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COMET AND CHAMBER MEET FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE MARCH

On Tuesday night the COMET and Chamber of Commerce met by telephone conference call. Here are some highlights: 

From Scott Ward, field representative for Dawn Rowe: the County Board of Supervisors has voted to place the repeal of the fire tax on the November ballot. Some areas in the desert are not paying the fire tax but will have a vote, as well as those who are paying. Readers may access more information by utilizing this link.

Small business owners who have been impacted by the pandemic may apply for assistance at this link.

Pandemic numbers have been escalating, partly due to increased testing as well as other causes. There are over 24 locations for free testing, for which you need an appointment. The closest location to Mentone is Citrus Valley High School, he said. Chamber members stated it takes up to 10 days to hear the results, in one case even when those tested were positive. You may view more testing sites here.

Regarding fireworks: if you see something, say something. Take a picture. You may report the location at the San Bernardino County Fire website; here is the link. For more instructions, see under Sheriff’s Department below. For the latest on SB county fireworks, please see the website here.

The County has extended its contract for legal services to seniors, so those who are receiving them may rest assured they will continue for now. 

From Nohelia Orellana, field representative for Assemblyman James Ramos: the County is running a 54B deficit but is asking for help from the State for small businesses impacted by the pandemic. Bills are being introduced, mostly related to COVID-19. One asks the Legislature to make it illegal to sue a restaurant for a customer who contracts the virus. Another regards suicide prevention among Native American tribes and another tribal lands. Readers who have lost  their jobs and are having difficulty receiving unemployment are encouraged to contact Ramos’ office. 

Regarding COMET’s counsel’s February letter to Ms. Orellana, requesting that Assembly Ramos’ office re-submit the bill making it illegal to demand annexation in exchange for water, she said she was told that because it’s been such a long time (since 1996) there was not much they could do and it would be reviewable at the LAFCO (Local Area Formation Commission) level. By law, LAFCO’s duties are ministerial, only: to supervise whether new developments comply with the law; it does not supervise annexations. When assured that it was not a LAFCO problem or project, she said she would try to re-submit or re-introduce it.  As previously reported, the bill never made it past an aide in Senator Morrell’s office and Senator Leyva’s office has never responded to a similar request by COMET’s counsel.           

From Rachel Achilly, San Bernardino Sheriff’s Office: the Department has had COVID-19 cases, mostly in the jails. Regarding fireworks, the County will fine and even jail violators of the no-fireworks law in this area. Each offense carries a fine of $1,250 and can go up to $6,000. Fireworks are illegal to set off in any area where they are not sold. They can be sold only in Fontana, Rialto, San Bernardino and south of the Freeway. However, moving or aerial fireworks are illegal everywhere. Only those fireworks that are safe and sane are legal to buy in those communities, she added. If anyone sees a neighbor setting off fireworks, even in their backyard, the observer is encouraged to report it and a video or snapshot  is welcome because it is presently a misdemeanor, which means that the Sheriff or Fire Department investigator must see it in order to arrest the persons responsible. She added that a photo or video must show the address clearly visible. Some Fire Department investigators have law enforcement authority. A representative from the Red Brennan Groups shared its efforts to get the Fire Tax repealed. 

Other news: the Library may be reopening July 6 (this was before the latest shutdown news), the Senior Center later on. No meals will be served, however. The June 13 celebration of Mentone’s development and Film Festival were, of course, postponed due to the pandemic. Hopefully, in 2021 the celebrations will be able to be held. As far as the Mill Creek Casino Night, “We will see,” said Jim Lotito, co-owner/proprietor and Ways and Means Committee co-chair. He added that the Mill Creek Cattle Company was operating at  25-30% of its regular business and hoped that business would pick up by December.  Someone defined a “bar” as a place that doesn’t provide food, so it technically doesn’t fall under the definition of a “bar” and, as of Tuesday night, could stay open. 

Chairman David Wilder mentioned CalTrans and the members discussed its slowness to paint the straight-ahead arrow at the corner of Wabash and the Boulevard (westbound), which it promised to do at least two years ago; he promised to bring it up again and ask that it be done sooner rather than later. 

