Politics, Government and Business in Southern California's Inland Empire
Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/24/2013 05:57:24 PM PDT
Four Fontana Unified School District Police Department employees claim they were raped or sexually assaulted by an officer with a history of sexual misconduct, according to lawsuits filed in San Bernardino Superior Court.
WASHINGTON | Fri May 24, 2013 5:00pm EDT
(Reuters) – The Justice Department said on Friday that senior officials including Attorney General Eric Holder vetted a decision to search an email account belonging to a Fox News reporter whose story on North Korea prompted a leak investigation.
By Ryan Hagen
ryan.hagen@ inlandnewspapers.com @sbcitynow on Twitter
Posted: 05/23/2013 07:28:06 PM PDT
SAN BERNARDINO — If the City Council thought it took care of the conflict of interest inherent in having officials targeted by a recall campaign handle that same recall by asking the county to take over, it might not be so simple.
Liset Marquez, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/24/2013 05:59:56 PM PDT
Updated: 05/24/2013 06:01:15 PM PDT
Special Section: Ontario Airport
The claim by Ontario seeking to end its agreement over LA/Ontario International Airport has been rejected by the city of Los Angeles.
Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/24/2013 09:47:56 AM PDT
Updated: 05/24/2013 06:12:21 PM PDT
Arrowhead Credit Union, based in San Bernardino, has been released from conservatorship after being under government control for nearly three years.
Capitol Alert
The latest on California politics and government
May 23, 2013
Assembly Democrat Tom Ammiano of San Francisco leads the pack of lawmakers with a slew of bills to be heard Friday on the suspense file in the Assembly Appropriation Committee. The Assembly has 328 bills on the suspense file, which will be taken up after the lower house meets in the morning.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, May. 24, 2013 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
When Gov. Jerry Brown talks about reducing the state’s “wall of debt,” he carefully limits it to about $30 billion in budget deficits, mostly money owed to schools and community colleges.
By Chad Terhune
May 23, 2013, 9:36 a.m.
After weeks of negotiations, California said it has selected 13 health plans for a new state-run insurance marketplace where as many as 5 million people will shop for coverage next year.
Friday, May 24, 2013 – 06:00 a.m.
Here’s some news moving across the transom Friday morning.
IRS manager placed on leave
Lois Lerner, the manager at the center of a massive scandal at the Internal Revenue Service, was placed on paid leave Thursday afternoon. The move comes after Lerner invoked her fifth amendment right against self-incrimination before a congressional oversight committee earlier this week.
May 23, 2013; 04:35 PM
Organizers of a recall campaign to oust most San Bernardino city elected leaders began collecting signatures this week even as officials remained uncertain over who would oversee the process.
To read story by Imran Ghori in The Press Enterprise, click here.
By Carol Matlack
May 22, 2013
Apple (AAPL) has a deal with Ireland granting it an effective 2 percent tax rate on tens of billions of dollars in profit at the company’s Irish affiliates, according to a U.S. Senate report released on May 20.
By Patrick McGreevy, Los Angeles Times
May 22, 2013, 8:49 p.m.
SACRAMENTO — Democrats took another seat in the state Assembly this week, but a conservative Republican won a Central Valley state Senate district in an upset victory.
By Richard Simon and Melanie Mason
May 22, 2013, 8:47 a.m.
WASHINGTON — A top Internal Revenue Service official invoked the 5th Amendment and declined to testify Wednesday before a House committee investigating the agency’s mishandling of applications by some conservative groups for tax-exempt status.
Posted on | May 22, 2013
Mayor Tom Owings, following a rambunctious study session on Tuesday, May 21, confirmed that he received a target letter in the federal grand jury probe of corruption in the Moreno Valley.
To read story by Debra Gruszecki in The Press Enterprise, click here.
May 21, 2013; 06:14 PM
When Ontario International Airport opened its two modern terminals in September 1998, many of Inland Southern California’s top business executives lauded the event as a great way to make a first impression on would-be customers and investors from out of town.
To read story by Jack Katzanek in The Press Enterprise, click here.
Staff Reports
Posted: 05/22/2013 12:41:55 PM PDT
Updated: 05/22/2013 01:32:27 PM PDT
CHINO – City officials will discuss their 2013-14 proposed budget during a workshop today.
