Politics, Government & Business in California's Inland Empire
By Joe Nelson, The Sun
Posted: 03/30/17 – 8:08 PM PDT |
A senior prosecutor’s assertion that the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department fosters a “culture of violence” outraged a local law enforcement labor union, prompting a swift apology from the supervising deputy district attorney and a public statement from the district attorney himself.
By Joe Nelson, The Sun
Posted: 03/30/17 – 4:32 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> One of three former San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies accused of assaulting an Apple Valley man following a chase through the High Desert two years ago was found guilty Thursday in Superior Court, while a mistrial was declared for the other two defendants.
By DON THOMPSON and SOPHIA BOLLAG, Associated Press
March 29, 2017, at 9:11 p.m.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s governor and legislative leaders on Wednesday proposed raising $52 billion to fix the state’s roads through a big gasoline tax increase, higher car registration fees and a charge on emission-free vehicles.
By Paul Rogers, Bay Area News Group
Posted: 03/29/17 – 5:54 PM PDT |
The biggest blizzards are over. But as state water officials head into the Sierra Nevada on Thursday for the annual April 1 snowpack reading — the most important of the year for planning summer water supplies — California still has a huge amount of snow covering its highest mountain peaks, an avalanche that has buried the state’s punishing drought.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 03/29/17 – 10:55 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> Two high-ranked city officials have announced that they’re leaving City Hall.
By Joe Nelson, The Sun
Posted: 03/28/17 – 6:05 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> Closing arguments concluded and the jury began deliberating Tuesday in the trial of three San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies charged with assaulting an Apple Valley man after a lengthy pursuit in the High Desert nearly two years ago.
Ruben Vives and Cindy Carcamo
March 27, 2017
Leaders from so-called sanctuary cities across Southern California struck a defiant tone Monday, stating that they would continue to protect people who are in the country illegally despite threats by U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to cut off and even claw back grant funding from the Justice Department.
AP Top News
By Thomas Beaumont and Bill Barrow
Mar. 27, 2017
The Republican Party of “no” for Democrat Barack Obama’s eight years is having a hard time getting to “yes” in the early Donald Trump era.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
March 25, 2017 – 1:30 PM
There’s a saying among Capitol insiders about legislation: You shouldn’t amend a bad bill.
March 25, 2017
The City of San Bernardino has problems. The city, despite having exited bankruptcy, remains broke. The police department is undermanned and underfunded. Increased pension obligations to CalPERS threatens to consume any additional revenue to the department and the city.
By Monica Solano, Staff Writer
Posted: Mar 23, 2017 at 3:43 PM
Updated: Mar 23, 2017 at 3:47 PM
VICTORVILLE — Forty-eight hours after a City Council meeting that featured threats of legal action, heated arguments on the dais and the request for more law enforcement to help maintain order, city officials didn’t mince words in offering their reactions.
By Rene Ray De La Cruz, Staff Writer
Posted: Mar 23, 2017 at 3:28 PM
Updated: Mar 23, 2017 at 4:44 PM
HESPERIA — Mayor Paul Russ said he doesn’t remember much of last week after a medical emergency put him into a coma and a local hospital.
Natalie Kitroeff
March 24, 2017
California’s unemployment rate ticked down to 5% in February, reaching a 10-year low on eight consecutive months of job growth.
Natalie Kitroeff
March 24, 2017
California’s unemployment rate ticked down to 5% in February, reaching a 10-year low on eight consecutive months of job growth.
By Jeff Horseman / Staff Reporter
Published: March 21, 2017 – Updated: 10:09 p.m.
A 17-year senior prosecutor in the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office is challenging his boss’s re-election bid in 2018.
By David Danelski, The Press-Enterprise
Posted: 03/18/17 – 2:47 PM PDT |
California’s power-grid operators are dealing with a glut of daytime electricity produced by household, government, business and industrial solar installations.
By Louis Casiano Jr. / Staff Writer
March 17, 2017
SANTA ANA – A private detective who admitted he tried to set up a Costa Mesa councilman for a false DUI and tailed the city’s former mayor using a tracking device was sentenced by an Orange County Superior Court judge Friday to one year in jail.
Patrick McGreevy
March 16, 2017 – 11:00 a.m.
In a rare bipartisan agreement, the leaders of the Democratic and Republican caucuses of the state Senate and Assembly have united to fight a proposal by the state’s campaign watchdog agency to change the test for when a candidate controls a political committee.
Evan Halper and Sarah D. Wire
March 16, 2016
President Trump’s budget would deliver a painful financial blow to California, with the potential to push a state that has struggled for years to keep its books balanced back into the kind of red ink that consumed it after the housing market collapse a decade ago.
By Susan Abram, Los Angeles Daily News
Posted: 03/15/17 – 2:10 PM PDT |
Once the head of the largest law enforcement agency of its kind in the nation, former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was found guilty by a federal jury Wednesday of obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and giving false statements in connection with an investigation into corruption and excessive use of force inside the Men’s Central Jail.
By Jeff Horseman
Posted: 03/14/17 – 4:30 PM PDT
Ed O’Brien, a former prosecutor turned public defender also announced Tuesday he will run for DA.
By Jonathan Lansner,
jlansner@scng.com
Posted: 03/12/17 – 10:17 PM PDT |
Warning: Property taxes are due April 10.
Before you search for the bill and the checkbook – and perhaps express a few choice nasty words aloud about the financial pinch – let me make you extra grumpy.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 03/12/17, 9:01 PM PDT |
SAN BERNARDINO >> Shootings in a pair of economically distressed California cities were skyrocketing, leaving the impression of an epidemic, but analysis by California Partnerships for a Safe Community revealed relatively few people are behind many of those shootings.
By Brooke Staggs, bstaggs@scng.com JournoBrooke on Twitter
Posted: 03/10/17 – 6:01 PM PST |
California does a good job of letting medical marijuana patients get their treatment of choice, but some elements of the state’s marijuana laws still fail to protect people with legitimate ailments, according to a report released Thursday by a patient advocacy group.
AP Nation / World
By Sudhin Thanawala
Associated Press
Mar 10, 2017 – 6:56 PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The State Bar of California approved an ethics rule that would subject lawyers to discipline for having sex with their clients.
Jeff Cox | @JeffCoxCNBCcom
March 10, 2017
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 235,000 in February and the unemployment rate was 4.7 percent in the first full month of President Donald Trump’s term, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
By Susan Abram, Los Angeles Daily News
Posted: 03/09/17 – 12:22 PM PST |
After almost two weeks of testimony by more than a dozen witnesses, the prosecution and defense rested their cases Thursday in the federal jail corruption re-trial of former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca.
By Ryan Hagen, The Sun
Posted: 03/08/17 – 12:19 PM PST |
SAN BERNARDINO >> San Bernardino City Manager Mark Scott’s public interview Wednesday to be city manager of Reno, Nevada, didn’t take long, opening with his endorsement of the other candidate.
Capitol Alert
By Christopher Cadelago
ccadelago@sacbee.com
March 8, 2017 – 5:37 PM
Gov. Jerry Brown will have another opportunity to shape the state’s highest court after Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar announced Tuesday her plans to retire later this year.
Joseph Turner
Wednesday, March 8, 2017 – 4:56 p.m.
Let’s play a game: Savvy Businessman or Illiterate Politician.
The Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) is slated to levy a $6,000 fine on San Bernardino County Supervisor Robert Lovingood at the March 16th hearing after he failed to report numerous sources of income.
Wednesday, March 8, 2017 – 09:00 a.m.
I was doing some research and stumbled upon a blog that tracks nearly every single recall effort in the nation. I would highly recommend you give it a look if you are interested in seeing what sort of stuff is getting people pissed off and all riled up.
It is called “The Recall Elections Blog.“
Capitol Alert
By Adam Ashton
aashton@sacbee.com
March 7, 2017 – 4:41 PM
For the second time in four months, CalPERS is preparing to slash benefits for a group of retirees whose former employer stopped cutting checks to fund their pensions.
By Shea Johnson, Staff Writer
Posted: Mar 6, 2017 at 6:07 PM
Updated: Mar 6, 2017 at 7:04 PM
San Bernardino County 1st District Supervisor Robert Lovingood violated Fair Political Practices Commission rules by failing to timely disclose income sources of $10,000 or more to his staffing company in 2013 and 2014. He was fined and paid $6,000 to settle four counts lodged against him.
Esmeralda Bermudez
March 6, 2017
A San Bernardino County supervisor has agreed to pay a $6,000 fine for not disclosing part of his earnings in state filings.
By Joe Nelson, The Sun
Posted: 03/06/17 – 7:06 PM PST
The state Fair Political Practices Commission has fined San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors Chairman Robert Lovingood $6,000 for failing to properly report various sources of income over a 4-year period.
According to a stipulation published on the commission’s website, Lovingood, of Apple Valley, agreed to pay the fine in connection with four violations of the Political Reform Act – all for failing to timely disclose sources of income on statement of economic interest forms, also known as Form 700s. Lovingood was fined $1,500 for each violation, according to the document published on the FPPC website. The commission is scheduled to ratify the action at its March 16 meeting. Read the rest of this entry »
By Neil Nisperos, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Posted: 03/05/17 – 9:38 PM PST |
ONTARIO >> A recent trip to China connected a San Bernardino County supervisor and a top Ontario International Airport official with a developer who’s considering vacant land near ONT as an ideal spot for a large indoor mall.
Rachel Uranga / Staff Writer
March 6, 2017 – Updated 8:02 a.m.
For decades, trucking has provided big-rig driver Frank Mora and his family a decent living. He doesn’t expect that will last forever.
By Kevin Smith, San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Posted: 03/03/17 – 2:16 PM PST |
Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire saw heavy job losses in January following the meager gains that were posted in December, but California still managed to add nearly 10,000 jobs, the state Employment Development Department reported Friday.
Natalie Kitroeff
March 3, 2016
The California economy started 2017 on a strong note, with employers adding a net 9,700 jobs in January and the unemployment rate dropping to 5.1%, according to data released by the Employment Development Department.
By Sudhin Thanawala
March 03, 2017
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Government employees in California cannot keep the public from seeing their work-related emails and texts sent on personal devices and through private accounts, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday, closing a loophole that justices said could have allowed the “most sensitive and potentially damning” communications to be shielded.
By Joe Nelson, The Sun
Posted: 03/02/17 – 10:19 PM PST |
SAN BERNARDINO >> Three San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies were looking to get some “cheap shots” when they allegedly assaulted an Apple Valley man following a nearly three-hour chase, a prosecutor said during his opening statement Thursday at the deputies’ trial.
By Dan Walters
dwalters@sacbee.com
March 2, 2017 – 3:59 PM
Late Wednesday, the California High-Speed Rail Authority dispatched a report to the Legislature, crowing about progress in building a statewide bullet train system.
By Neil Nisperos, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Posted: 03/01/17 – 5:56 PM PST |
CLAREMONT >> President Donald Trump’s tough talk on potential tariffs — which has some fearing a trade war — also concerns a leading regional business and economy expert.
By Edward-Isaac Dovere
03/01/17 – 05:04 AM EST
President Donald Trump cleared a low bar: He read proficiently off a teleprompter, he looked human as he spurred long applause for the widow of the Navy SEAL killed in the raid he ordered, he didn’t get into a shouting match with any Democrats or slip off into a rant about reporters as the enemy of the people.