Op-Ed:

It is certainly a shame that, in an area that is paying the fire tax (get out and vote it down in November), those who set off illegal fireworks –  2-3 times a night between dark and 10 p.m. in Mentone – can be guilty of only a misdemeanor. That means that, unless you get a photo or video with the home’s address clearly showing, they can set one off, you report it and the Sheriff arrives but there is nothing to see and the miscreants lie so the Deputies have to leave. Then the miscreants do it again and again, each time spacing them out so the Sheriff cannot view them. It should be made a felony, which is reportable by an eyewitness and thus more prosecutable.

Those who do this in quiet neighborhoods like Mentone should be arrested and punished because of the impact on those who have PTSD from honorably serving in the military and everyone’s pets (f you’ve ever cleaned up dog poo, including diarrhea, off a rug at 3 a.m., as I have, you understand why folks want to be able to put their pets out at night).  It is incomprehensible that anyone should think it’s “fun” or “clever” to disturb everyone else’s peace simply because they can get away with it. 

It seems the misinformation never stops: first, CALAFCO, which has nothing to do with Redlands’ extortionate annexation of Mentone territory, successfully lobbied to keep the proposed legislative amendment out of the Senate, most probably because of some personal ties with someone in Redlands’ city council.

Now, Assemblyman Ramos’ office – and he did nothing to help Mentone with this problem before he went “upstairs” – thinks it has a “statute of limitations” problem.  Senator Leyva’s office “next door,” whose website requests proposed legislation, failed to respond to a similar request. Someone, somewhere, sometime, has to recognize that “little, old Mentone” has rights, too, and that time has already come long ago.

Maybe readers would start a letter-writing campaign to Ramos, Leyva and Senator Mike McGuire, chairman of the threshold Finance and Governance Committee, to demand that this legislation – which has already been  reviewed and revised by Legislative Counsel – be submitted to the Senate.

The “Donut Hole” – the businesses around the intersection of Alabama and Lugonia, was excluded from Redlands’ control by Legislature, so why not Mentone?  Of course, Redlands is receiving that area’s sales taxes, but doesn’t have to provide fire, police and other services, so that was a win-win for it. (The Donut Hole developers’ attorneys, based in Redlands, sold them a bill of goods, but that’s another story for another time.) 

Local businesses, especially restaurants, are hurting; everyone likes to eat something someone else prepared so why not patronize the local businesses, even if it means you still have to wash the dishes? So many businesses have failed elsewhere that it would be a shame to see some of our local ones also “go away,” after many years of serving the community. 

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How Mentone is Being Impacted

When you read how people who don’t live here and we don’t even know sank our chance to get the proposed amendment even considered by a Senate committee, doesn’t it make your blood boil? It does ours. One would hope that whoever now employs Ms. Scherkenback catches on to her little scheme of lying – repeatedly – to constituents, in the name of her employer, to manipulate matters to her liking and that she doesn’t get the opportunity to do so any more.
And who is CALAFCO to decide what the Legislature should do? It is advisory, only, to a governmental agency that is not concerned with whether an annexation must take place.
Sometime, somewhere, somehow, someone must take notice of little Mentone (it used to be bigger) and give it a chance to survive and even thrive.

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MISDEEDS IN OUR LEGISLATURE

In August 2017 Raul Madrid, a developer who wishes to develop 13 lots he owns in Mentone, submitted to California Senator Mike Morrell a proposed bill containing two amendments to existing laws. One, concerning Government Code section 56133, prohibited cities from forcing annexation in exchange for water or other utilities; it would codify California Supreme Court case law already existing in 1996 [Ed.’s note: the year that Redlands enacted its ordinance that later became “Measure U,” a part of Redlands’ municipal law; it uses that “law” to “justify” demanding annexation to its city limits in exchange for water and, where available, sewer services].

The other proposed amendment concerned the reasonableness of “development impact fees,” concerning another Government Code section.

Madrid had worked with COMET’s counsel to prepare both amendments and is long-time friends with Senator Morrell.

In 2018 Morrell assigned the proposed amendments to an aide, Tess Scherkenback, who forwarded them to legislative counsel for review; that counsel added some language to the annexation portion and sent it back to Morrell’s office for submission to the Finance and Governance Committee, as SB 646. The Committee would review it before giving it to the entire Senate for approval.

Scherkenback communicated part of the legislative process to Madrid but failed to advise him that he and/or COMET’s counsel could appear before the Committee, to explain Mentone’s plight and why the bill was important to it and other similarly-situated unincorporated areas. [Ed.’s note: Some years ago, the Legislature excluded by law the shopping area around the intersection of Lugonia and Alabama Avenues from Redlands’ city limits.] No history or other information was submitted with the bill or solicited by Scherkenback.

In February 2019 Scherkenback e-mailed the entire bill to Madrid, as modified and approved by legislative counsel and then in purportedly the final form, the day before she was to submit it to the Finance and Governance Committee. However, Madrid only recently learned that the bill was actually missing the prohibition-of-demanded-annexation portion when she sent it to the Committee so the Committee never received it or voted on it.

In March 2019 Scherkenback told Madrid that Senator Mike McGuire, the chairman of the Senate Finance and Governance Committee, “didn’t like” the annexation portion of the bill. However, an aide in Senator Mike McGuire’s office recently confirmed that the annexation portion of SB 646 was removed before it was submitted to the Finance and Governance Committee, which would have reviewed, and possibly submitted, the bill to the full Legislature and the Governor.

Scherkenback also stated that CALAFCO was not in favor of the annexation portion, and that CALAFCO’s director had said the bill “would die in committee.” [Ed.’s note: CALAFCO is the 501c3 advisory, only, organization to which all county LAFCOs belong. LAFCO stands for “Local Area Formation COmmission”; it was set up by the Legislature in the 1960s to oversee property developments in all California counties, since cities oversee those projects within their city limits. The San Bernardino County LAFCO replaced the former Boundary Commission. According to the IRS’ website CALAFCO, as a tax-exempt 501c3 organization, is restricted in lobbying against proposed legislation and COMET’s counsel recalled that one of LAFCO’s agendas in the past had voiced its opinion in favor of annexation.] It is not yet clear what connection CALAFCO or its director, Pamela Miller, has with Redlands, said COMET’s counsel, or why Mentone’s protection would adversely impact LAFCO’s duties: LAFCO inquires about annexation but does not require it, for any purpose. COMET’s counsel added that CALAFCO, based in Sacramento, has ignored COMET’s service of the lawsuit.

In July of that year, a deputy legislative counsel wrote an opinion letter, which Scherkenback provided to Madrid; the opinion stated why, in the author’s opinion, forced annexation was proper. That letter, of course, contradicted the earlier, other legislative counsel’s opinion. Moreover, the later opinion did not address existing case law , nor an exception contained in Government Code Section 56133(e)(4), which states that, if the water customers were receiving water before January 1, 2001, section 56133 (a)’s mention of the “anticipation of a later change of annexation,” does not apply. [Ed.’s note: That exception was probably added because, beginning in 1915 the Supreme Court had repeatedly held that a city purchasing a water company must continue to provide water service to existing and new customers; there is no mention of a requirement of annexation.] However, adds COMET’s counsel, Redlands ignores that exception and the supporting case law – in Mentone’s favor, of course – and instead cites a lower case holding which appears to attempt to overturn the Supreme Court, which courts are not entitled to do. It is possible that – since earlier legislative counsel had approved the proposed amendment – Scherkenback may have requested the opinion so as to support her omission of the prohibition of forced annexation from the submitted SB 646.

It is not yet known how much territory Mentone has lost in the past 1 1/2 years due to CALAFCO’s interference and Scherkenback’s action. Since bills must be submitted to the Committee by late February each year, Madrid learned of this information too late to resubmit the proposed annexation prohibition for this year’s consideration by the Committee and the entire Legislature.

It is not clear whether Morrell knew of Scherkenback’s omission of the annexation portion of SB 646 until it came up for the Committee vote. Morrell told Madrid he is “terming out” this year, and presently does not know whether he will seek another legislative office in November.

Scherkenback, whose Linked-In page states she graduated summa cum laude from a private evangelical university and received various honors and awards, was awarded a fellowship in Morrell’s office, which position she held for a year and two months. Madrid said Morrell told him she is no longer working there; that is confirmed by Linked-In, which says she is a legislative aide in Sacramento, but not for whom.

The remainder of Senate Bill 646, concerning only the reasonableness of “development impact fees,” passed the Committee easily in May 2019 and was signed into law by the Governor. It clarifies another, similar law.