By JUDY LIN Associated Press
Posted: 05/21/2013 12:39:42 PM PDT
Updated: 05/21/2013 01:33:49 PM PDT
SACRAMENTO, Calif.—California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has agreed to expand the way her office presents campaign finance data online after initially rejecting the request from a coalition of good-government groups, research organizations and newspapers, her spokeswoman said Tuesday.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, May. 22, 2013 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
Last Modified: Wednesday, May. 22, 2013 – 12:07 pm
California, it’s now acknowledged, has a glut of lawyers.
Thousands of law school graduates cannot find jobs as law firms cut back, as government agencies are squeezed, as corporations trim legal expenses and as technology handles rote legal work.
Mark Anderson, Staff Writer
Sacramento Business Journal
May 22, 2013, 3:00am PDT
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System is asking federal bankruptcy courts to disqualify a law firm from participating in the municipal bankruptcy proceedings of San Bernardino and Stockton because the firm allegedly hired attorneys away from a firm that was representing the pension fund giant.
By Dan Balz,
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
It is never good for an administration when a front-page newspaper article about an ongoing controversy begins as follows: “The White House offered a new account Monday of how and when it learned . . . ” That’s what readers of The Post awoke to on Tuesday. In trying to contain the controversy and protect President Obama, White House officials have only added to questions about what happened.
May 20, 2013; 06:34 PM
Ontario, San Bernardino County and Culver City filed an appeal late Monday, May 20, of the Los Angeles County Airport Land Use Commission’s approval of an LAX expansion plan.
To read story by Cassie MacDuff in The Press Enterprise, click here.
Ryan Hagen, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/20/2013 08:33:53 PM PDT
SAN BERNARDINO – It seems that no one wants to administer the attempts to recall nearly all of the city’s elected officials.
The dais was nearly empty Monday night as the city council asked the county registrar of voters to handle any further questions related to the recall efforts.
Sandra Emerson, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/20/2013 08:50:18 PM PDT
Updated: 05/20/2013 08:50:25 PM PDT
UPLAND – Members of the city’s Finance and Economic Development Committee were updated Monday on the city’s fiscal situation, which is still uncertain.
Capitol Alert
The latest on California politics and government
May 20, 2013
The California Senate passed a bill today that would shield pot shops following state guidelines for dispensing medical marijuana from prosecution for marijuana possession or sale.
By Jim Puzzanghera and Chris O’Brien
May 20, 2013, 2:04 p.m.
This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details
WASHINGTON — Apple Inc. has used an elaborate web of offshore subsidiaries to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. taxes on $44 billion in foreign income over the past four years, a Senate investigation has found.
By Zachary Goldfarb
Published: May 20, 2013 at 11:00 pm
The Treasury Department was informed on three separate occasions that the Internal Revenue Service planned to disclose that it targeted conservative groups for scrutiny, and on one occasion, Treasury expressed concern about the form of the disclosure, a Treasury official said on Monday night.
By Ken Dilanian, Washington Bureau
May 20, 2013, 9:15 p.m.
WASHINGTON — The FBI obtained a sealed search warrant to read a Fox News reporter’s personal emails from two days in 2010 after arguing there was probable cause he had violated espionage laws by soliciting classified information from a government official, court papers show.
In an affidavit, an FBI agent told a federal magistrate that the reporter had committed a crime when he asked a State Department security contractor, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, to share secret material about North Korea in June 2009.
The affidavit did not name the reporter, but Fox News identified him as its chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen. He was not charged, but Kim was indicted on espionage charges in August 2010 and is awaiting trial. He has denied leaking classified information.
The case marks the first time the government has gone to court to portray news gathering as espionage, and Fox News officials and 1st Amendment advocates reacted angrily Monday after the secret warrant was reported by the Washington Post.
“We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter,” said Michael Clemente, Fox News executive vice president of news. “In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”
The development emerged days after the Justice Department notified the Associated Press that the agency used a subpoena last year to obtain phone company records for 20 telephone lines used by more than 100 reporters and editors in three cities. The subpoena was pursuant to a grand jury investigation of an alleged leak of classified information about an Al Qaeda plot to bomb a U.S. aircraft.
Neither Fox News nor the Associated Press was told in advance about the government actions or had a chance to challenge them in court, the usual practice. The government ordered Google not to disclose that it had given the FBI access to Rosen’s Gmail account, and Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia confirmed in a September 2010 ruling that the government did not have to notify Rosen.
To read entire story, click here.
By Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times
May 20, 2013, 8:53 p.m.
