information with social workers. Six months

after Gabriel’s death, the Sheriff’s Department began requiring deputies to file a one­page report for every child

abuse call, regardless of whether they find evidence of a crime.

The case highlights a wider problem in the way patrol officers approach child abuse allegations, said Dan Scott,

a retired sheriff’s sergeant and longtime child abuse investigator. Patrol cops often treat child abuse calls as a

low priority, especially when social workers are already involved with the family, he said.

“Law enforcement treats these crimes like second­class crimes,” Scott said. “Cops believe it is a social worker’s

job. They are looking for a reason to clear the case, and as a police officer, you have got to treat child abuse like

any other crime.”

::

Gabriel Fernandez had lived with his maternal grandparents since he was a few months old, when his mother,

Pearl Fernandez, who struggled with a drug problem, signed over legal guardianship in a notarized document.

In September 2012, when Gabriel was 8, Pearl decided she wanted him back.

Her parents, Robert and Sandra Fernandez, asked the Sheriff’s Department to mediate the custody dispute,

telling Deputies Adam Hilzendeger and David Nisenoff that Pearl had a history of neglecting and physically

abusing her children.

In grand jury testimony, Robert Fernandez said he showed the deputies a notarized guardianship document as

well as school records indicating that he and his wife were authorized to act as Gabriel’s parents.

According to the Sheriff’s Department’s policy manual, the welfare of the child “is of paramount concern” in

custody disputes. In “problematical situations” such as those where the documentation is in question, deputies

should file a report to prompt a thorough investigation by detectives.

But the deputies who came to the Fernandez house did not file a report, according to a court motion filed

earlier this year by the district attorney’s office. Instead, they sided with Gabriel’s mother, dismissing the

documents his grandparents showed them.

“And he just said it was fraud. So he got into an argument with my wife,” Robert Fernandez said of one of the

deputies in grand jury testimony.

Gabriel went to live with his mother and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre. The abuse, prosecutors say, started soon

afterward.

After moving in with his mother, Gabriel enrolled in a new school, Summerwind Elementary.

His teacher, Jennifer Garcia, soon noticed that something was wrong with her new pupil, according to her

testimony before the grand jury.

The day before Halloween, Gabriel confided in Garcia: His mother had hit him with the metal part of a belt,

drawing blood.

Garcia testified that she called a child abuse hotline and spoke to Gabriel’s caseworker, Stefanie Rodriguez, one

of the four social workers from the Department of Children and Family Services who were later charged in the

boy’s death.

A sheriff’s deputy, Imelda Rizo, then went to Gabriel’s house and wrote an entry in her computer log: She had

observed no injuries on Gabriel and saw no indications of child abuse, sheriff’s homicide Det. Timothy O’Quinn

told the grand jury.

Since at least 2009, Sheriff’s Department policy has required that deputies “thoroughly investigate” every child

abuse allegation. They should write a police report — which would trigger a follow­up investigation by

detectives — unless they can articulate beyond a reasonable doubt that no child abuse occurred.

Rizo did not file a police report, according to the prosecution motion.

Rodriguez, the social worker, also looked into the alleged belt beating. The boy denied his earlier story, terming

it a joke, she wrote in a report.

By early November 2012, it was obvious to Garcia that Gabriel’s home situation was getting worse.

She began lying on the weekly reports she sent home with Gabriel, drawing a smiley face instead of giving a true

account of his behavior, out of fear that a bad report would cause his mother to hit him, she told grand jurors.

Each time she saw a new instance of possible abuse, she notified a social worker.

On Jan. 29, 2013, Gabriel returned to school after a weeklong absence. His eyes were swollen, and there were

bruised dots all over his face. At first, he told his teacher that he fell and hit his face while playing with his

brother.

Later, he said that his mother had made him exercise as punishment and shot him in the face with a BB gun,

Garcia testified. Garcia said she notified Rodriguez, the case worker. It is unclear whether the Sheriff’s

Department was notified.

