Sunday, August 15, 2010 – 11:00 am

It’s time for the former Norton Air Force Base reuse agencies to come clean with their finances and end the shell games.

The matter of the San Bernardino International Airport Authority and Inland Valley Development Agency recently misleading everyone into thinking Million Air actually spent $30 million to build the transit refueling facility pretty much takes the cake.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday, August 15, 2010 – 11:00 am

The San Manuel Band of Mission Indians have finally moved to clean up an eye soar near the San Bernardino International Airport.

Several years ago the gaming tribe assumed ownership of land formally attached to the former Norton Air Force Base. Two main areas acquired were the air combat camera facility and the former base housing property.

Read the rest of this entry »

www.iepolitics.com

Yesterday’s arrest of former San Bernardino County Assessor Bill Postmus was not much of a surprise to anyone close to this case.  What was more of a surprise was how blatantly the San Bernardino County Public Integrity Unit  (PIU) went out of their way to keep from having to present their case at the preliminary hearing.

Read the rest of this entry »

Executive Editor Frank Pine
Posted: 08/14/2010 05:15:59 PM PDT

I feel sorry for Bill Postmus.

The former San Bernardino County supervisor, former assessor and prime suspect in the ongoing county corruption investigation was arrested in court on suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance last week.

Read the rest of this entry »

Seats don’t reflect totals
James Rufus Koren, Staff Writer
Posted: 08/14/2010 09:53:26 PM PDT

Look around the average neighborhood in Fontana and you’ll likely see plenty of Latino faces. Look at the Fontana City Council dais, and you’ll see none.

It’s the same in Upland, Highland, Hesperia and other San Bernardino County cities that have large Latino populations but few if any Latino elected officials.

Read the rest of this entry »

Greg Devereaux

Joe Nelson, Staff Writer
Posted: 08/14/2010 09:51:19 PM PDT

Limiting the day-to-day authority of elected officials can be a dicey business.

But for San Bernardino County Administrative Officer Greg Devereaux, the trust he’s engendered as a successful city manager in Ontario and Fontana appears to have convinced the county Board of Supervisors to do things his way.

Read the rest of this entry »

William “Buck” Johns

August 15, 2010 1:00 AM
Brooke Edwards

VICTORVILLE • With just two weeks left on Inland Energy’s one-year contract to raise funds for Victorville through the EB-5 visa investor program — and only $8.5 million out of $25 million ready to loan to the city — staff is asking City Council to give the Newport Beach-based developer six more months.

Victorville awarded the contract to Inland in August 2009, granting William Buck Johns’ company exclusive rights to seek foreign citizens willing to lend the city $500,000 each in exchange for green cards.

Read the rest of this entry »

August 14, 2010 11:58 PM
By TOMOYA SHIMURA AND NATASHA LINDSTROM, Staff Writers

Editor’s note: This is the first of two parts. See Monday’s Daily Press for a look at how Tea Partiers could impact elections.

Brandon Wood says enough is enough.

He used to enjoy riding off-road motor vehicles with his kids — until Hesperia passed an ordinance prohibiting it. He’s also been caught on one of Victorville’s unpopular red light cameras, facing a hefty $450 fine.

Read the rest of this entry »

Boxer

PolitiCal
On politics in the Golden State
August 14, 2010 | 5:46 pm

With 80 days to go before the November election, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer turned her energies to mobilizing volunteers Saturday, tapping into the Democrats’ national get-out-the-vote network, Organizing for America, during an appearance near downtown Los Angeles.

Joined by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Boxer asked a group of about 100 volunteers to begin making phone calls and walking neighborhoods to ensure that first-time voters who supported President Obama in 2008 will turn out again in November when she will face former Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Carly Fiorina.

Read the rest of this entry »

Capitol and California – Dan Walters
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com The Sacramento Bee
Published: Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 3A

Four years ago, when the state’s economy was hopping – thanks, we know now, to an unsustainable housing bubble – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took credit for prosperity as he campaigned for re-election.

By pushing workers’ compensation reforms through the Legislature and vetoing costly bills that employers opposed, Schwarzenegger bragged, he sparked a flood of job-creating investment.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted at 04:08 PM on Friday, Aug. 13, 2010
By Jim Boren

Jerry Brown has been a California politician for almost four decades, and it’s still difficult to figure out exactly what he stands for. But now that he wants a do-over as governor, he’d better begin answering that question or Republican Meg Whitman will do it for him using her millions in campaign cash.

Brown, 72, surely won’t like the picture that the likely Republican nominee intends to paint for voters in the general election.

Read the rest of this entry »

Villalobos

Business

By Dale Kasler
dkasler@sacbee.com
Published: Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1A

Alfred Villalobos, a sometimes pugnacious businessman with a troubled financial history, wasn’t an obvious candidate to charm his way into the inner circle of America’s largest public pension fund.

Though he had served three years on the CalPERS board in the 1990s, he wasn’t a universally popular figure. When he reappeared at CalPERS’ Sacramento headquarters two years after his departure, pitching investment deals, many within the organization were appalled at his heavy-handed lobbying. Amid the uproar, one of his earliest clients fired him, and his activities prompted hearings in the Legislature.

Read the rest of this entry »

Of 25 charter cities in Los Angeles County, fewer than half paid their council members more than $20,000 a year. Meanwhile, Inglewood was paying $61,884; Vernon, $68,052; and Bell, nearly $100,000.

By Sam Allen and Abby Sewell, Los Angeles Times

August 15, 2010

City council members in Vernon, Compton and Inglewood receive significantly higher compensation than most of their counterparts in Los Angeles County, according to a Los Angeles Times review of salary figures.

Read the rest of this entry »

Capitol and California – State Politics
Published: Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 1A

We’re more than 40 days into the state government’s new fiscal year. Democrats and Republicans still can’t agree on how to close the state’s estimated $19 billion deficit.

It wasn’t until recently, in fact, that Assembly and Senate legislative leaders settled on a detailed plan that has the support of both Democratic caucuses.

Read the rest of this entry »

John Burns says demographics, government policy and other factors that once pushed people into buying property are no longer enough.

By Mary Umberger

August 15, 2010

Somewhere, somehow, in the last decade the so-called American Dream seemed to insinuate itself into the Bill of Rights. Government policy, among other factors, pushed homeownership to a lofty 68% of all households.

That was then.

Read the rest of this entry »