WASHINGTON — The former top federal prosecutor in Arizona retaliated against the lead whistle-blower in the Fast and Furious gun-smuggling scandal by leaking an internal report that suggested the whistle-blower once favored allowing illegal gun sales as a way to track weapons to drug cartels in Mexico, the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office said Monday.
May 20, 2013; 01:55 PM
SACRAMENTO — Former Assemblywoman Norma Torres was sworn into the state Senate following her victory in last week’s special election in Inland Southern California’s 32nd Senate District.
To read brief in The Press Enterprise, click here.
Ryan Hagen, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/19/2013 05:44:48 PM PDT
SAN BERNARDINO — After delivering the legally required notice that he intended to start a recall petition against the city clerk, Rey Dandy Lachica got a letter saying the notice had been rejected – by the City Clerk’s Office.
By Joe Garofoli
May 19, 2013
After Jim Araby’s union of grocery store workers donated millions of dollars and cranked out 7,500 three-hour volunteer shifts last fall to help elect a supermajority of Democrats to the state Legislature and win statewide ballot measures, they, like many California liberals, began to dream big.
By Ed Mendel
Monday, May 20, 2013
One of the first local ballot measures aimed at cutting public pension costs, a cap on Pacific Grove payments to CalPERS approved by voters three years ago, was ruled unconstitutional by a Monterey County superior court judge last week.
By David G. Savage, Washington Bureau
May 19, 2013, 8:41 p.m.
WASHINGTON — Three years ago, the Obama administration brought criminal charges under the Espionage Act against Thomas Drake, an Air Force veteran and intelligence expert at the National Security Agency in Maryland.
By Andrew Edwards, Staff Writer
@InlandGov on Twitter
Posted: 05/18/2013 04:28:16 PM PDT
Updated: 05/18/2013 04:35:54 PM PDT
Related: Union money looms big in L.A. mayor’s race
The next mayor of Los Angeles – City Councilman Eric Garcetti or City Controller Wendy Greuel – can be expected to have political influence well beyond their city’s limits.
Beatriz E. Valenzuela, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/18/2013 05:38:40 PM PDT
Updated: 05/18/2013 07:19:15 PM PDT
Fewer offenders released from state prison after the implementation of Gov. Jerry Brown’s Prison Realignment have been rearrested and conviction rates for the same group of offenders have remained virtually the same, according to a new study from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. San Bernardino County rates, however, are lower than the state average.
Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/18/2013 07:48:47 PM PDT
Updated: 05/18/2013 07:49:35 PM PDT
Two years after being indicted in a major San Bernardino County corruption case, Mark Kirk is back in the political arena.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
Published: Sunday, May. 19, 2013 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
Last Modified: Sunday, May. 19, 2013 – 8:10 am
Jerry Brown – who made “lower your expectations” a catchphrase of his first governorship – is back in that mode during his second stint, especially on spending.
Greg Cappis, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/17/2013 08:09:39 PM PDT
Eloise Gomez Reyes’ campaign is taking shape in the crowded race for the 31st Congressional District seat in 2014.
Emily’s List, the powerful political organization supporting pro-choice, female Democrats, officially added Gomez Reyes to “the list. ”
Liset Marquez, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/17/2013 07:41:52 PM PDT
Updated: 05/17/2013 07:42:00 PM PDT
ONTARIO — Attorneys representing several cities and San Bernardino County opposed to a plan to modernize Los Angeles International Airport say they are in the process of filing a lawsuit against the agency that oversees LAX.
Kevin Smith, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/17/2013 06:52:28 PM PDT
Updated: 05/17/2013 09:24:37 PM PDT
Related story: L.A. County’s jobless rate under 10% for first time in 4 years The Inland Empire’s unemployment rate fell to a 4 1/2-year low of 9.6 percent in April and the region added 900 jobs, the state Employment Development Department reported Friday.
Capitol Alert
The latest on California politics and government
May 17, 2013
Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor projected state revenues Friday that are $3.2 billion higher than those projected by Gov. Jerry Brown this week in his revised budget proposal.
By Alana Semuels
May 17, 2013, 11:04 a.m.
After a few robust months, the pace of hiring in California slowed in April as employers concerned about the economy cut back on adding new employees.
Elspeth Reeve
May 17, 2013
The IRS official who revealed the IRS had inappropriately targeted conservative groups on Friday did so on purpose — by asking a tax lawyer to ask her about it at American Bar Association tax section’s annual meeting.
Friday, May 17, 2013 – 11:30 a.m.
Well it’s finally started!
Local newspapers trying to create distance from San Bernardino mayor Pat Morris and company.
Posted on | May 16, 2013
To understand Tuesday night’s production of the Mighty MoVal Council Players, watch this brief snippet in “Godfather II” in which Michael Corleone kisses his turncoat brother, Fredo, full on the mouth.
To read column by Dan Bernstein in The Press Enterprise, click here.
May 16, 2013; 12:41 PM
SACRAMENTO — A new state audit identifies $94.6 million worth of former Riverside redevelopment assets that it says have not been properly transferred to the agency in charge of settling the debts of the former program.
To read story by Jim Miller in The Press Enterprise, click here.
By Lori Fowler
lori.fowler@ inlandnewspapers.com @IECourtsNow on Twitter
Posted: 05/16/2013 05:31:14 PM PDT
Updated: 05/16/2013 05:31:22 PM PDT
A group of local officials are spearheading an effort to re-staff courts and provide more funds to what they call a starving court system.
Capitol Alert
The latest on California politics and government
May 16, 2013
Millions of Californians who contact the state’s new health exchange to buy insurance will be given the opportunity to register to vote, too, a move that some Republicans fear could benefit Democrats.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, May. 17, 2013 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
When voters passed Proposition 30 last year, they unwittingly accelerated one of the most perilous trends in California governmental finance – an ever-increasing reliance on income taxes from rich people to finance schools and myriad other state and local services.
By Patrick McGreevy
May 16, 2013, 3:07 p.m.
The state certified Thursday that it has a sufficient reserve fund to allow pay raises for Gov. Jerry Brown, state lawmakers and other elected officials, but members of a panel that sets pay say they will probably maintain the status quo for another year.
By Karen Gullo
May 15, 2013 9:01 PM PT
Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) must pay customers $203 million for manipulating debit-card transactions to boost overdraft fees, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled, reinstating a 2010 damage award.
By Carol D. Leonnig
Published: May 16, 2013
When the Barack H. Obama Foundation sought tax-exempt status to raise money for good works in Kenya, the Internal Revenue Service provided quick help.
The IRS approved charitable status for the foundation, which was run by President Obama’s brother and named after his father, in about a month’s time. The IRS also agreed to give the group this important financial status retroactively, back to 2009, when it had begun its fundraising.
Thursday, May 16, 2013 – 10:00 a.m.
Apparently only a few are learning any lessons from 2008.
A stock market that sees nothing wrong, and a real estate market, where the Southern California real estate median, not average, price has reportedly returned to pre-2008 levels, all at the same time can make one queasy.
Posted on | May 15, 2013
A new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has bad news for Ontario International Airport.
To read column by Cassie MacDuff in The Press Enterprise, click here.
May 15, 2013; 07:53 PM
As a political corruption probe hangs over Moreno Valley and a day after its city manager quit, Michelle Dawson began moving quickly as the city’s new chief executive.
One of her first points of business Wednesday, May 15, was tapping city official Tom DeSantis as her top assistant.
To read story by Debra Gruszecki in The Press Enterprise, click here.
New election ahead to fill Assembly vacancy
By Canan Tasci
canan.tasci@ inlandnewspapers.com @ChinoValleyNow on Twitter
Posted: 05/15/2013 05:46:58 PM PDT
Updated: 05/15/2013 05:47:09 PM PDT
Now that Assemblywoman Norma Torres will take over as the state senator in the 32nd District, her 52nd Assembly District seat will be up for grabs.
By Jon Ortiz
jortiz@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, May. 16, 2013 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
Last Modified: Thursday, May. 16, 2013 – 8:14 am
On Friday two state agencies will release the results of their probes into departments giving salaried managers secondary jobs that pay an hourly wage.
By Michael Gardner7:06 p.m.May 15, 2013
California’s counties are leery of Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget maneuver to immediately siphon money from local coffers, leaving behind an IOU that would be repaid through savings realized much later.
By Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung
Published: May 15 E-mail the writers
The Obama administration released 100 pages of e-mails Wednesday that reveal differences between intelligence analysts and State Department officials over how to initially describe the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.