On Feb. 27, a counselor assigned to the family by DCFS called 911: Gabriel had written a suicide note.

The deputy who went to Gabriel’s house at 2 a.m. did not see Gabriel or speak to him, according to the district

attorney’s motion. Aguirre told the deputy, Federico Gonzalez, that Gabriel was fine and that DCFS was

involved with the family.

According to DCFS records, the deputy determined that Gabriel did not have a plan for how he would kill

himself. He advised Gabriel’s mother to keep an eye on him and get mental health services for him.

Sometime in 2013, a sheriff’s detective, Vanessa Reddy, was assigned to investigate an allegation submitted to

the county’s child abuse database that Gabriel had been sexually abused by an uncle, according to the motion

by the prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Jonathan Hatami. Reddy interviewed Gabriel but did not appear to have

interviewed the uncle, the motion said. She made an entry in her computer log but did not file a police report,

the prosecutor wrote.

**

On April 26, Arturo Miranda Martinez, the security guard at the county employment office, called 911 to report

that Gabriel was bruised and burned all over his face and head. Deputy Robin Soukup screamed at Martinez

that a burned child was not an emergency, the prosecutor wrote in his motion.

At Gabriel’s home, Deputy Jonathon Livingston spoke to Aguirre, saw Gabriel and then wrote an entry in his

computer log, according to court records. Gabriel had fallen off a bicycle, and there was no evidence of child

abuse, the deputy wrote.

Livingston’s log entry made no mention of examining the child for physical injuries, O’Quinn, the homicide

detective, told the grand jury. Like the other deputies who visited Gabriel’s home, Livingston did not file a police

report that would have prompted further investigation.

In his motion seeking the Sheriff’s Department’s investigative records, the prosecutor slammed the deputies’

response.

“It is unclear why a child being burned all over his body is not an emergency,” Hatami wrote. “It is unclear why

a police report was not filed and if the security guard was interviewed by Deputy Livingston.”

New deputies are trained in the Sheriff’s Academy to “be suspicious” and to square the family’s story with the

injuries on the child, said Scott, the retired sheriff’s sergeant.

That training is carried over into the field, said Sgt. Marvin Jaramilla of the Special Victims Bureau.

“We conduct a thorough investigation. We do not take the parent’s statement at face value,” Jaramilla said.

The county blue ribbon commission saw room for improvement and recommended better training for law

enforcement officers, including yearly refresher courses.

::

A few days after the encounter with the security guard, Gabriel returned to school.

In photos from a Mother’s Day project that were shown to the grand jury, his skin was peeling off his forehead,

and he had a black eye in the healing stages, along with a bruise­like mark on his neck. One eye was completely

bloodshot, prompting his classmates to say he looked evil, his teacher testified.

It is unclear whether the injuries were the same ones the security guard observed or whether the boy had

suffered more abuse in the intervening days.

Garcia called a social worker to report the latest signs, noting that Gabriel’s story about falling off a dirt bike did

not seem believable, according to her grand jury testimony.

“It didn’t seem to go along with the injuries that he had and that he looked really bad,” she recalled saying to

the social worker.

In May, Gabriel was absent from school for several days. Worried school officials assigned Jason Lee Lasley, a

sheriff’s deputy who worked at the school, to check on the boy and see if he was being abused.

Lasley tried and failed to find the boy’s house — he had the wrong address. He told the grand jury that when he

spoke to Pearl Fernandez on the phone on May 16, she said the boy had moved to Texas to live with his

grandmother. He tried to get a better address from Gabriel’s school, then appears to have ended his

investigation. He did not write a police report, he testified.

On May 22, 2013, sheriff’s deputies responded to a call from Gabriel’s mother and found that the boy was not

breathing. Pearl claimed he had fallen while playing with his siblings and that the bruises on his body were self­

inflicted. She said the missing skin on his neck came from vigorous scrubbing with a washcloth.

The county medical examiner who performed Gabriel’s autopsy said to the grand jury that he had never seen so

many skin injuries on a child. The boy’s skull was fractured, his ribs were fractured and he had BB pellets in his

chest and pelvic region. A burn above his groin penetrated all the way through the skin into the soft tissue.

Back at Gabriel’s school, his teacher was hoping he had really moved to Texas. In her gut, she knew it wasn’t

true, she told the grand jury.

When the principal called her into a meeting with a district official she had never met, she thought maybe she

was in trouble.

“It is unclear why a child being burned all over his

body is not an emergency.— Deputy Dist. Atty. Jonathan Hatami

As the principal opened his mouth to speak, his face turned white. She knew.

“Is it Gabriel?” she asked.

MORE ON GABRIEL FERNANDEZ

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Social workers arraigned in case of tortured, fatally beaten 8­year­old boy

Copyright © 2017, Los Angeles Times

O

L.A. County is looking to local sources for water.Is a South Bay desalination plant the answer?

By Matt Stevens

JANUARY 3, 2017, 3:00 AM

n a picturesque summer afternoon, West Basin Municipal Water District officials chose to woo

regulators with a stroll by the beach in El Segundo, stopping to admire an unadulterated strip of

California coastline.

"It is beautiful," said Diane Gatza, West Basin’s water resources engineer.

Like a crashing wave, the fight over desalination has finally arrived in Los Angeles County.

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A few hours later, environmental advocates held a town hall two miles away in Manhattan Beach.

“The reason we’re here is West Basin Municipal Water District is proposing a … desal plant,” said Bruce Reznik,

head of Los Angeles Waterkeeper. “Unfortunately, it seems a little bit like a done deal. We’re trying to stand up

here and say that there are better alternatives.”

Like a crashing wave, the fight over desalination has finally arrived in Los Angeles County.

As Southern California grapples with declining imported supplies and climate change that could make

droughts more severe, agencies such as West Basin are working to develop new local sources, including water

recycling and stormwater capture.

Some suppliers also want to tap the ocean. More than a dozen desalination projects — including West Basin’s

proposal — are under consideration along the California coast.

In 2015, the largest coastal desalter in the country started operation in Carlsbad, where it produces 50 million

gallons a day of drinking water for San Diego County. Poseidon Water, which built that facility, is pursuing

permits for a similarly sized desalination plant in Orange County. If developed to full capacity, the South Bay

project would be even bigger.

But as water agencies rush to pour millions of ratepayer dollars into such projects, some experts remain

skeptical. A 2016 Stanford study concluded that although desalination may prove crucial for some coastal

communities, it is plagued by problems that make it “unlikely to be a major part of California’s water supply

portfolio.”

“Every area is a little bit different,” said Joshua Haggmark, water resources manager for Santa Barbara, which

is spending at least $64 million to reactivate its decades­old desalination plant by spring. “It’s human nature to

start second­guessing yourself.”

Haggmark would know.

Santa Barbara hastily built the state’s first large municipal desalination plant during the drought of the late

1980s and early 1990s. The drought ended just as the facility was nearing completion, and the plant was never

used beyond the testing phase.

A decade later, Australia found itself stuck in the “millennium drought” and commissioned six large coastal

desalting plants, only to idle four of them after rains returned.

Since then, a handful of tiny plants popped up along the California coast, many of which were for industrial

use.

Soon after the Carlsbad plant opened, the San Diego County Water Authority was assailed for agreeing to buy

Poseidon’s water, only to wind up with a 500­million­gallon surplus because drought­related conservation had

driven down regional demand.

Officials there say the situation was an anomaly.

“San Diego is living proof of the fact that desalination provides … a drought­proof supply of new water,” said

Bob Yamada, the agency’s director of water resources.

The battleground has since shifted north to Huntington Beach, where Poseidon seeks to build another 50­

million­gallon­per­day plant and sell the water to a local distributor. The company would have to ensure that

its plant complied with strict new state desalination standards in order to win approvals from a regional water

board and the California Coastal Commission.

How Poseidon navigates the regulatory process could chart a path for West Basin, though the

environmental community is certain to bend decision makers’ ears along the way.

Critics note that the cost of desalinated water is still about double that of imported water because it remains so

energy intensive to produce, and that the process leaves a significant carbon footprint that contributes to

climate change.

The extent of desalination’s impact on the ocean is less clear. The process involves taking water into the plant,

stripping the water of its salt, and then discharging the salty brine that remains back into the ocean. The new

state rules deal with both the intake and discharge methods, which can harm marine life.

Desalination “is not the worst environmental crime in the world, but it certainly has an impact,” said Heal the

Bay’s Steven Johnson.

After years of research, West Basin is expected to release an environmental impact report for its proposed

project this winter.

The plant will produce either 20 million gallons of desalinated water a day or 60 million, depending on whetherWest Basin can find a business partner. If a 60­million­gallon­per­day facility opened today, it would become

the largest in North and South America, according to data provided by the International Desalination Assn.

and DesalData.com.

Agency officials say the plant would cost either $400 or $900 million to construct, depending on its size, and

would not open until 2023. At that point, officials project that their 1 million customers would see bills increase

between $3 and $5 a month.

West Basin, a public agency that provides wholesale drinking and recycled water to much of southwest Los

Angeles County, would prefer to build the plant on the industrially zoned site its officials toured that summer

afternoon — a power plant in El Segundo that abuts a popular surf spot and Manhattan Beach.

Three miles away, the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant discharges as much as 250 million gallons of treated

wastewater into the ocean each day. Environmentalists cringe when they envision all that reusable water getting

dumped into the sea, only to have it sucked back up and desalted.

Johnson and Reznik say that water agencies such as West Basin should maximize water recycling, stormwater

capture and conservation before turning to desalination as a last resort. If West Basin’s environmental impact

report fails to analyze water recycling as an alternative to desalination, “we’re going to sue,” Reznik said.

West Basin General Manager Rich Nagel said he believes those avenues have largely been exhausted. The

district already recycles up to 40 million gallons of Hyperion’s wastewater each day for use on golf courses, in

cooling towers and in refineries. But under current state rules, customers can’t drink recycled water until it is

filtered through the ground or diluted in reservoirs, so Nagel says desalination is necessary to boost the agency’s

drinkable supply.

Like their counterparts in Los Angeles, West Basin officials want to cut their imported water purchases in half,

and getting 10% to 15% of their water from a desalination plant would boost that effort.

“It’s drought security; it’s drought resiliency,” Nagel said. “If we don’t do projects like this and do nothing, by

the year 2035, we’re going to have to ration water eight out of every 10 years. That’s unacceptable for our

society.”

[email protected]

Twitter: @ByMattStevens

P

No charges for government critic who pennedracist comments and images about L.A. CityCouncil member

By Matt Hamilton, Dakota Smith

DECEMBER 22, 2016, 3:20 PM

rosecutors have declined to file charges against a vocal critic of the Los Angeles City Council who

submitted a card during a public meeting with racially incendiary drawings.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office said the card submitted by Encino attorney Wayne

Spindler, which labeled City Council President Herb Wesson with a racial epithet, was "deeply offensive,

morally wrong and socially reprehensible," according to a memo released Thursday.

But prosecutors said they lacked sufficient evidence to prove the speaker card crossed the "sometimes nebulous

line" from protected speech to a "punishable 'true threat,' " according to the memo.

Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson addresses a news conference about the speaker card submitted on May 11 by WayneSpindler. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

The card submitted May 11 showed pictures of a burning cross and man hung from a tree — images typically

associated with the Ku Klux Klan — and used the N­word to describe Wesson, who was presiding over that

day’s meeting.

Spindler was soon arrested on suspicion of making threats against Wesson, who is African American.

Prosecutors described Spindler as a “regular and often highly offensive critic of Los Angeles government” but

said the facts presented in the case “raise significant 1st Amendment concerns that defy easy resolution.”

Wesson’s office issued a brief statement on the decision Thursday.

“We are very disappointed in the District Attorney’s determination,” said Wesson spokeswoman Vanessa

Rodriguez. “We see Mr. Spindler’s action as morally reprehensible, but we’ll continue our work as public

servants.”

[email protected]

[email protected]

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Copyright © 2016, Los Angeles Times

This article is related to: Los Angeles City Council

T

Massive Orange County coastal development goesbefore California Supreme Court

By Bradley Zint

JANUARY 2, 2017, 3:45 PM

he California Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday in San Francisco on a

preservation group's lawsuit challenging the Newport Beach City Council's approval of a proposed

development at Banning Ranch.

The Banning Ranch Conservancy, which seeks to preserve the sprawling coastal property in West Newport as

open space, is accusing the city of violating its own general plan when, in 2012, the council approved a large

residential and commercial development for the area.

Protesters against the development of Newport Banning Ranch celebrate in September after the Coastal Commission rejected a largedevelopment project proposed for the property. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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The group contends the general plan prioritizes open space in West Newport and that city officials failed to

work with the California Coastal Commission to prioritize sensitive habitat areas. The conservancy also says the

project's environmental impact report was inadequate.

At the time, developer Newport Banning Ranch sought to build 1,375 homes, a 75­room hotel and a

commercial area on about 95 acres of the 401­acre property, which has been an active oil field since the 1940s.

Newport Banning Ranch's plans were downgraded by September this year, when it looked to build 895 homes

as well as the 75­room hotel, a 20­bed hostel and 45,100 square feet of retail space on 62 acres.

The Coastal Commission rejected that plan, and in November the developer sued in Orange County Superior

Court, challenging the denial and requesting damages of at least $490 million.

The Banning Ranch Conservancy lawsuit was filed in Superior Court soon after the council's decision in 2012.

The following year, a county judge ruled in the conservancy's favor. City officials challenged that ruling, which

sent the matter to state appeals court.

In May 2015, an appellate judge ruled in favor of the city and the developer.

The conservancy then appealed to the state Supreme Court, which agreed to review the case.

Banning Ranch Conservancy Executive Director Steve Ray said his group was always prepared for the lawsuit

to reach the state's highest court.

"That was truly the only place where we could hope to win," Ray said. "We built our case upon arguments that

will resonate in the Supreme Court."

He said the conservancy's ultimate plan is to acquire the property — whose market value is a matter of dispute

— and manage it for public use.

Newport Beach City Atty. Aaron Harp contended that the city did an "exhaustive" environmental analysis of

the property and that the court should defer to the city to interpret its own general plan.

A spokesman for Newport Banning Ranch declined to comment.

Each side will receive 30 minutes Wednesday to speak to the court's seven justices.

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. It will be broadcast live on the court's

website, courts.ca.gov/supremecourt.htm.

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Copyright © 2017, Los Angeles Times

S

San Diego audit finds utility workers misusedcity-owned SUVs

By Morgan Cook

DECEMBER 22, 2016, 12:20 PM | REPORTING FROM SAN DIEGO

an Diego public utilities workers used city­owned vehicles for personal purposes last year — and one

got paid $6,000 for time spent conducting personal business with a city vehicle instead of working,

according to a city auditor’s report.

The office began investigating utilities employees’ use of taxpayer­owned sport utility vehicles after it received

two anonymous reports on its fraud hotline, according to the report released last week. Auditors substantiated

both tips and found other employees not identified by the callers also had misused vehicles — one of them on

days the worker was on vacation or called in sick.

The investigation found six unnamed utilities employees, two of them managers, had used their publicly owned

vehicles for personal purposes a combined 1,152 hours between Oct. 1, 2015, and June 30 of this year, the report

said. Most of the time was attributed to one employee who took a city SUV home overnight.

A San Diego city SUV, as pictured in a city audit. (Auditor's Office)

The misuse was possible because of weak internal controls to keep track of vehicles and make sure Public

Utilities Department employees actually worked while they were on the clock, the report said.

“According to a manager we interviewed as part of our investigation, the employees in question had no formal

schedules in place and were not required to produce daily activity reports,” the report said. “We also learned

that PUD management, and the city as a whole, does not use GPS data to monitor city vehicle use on a routine

basis to assure compliance with city policy.”

The city’s agreement with employees unions restricts GPS tracking.

“City employees appear to be aware that city vehicles are equipped with GPS monitoring equipment, but they

also seem to be aware that the city is generally prohibited from using the data to monitor employee activity

without prior notice to the employee,” the report said.

Auditors recommended that the department investigate further, try to recover costs and unearned pay, take

disciplinary action against employees as necessary, identify and correct any income tax misreporting, and

strengthen internal controls. Department managers agreed with the recommendations and said they would

comply by June 30.

To prevent similar problems in the future, the auditors recommended that management consider using GPS

data to monitor vehicle use, and the department agreed to consider the idea.

[email protected]

Cook writes for the San Diego Union­Tribune

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Copyright © 2016, Los Angeles Times

C

Afghan refugees coming to California strugglewith PTSDBy Associated Press

JANUARY 1, 2017, 5:50 PM | REPORTING FROM SACRAMENTO

alifornia's capital has emerged as a leading destination for Afghan refugees who were awarded

special visas because of their service to coalition forces in the war.

But life in the United States has proven a constant struggle.

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These former translators, engineers and doctors awarded Special Immigrant Visas must start over in bug­

infested, low­rent apartments with minimum­wage jobs while dealing with post­traumatic stress disorder and

other health problems, the Sacramento Bee reported.

More than 2,000 such visa holders and their family members have settled in Sacramento since October 2010.

Many of them say they are struggling with anxiety and depression that have developed or been greatly

exacerbated by their struggles in the United States. They say they feel helpless and abandoned, lacking decent

jobs, housing or an understanding of U.S. culture.

Faisal Razmal, a former interpreter for U.S. soldiers battling the Taliban in Afghanistan, was shot in the face

outside his Sacramento apartment in August 2015 by an assailant wielding a flare gun. A neighborhood

teenager and suspected gang member has been charged and is awaiting trial.

Razmal, 28, who lost the sight in one eye after the attack, said he feels like he also lost a piece of his soul.

“I feel like I'm drowning here,” said Razmal, a father of two and whose wife is expecting. “I'm not mentally

fixed.”

Before he was shot, Razmal worked as a security guard at a shopping center. Since then, he has tried working

as a taxi driver, gas station attendant, security guard and dishwasher. But his limited vision and PTSD have

compromised his ability to keep a job, said licensed clinical social worker Jason Swain, who has counseled

Razmal since the assault.

Razmal's fate and his ability to support his family remain uncertain. The state Department of Rehabilitation

said a decision on his application for disability payments may take a year, Swain said.

Razmal, who survived roadside bombs and firefights during the war, said he was never evaluated for PTSD in

Afghanistan or the United States.

Razmal's therapist, Homeyra Ghaffari, said she thinks he was already afflicted with PTSD from his experiences

in Afghanistan, and he was “re­traumatized” by his shooting here.

“People hear about America and think it is a dreamland and everything is law and order and they are going to

be absolutely safe, and when they enter they are in shock as they try to find their way around,” said Ghaffari, an

Iranian marriage and family therapist in Sacramento who speaks the same Dari language as the Afghan

refugees. She now counsels about 30 Afghans seeking help with mental health and domestic violence issues.

“They feel isolated, don't have any clear direction,” she said. “Their dream shatters right away.”

Copyright © 2017, Los Angeles Times

This article is related to: Afghanistan, Asia