PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BEAU YARBROUGH — SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA NEWS GROUP
In an article penned by Beau Yarbrough we see that Rialto is one of four cities in San Bernardino County to not respond or fufill California Public Records Act requests from San Bernardino Sun reporter. Out of 24 cities that were requested Adelanto, Fontana, Grand Terrace & Rialto never filled the request or even responded.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone that has ever requested documents from our city or its many departments. Rialto is one of the most secretive cities in the county, even our blog has been a sore spot for the city leadership as items that used to be kept quite now float to the surface on the pages of our blog. Councilman will demonize us and city leaders may curse us under their breath but the simple fact is that Rialto residents have very little idea what goes on at city hall.
To be completley honest we have never filed one of the California Public Records Act requests because we have known for a long time what Beau Yarbrough has found out they are Dead on Arrival. Here at Rialto Now we rely on honest people giving us information or using on the spot video to prove what has been said in secret. The best example of this would be newly elected Councilman Rafeal Trujillo and his secret Rialto Sanctuary City Meeting. Had we not had video proof of what was going on few would have believed what we were telling them.
Former Councilman Shawn O’Connell used to say that before he was on the council the city would ignore his advocacy groups Freedom of Information Act requests until they began to serve them in open public council meetings and still had to pressure staff to get the information requested. This election the issue of a lack of information that is readily available to city residents is severely lacking. We also found out in this election that the person who is responsible for this information seems to have little time to process requests.
It will be interesting to see how the city responds to the SB Sun article.
rialtonow 
Mar 19, 2017 @ 01:57:18
The police department, namely Randy DeAnda, (The worst Chief in the history of the department) has LOTS to hide. He and the majority of his command staff are corrupt and incompetent! The police department needs to be taken over by the Sheriffs Department or completely revamped. The majority of the Officers are good, hard working men and women, it’s the leadership that is completely inept. Morale is at an all time low and veteran officers are fleeing to other departments.
Mar 20, 2017 @ 18:11:49
Command staff is corrupt? Has anyone in the current command staff ever been accused or investigated for wrong doing? In fact isn’t the current command staff made of former IA investigators spanning several Chief’s? As for veteran officers fleeing who? Not one officer has left the organization for another in two years and that officer moved to be near a spouse 100 miles away. People have retired as they do everyday, that’s not fleeing that moving into the next chapter of their life. Get your facts straight “Willie”
Mar 20, 2017 @ 23:23:48
Just wait and see what happens. The truth about DeAnda and his cronies will come out soon enough! And just because some of the command staff has IA experience means nothing when the chief is ordering/influencing those under him. The chief has no IA experience and he thinks he can do whatever he wants just because he’s the chief. Numerous people have heard him say it! He has two lawsuits pending against him and there’s more coming. I’m sure some will chalk that up to disgruntled employees. But federal lawsuits have to be accepted by the court so the judge saw that the case has merit. Recently the judge also allowed Ed Scott to be added to the suit. Considering this article is about the lack of transparency, it’s somewhat easy to make the connection of a cover up between DeAnda & Scott. And yes officers will be leaving, just give it a little time and we’ll all see.
Mar 21, 2017 @ 00:37:35
Thank you for seeing the truth Nanette. Evidently “Notseeingit” is blind (Pun intended). I have personal knowledge of the corruption and it WILL get exposed soon enough. DeAnda has shut down criminal IA investigations that involved his “Friends”, and allowed one to retire and ride off into the sunset after he got caught embezzling over $12,000.00 from a city credit card (Former Sgt). In another case, a Cpl. (Also DeAnda’s friend) was caught having sex on duty and illegally conducting criminal checks on people (He is back to work with only a slap on the hand). In both cases, the District Attorney was NEVER notified of the criminal activity and in both cases, DeAnda was the person who ORDERED that the criminal IA investigations be squashed. Not to mention,one Lieutenant has been caught in recent lies, the current IA Sgt. is being investigated for academic fraud and the current IA Cpl. has been illegal recording people without permission (A Misdemeanor crime). “Notseeingit” needs to get that lofty opinion about IA and take it somewhere else. Lastly, it is a FACT that officers are leaving to other departments in the next 30 days (My facts are STRAIGHT and ACCURATE). You can stand behind the corruption and go down with the ship, or you can do the RIGHT thing and speak out against it, your choice. Your days as the top COP in Rialto are numbered DeAnda, you have RUINED your own legacy with your corruption and stupidity.