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Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh will be holding a town hall meeting in Mentone Thursday Feb 29th at the Mentone Senior Center/Library from 6pm to 8 pm.

On Tuesday, February 27, at or shortly after 7:00 the Chamber will meet and host a visit by the County Fire Chief, speaking about the proposed Measure W for service area FP-5. His presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. If you have any questions, this is your chance to get them answered.

Mentone Matters would have imported the poster but it doesn’t seem to be available through the software. Anyone with expertise in this area is requested to contact MentoneMatters@aol.com with help. MM

Sunday, February 11, the Bloodmobile will again be present at 1230 Olivine, Mentone (at the SdA church), from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. All types of blood are needed and, starting this time, donors will accumulate points with each donation, redeemable for gifts or gift cards. Those who register now and walk-ins will receive a $10 Stater’s gift card.

The next blood drive is April 7; donors who register by the preceding Wednesday will receive a $20 Stater’s gift card. MM

Barbara Dickinson will present photos and describe growing up in Mentone in the MACA meeting, Tuesday, February 13, 7 p.m., at the Mill Creek Restaurant.

She will share photos of Mentone taken during her childhood. If you’re interested in Mentone’s history (and who isn’t?) come hear what she has to show us. Invite your friends and neighbors, as well.

MACA will conduct a short meeting before Ms. Dickinson presents her program. MM

REV is hosting an all-the-pancakes you-can-eat fundraising breakfast on Saturday, February 17, at 31000 Colton Way, at the Wildcat Cafe from 8:00-10:30 a.m. Participants will also be treated to music by REV’s Concert Band at 8:15 a.m., followed by the Symphonic Band at 8:45, the String Orchestra at 9:15, and the Wind Ensemble at 9:45 a.m.

Attendees will also have a chance to win two tickets to a their choice of a theme park, such as Disneyland, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal Studios Hollywood, Sea World San Diego, or Legoland, California.

There will also be gift basket drawings. The proceeds are to benefit the band room, transportation, uniforms and much more. MM

On Thursday, January 24, COMET timely filed its Appellant’s Reply Brief (“ARB”) with the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Three (Santa Ana), responding to Redlands’ Opposition Brief filed two months before. Redlands’ brief had argued the five issues from its Appellant’s Opening Brief plus several that COMET did not appeal but which Redlands repetitively argued against, and which COMET had to respond to, leading to a lengthy ARB.

The five issues COMET did appeal were that it had filed a “reverse validation” brief in March 2019 and April 2021, challenging recent annexations and “pre-“annexations, whose “Agreements” COMET attached to the Complaints; however, the trial court repeatedly adopted Redlands’ arguments and held that COMET had failed to file such a case at all and even that it did not possess any excuse for not doing so. The reverse validation actions were challenges to Redlands’ demand for annexation or “pre”-annexation to its city limits before it would provide new water and sewer services to Mentone developments. [Ed.’s note: Redlands makes the same demand of San Timoteo Canyon].

COMET had also appealed the dismissal of its causes of action (divisions of the Complaint) for Civil Extortion, Declaratory Relief and Fraud; those three dismissals were also said to be based on the “lack” of a reverse validation action.

“Redlands’ excuse for the annexation demand is its own 1997 ordinance, despite Supreme Court case law that says the opposite and was enacted long before 1997,” said attorney Joyce Caraway.  “Additionally, if the property to be developed is not ‘contiguous,’ or next door, to Redlands’ city limits, it has invented the fictitious ‘pre’-annexation, meaning that the owner will not fight annexation when Redlands is next door. That fictitious idea was prohibited by the legislated Code, which was upheld by the Supreme Court years ago,” she added.

The two other issues were whether Redlands is immune from suit, as Redlands claims; and whether COMET has the right to sue on behalf of all but five Mentone households, as COMET claims. Those five households opted out in response to a card that COMET sent out in 2022 to all 3,202 addresses in Mentone’s zip code of 92359. Some residents also voiced their approval of the lawsuit by email or phone call.

The attorneys for both sides waived oral argument before the court. “All that remains now is for us to wait until the three-justice court wades through all of Redlands’ false arguments and our truthful arguments and evidence. It will then issue its written decision, either agreeing with us or with Redlands; an interesting event was that the case was sent to Santa Ana because that court is not as busy as the one in Riverside and thus we may receive the decision sooner than if it were decided in Riverside,” concluded attorney Caraway.

Anyone wishing to read any of the three actual documents may obtain electronic copies by emailing attorneyjoycecaraway@aol.com.MM

C.O.M.E.T. (Citizens [or Community] of Mentone Empowered Together)’s counsel filed its first Brief in its appeal of the court’s granting of Redlands’ Motion for Summary Judgment or Summary Adjudication [Ed.’s note: Judgment without a trial] on September 19, 2023. “The Honorable Donald Alvarez, had agreed with all of Redlands’ points and effectively threw out the case against Redlands,” COMET’s counsel said.

COMET Brief first appealed the judge’s decision on COMET’s allegations of Civil Extortion: Redlands’ threat of injury to property being developed, by Redlands’ refusal to provide new water and, where required, sewer services, unless the developer first agreed to annex the property into Redlands’ city limits. “The judge had first agreed with Redlands that COMET had not alleged threat of prosecution and gave COMET an opportunity to allege facts of threat of prosecution for not signing the annexation “Agreements”; however, this was never our allegation,” stated COMET’s counsel. “Then the judge ruled that Redlands did not injure property or acquire property but never ruled on our allegations of Redlands’ threat of injury to property,” COMET”s counsel added.