By Zachary A. Goldfarb and Juliet Eilperin
Published: May 15 E-mail the writers
President Obama on Wednesday demanded and accepted the resignation of the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Steven T. Miller, as part of a multi-pronged effort to quell controversies that threaten to dominate his second term.
By Karen Tumulty
Published: May 15 E-mail the writer
The most corrosive political scandals are the ones that feed a preexisting story line — which is why the White House could have difficulty putting the current ones behind it any time soon.
By Michael A. Memoli
May 15, 2013, 9:15 a.m.
WASHINGTON — Republican congressional leaders, faced with an array of crises threatening to overwhelm the White House, appear to have singled out the targeting of conservative political groups by the IRS as the most fertile — and politically advantageous — to focus on.
May 14, 2013; 08:51 PM
Moreno Valley City Manager Henry Garcia resigned Tuesday night, May 14, at a City Council meeting at which emotions ran high over a corruption probe, grandstanding by elected officials, and the recent filing of three claims by laid-off officials alleging political interference over code enforcement action taken against a councilman.
To read story by Debra Gruszecki in The Press Enterprise, click here.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013 – 09:00 a.m.
State Assembly Member Norma Torres (D-Pomona) handily defeated Mayor Paul Leon (R-Ontario) to fill the 32nd State Senate District seat vacated by now-U.S. Representative Gloria Negrete-McLeod on Tuesday night.
Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/14/2013 05:17:03 PM PDT
San Bernardino County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereaux presented the first budget projections for the next fiscal year to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
May 14, 2013; 06:39 PM
A former Riverside Sheriff’s Association official who won a whistle-blower lawsuit against the law enforcement union is seeking more than $1.99 million in back wages, attorney fees and other costs — and wants to be reinstated.
To read story by Richard K. De Atley in The Press Enterprise, click here.
Sandra Emerson, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/14/2013 11:58:51 PM PDT
Updated: 05/14/2013 11:59:54 PM PDT
UPLAND — The Upland Unified School District Board of Trustees on Tuesday recieved a two-and-a-half page list of possible cuts suggested by employees.
By David Siders
dsiders@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, May. 14, 2013 – 5:07 pm
Last Modified: Wednesday, May. 15, 2013 – 8:02 am
Gov. Jerry Brown, dismissive of a surge in state tax revenue that stirred optimism at the Capitol, moved Tuesday to blunt appeals for increased spending, downgrading his budget proposal from January.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, May. 15, 2013 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
Last Modified: Wednesday, May. 15, 2013 – 8:02 am
Twenty-five years ago, California voters approved – albeit very narrowly – the education community’s ballot measure that engraved a complex school finance structure into the state constitution.
By Sean Sullivan
Published: May 14, 2013
More than four dozen media organizations joined forces Tuesday to sharply rebuke the Justice Department for secretly gathering the phone records of Associated Press journalists, calling on the department to promptly return the records and disclose all other pending subpoenas related to the news media.
Shane Goldmacher
May 14 2013, 4:39 PM ET
As three separate scandals – the IRS targeting the tea party, the Justice Department’s phone-records grab from the AP, and Benghazi – erupt simultaneously, congressional Republicans are hoping to fold them into a single narrative of an unaccountable and overreaching White House that cannot be trusted.
As Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., put it colorfully during a Fox News appearance, “This sounds like a president somewhat drunk on power.”
Ryan Hagen, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/13/2013 10:44:19 AM PDT
SAN BERNARDINO — City Clerk Gigi Hanna was served Monday with notice of an intent to circulate a recall petition against her, bringing to 10 the number of San Bernardino elected officials targeted by recalls.
Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/13/2013 05:15:52 PM PDT
Updated: 05/13/2013 05:15:59 PM PDT
San Bernardino County Chief Executive Officer Greg Devereaux will discuss proposed budget programs for the next fiscal year and the county’s financial condition during a study session of the Board of Supervisors today.
PolitiCal
On politics in the Golden State
By Paige St. John
May 13, 2013, 3:59 p.m.
Gov. Jerry Brown has, as promised, filed legal papers to appeal federal court orders to reduce the state’s prison population with the U.S. Supreme Court.
By David Siders
dsiders@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, May. 14, 2013 – 12:00 am | Page 3A
Last Modified: Tuesday, May. 14, 2013 – 7:58 am
With California income tax revenue running about $4.5 billion ahead of expectations through April, Gov. Jerry Brown finds himself today in an unusual position: Releasing a revised budget proposal highlighting better numbers, not worse.
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