The next point in the appellate Brief states that Redlands argued that COMET had not filed a timely reverse validation action. “A challenge to an annexation was required to be brought within 60 days of the action,” COMET’s counsel stated,” “and our Original Complaint attached an annexation “Agreement” dated within two weeks of it being filed. Thus, our challenge to that annexation and successive annexations was timely. Throughout the case Redlands made the same claim, and the judge agreed, despite ongoing annexations and several copies of the annexation “Agreement” present in the files.

“He then threw out other causes of action, such as Fraud and Declaratory Relief, based on ‘no reverse validation,’ but not on the merits of those causes of action,” she added.

“Additionally, he had decided early on that Redlands did not have the ‘immunity’ from a lawsuit that it claimed, and then in his last ruling reversed himself without explanation,” she continued. The brief also states that the judge had apparently decided that COMET had all four types of “standing,, [Ed.’s note: the right to bring the action] and then in his last ruling decided that COMET had “associational” standing by virtue of its members having the right to sue. He stated he did not need to address COMET’s taxpayer, common interest or public benefit types of standing, although COMET is a registered Public Benefit Corporation. Conveniently, the brief continues Redlands had only provided evidence on associational standing,” she continued.

The Brief’s listing of points includes that the judge did not rule on Redlands’ “pre”-annexations; the Brief states that the Code and Supreme Court case law requires annexed properties to be “contiguous,” or next door to each other, at the time of annexation, but Redlands requires property owners to agree to annex later, when the properties are next door to each other, a violation of law..

The Brief also argues that the judge did not address Redlands’ demanded Development Impact Fees or DIFs for fire, police, library services and parks, for which Mentone property owners also pay the County.

“Redlands’ evidence in support of its Motion for Summary Judgment or Summary Adjudication was incompetent,” COMET”s counsel added. “It attached questions to COMET by one party but COMET’s answers to another party’s questions, and they were different questions; there were other, similar flaws. If any such flaws occur, the Motion must be denied,” she concluded. The Brief also states that the judge erroneously refused to consider COMET’s evidence which was contrary to that which Redlands provided, based on a technicality that the court did not impose on Redlands in ruling on its earlier document.

The Brief’s final point was that Redlands continues to annex properties illegally, but the judge refused to consider the “continuing violations of law” doctrine, that would have eliminated the need for a timely reverse validation action.

The Brief’s historical facts included Redlands’ annexing Mentone territory beginning in 1888, when it took property west of Wabash, from Lugonia South to Brockton; down through its 1956 annexation of Mill Creek; and its 1997 enactment of “Measure U,” which it claims authorizes its present demands for annexation in exchange for water and sewer services.

Redlands’ counsel has the opportunity to oppose the Brief’s points and then COMET has the final word in its Reply brief, due sometime in January.

When was the last time your Assemblyperson sang to you? If you attended the latest MACA (Mentone Area Community Association) meeting, it was Tuesday night, August 8, when James Ramos presented for the San Manual Cultural Association. Ramos sang four songs, two Serrano and two Cahuilla bird songs, one of which he taught the audience to sing along and then by itself. The first Native American elected to the state Senate, Ramos explained what each song was about and what the different words meant, before singing them. Ramos accompanied himself with a native-made rattle, rather than drums, which he stated the Serranos, of which he is a member, do not use. The rattles are made from gourds, which are cleaned out and filled with date seeds. Sticks from willow or cottonwood form the handles. Other instruments include hooves on ropes, which are usually made from yucca.

Ramos gave a history of the area, that it was once a marshland and that the Indians dug the Zanja in 1822 with a cow’s shoulder blade, rather than the shovel depicted in a local mural. The Zanja began to be dug in Loma Linda [Ed.’s note: probably at the Asistencia, where it was desired, according to local history], and then continued to Mill Creek, where it then started flowing water and assisted in the beginning local agriculture.

Ramos continued: the tribe lived in the valley and mountains prior to 1866, when a militia fought a 32-day battle to rid the area of Indians, which changed the Serranos and others from free-ranging hunter/gatherers to living on a reservation. Thirty-two tribal members survived. Yet, his people continued to go up into the mountains to Running Springs and as far as Baldwin Lake, following the ripening of pinyon nuts, Black Oak acorns and other edible wild plants. Yucca was used for rope and smaller fibers. On trips up the mountains they used large mesh bags made of yucca twine or rope in order to to carry their belongings; They left their metates in the places where they stayed, rather than carry them along. They sang their native songs as they gathered. Their shoes were not moccasins but sandals they made of yucca twine rope, which he showed to the audience. Their baskets consisted of yucca, deer grass and other wild plants, dyed with various types of walnuts. Some baskets were for winnowing. Their main animal food source was bighorn sheep, which they credit with saving their lives. Grizzlies lived in the mountains [Ed.’s note: the last California grizzly was reportedly killed in 1929; we now have only black bears]. The Serrano revere the sheep; they also revere the bear as a close relative. Ramos told a story about a bear which changed into a man and then back into a bear before it died; the Serranos visit its grave as a ceremony.

For early housing they didn’t use teepees but bent willows into a round dome and filled the sides with brush. Doors faced the east. Past villages included where the Orange Show is now, and wherever there were hot springs, the his clan ending up at Santos Manuel, named for an ancestor, which name was shortened to the present San Manuel.

His personal history included living in mobile homes or trailers on the reservation, where they subsisted on $300 per year, paid by others who boarded their horses in stables behind the trailers. Later the Serranos sold snacks and then cigarettes. All of the horses left and with them the resale business [Ed.’s note: and, according to Ron Caraway, a friend of Ramos’s family, the Serranos then began a bingo parlor]. The rest is history, as they say.

Yaa’mava was named for their Spring celebration. Ramos plans to take his people up into the mountains in September to continue their tradition of gathering wild plants.

Native American Day will be celebrated on September 22 at Cal State San Bernardino: