Budget | rialtonow

Rialto City Council Member Threatens Legal Action Against Interm City Administrator and City Attorney

19 Mar 2019 1 Comment

On March 12th 2019 the Rialto City Council held yet another episode of As Rialto Turns. Apparently Iterm City Manager Shaun Grayson and City Attorney Fred Galante gave Councilman Ed Scott a recommendation that he abstain from TAB 1 on the city council agenda because the tab item touched on his area of residence.

This enraged Councilman Ed Scott as he is not accustomed to being told what to do. What is funny is this was only a recommendation it was not an order, but Ed Scott took it as he was being forced to abstain. Mr Scott brought up the reason as to why he would not be involved in this tab item but wouldn’t go into detail about why he believed this was taking place short of claiming it was political and was clear in the staff report.

What was even more surprising was how quickly Ed Scott shut down City Attorney Fred Galante’s attempt to explain his recommendation and adding “I don’t care to hear your reason” as the city attorney tried to explain his actions. What is funny when Councilman Ed Scott is being sued our money and attorneys are fine to give him legal advise as long as he agrees with it.

To add insult to injury Ed Scott voted NO on every other single tab item outside on the tab item presented by Rialto Fire (the union that paid to get him re elected). We are not sure why Ed Scott decided to try and derail over 6 million in much needed infrastructure projects even a $49,000 item for Emergency Slope Repairs at the Rialto Waste Water Treatment Plant. So Ed Scott was mad at the City Attorney and Interm City Administrator but shouldn’t he be able to grow up and at least vote for emergency repairs to our Waste Water Treatment Plant!!!

Look to our next story as we outline how staff are fleeing Rialto City Hall in droves and what this says about Rialto’s future!

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New Fire Prevention Specialist Richard Boltinghouse Joins Rialto Fire

19 Mar 2019 Leave a comment

Richard Boltinghouse joins the Rialto Fire Department Family from the City of Chino Hills where he served as the Emergency Services Coordinator. He was responsible for development of their Emergency Operation Plans, Hazard Mitigation Plan, and training for city staff for ICS/NIMS/SEMS.

Prior to working for the City of Chino Hills, Richard worked for the City of Corona Fire Department where he had almost seven years of combined employment and volunteer service. At Chino Hills, he served as an Emergency Management and CERT Technician. Richard currently resides in the City of Corona with his wife Christina and their 5-year-old daughter Faithlyn.

Richard has a bachelor’s degree in fire and emergency management from Kaplan University and a master’s degree in public administration from Cal Baptist University according to his Linkden profile.

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Henry Nickel looks for voters to elect him to California Assembly

29 Oct 2018 Leave a comment

Henry Nickel a San Bernardino Councilman is asking for voters to elect him the the California State Assembly on November 6th. Henry Nickel is looking to replace Republican Assemblyman Marc Stienorth who has decided not to run for reelection.

Henry Nickel claims that the reason that we are so heavily taxed in this state is because of the lack of checks and balances in our governmental structure. One party has complete control and power and that party seems Hell bent on raising every tax known to man and creating some new ones along the way.

Henry Nickel calls out one proposition that will hit local residents the hardest and that is Prop 6 the Gas Tax Repeal measure. It has been calculated that people who live in the Inland Empire will spend an additional $800 per year on top of what the Democrats claim it will cost taxpayers. This is due to the amount of time Inland residents spend commuting to work.

Henry Nickel has some experience in dealing with budgets and hard times as you can see in the video below:

Video by rialto-now

While You Were Sleeping Massive Changes Took Place in Rialto

27 Jun 2018 5 Comments

by rialto-now in #CA31st, and the unincorporated communities of Bloomington and Muscoy, Andy Carrizales, Assembly Woman Eloise Reyes, Bad Commerce, Barbara A. McGee, Budget, Ca, City of Rialto, Colton, Congressman Pete Aguilar, Currupt, Deborah Robertson, Ed Scott, Family, Fontana, Grand Terrace, Inland Empire, Janice Rutherford, Joe Baca Jr, Josie Gonzales, pete aguilar, Public Safety, Rafael Trujillo, Rialto, Rialto, Rialto Police Department, San Bernardino

On June 12th 2018 the Rialto City Council voted to move animal control services over to Riverside County rather than look to keep those operations local. Interim Police Chief Mark Kling went on and on at the June 12th meeting saying how nice the Riverside County Shelter is and how this will be better for Rialto. The Police Chief asked three of the people from the Riverside County west shelter to come out and do a presentation.

What was poor in this presentation is that there were a lot of games being played when it came to the shelters’ kill numbers. When Chief Kling spoke about Devore he used exact numbers when referring to Riverside County’s kill rates, they spoke in vague percentages. There was no mention of any issues are problems. For example what happens when the shelter runs out of space or how will the city get the word out to people, letting them know where they can find their lost pets as of July 1st. This is very concerning since it is right before the July 4th holiday when most people loose their pets. There is no money being dedicated to getting the word out in mass in the next four days (thank god for this blog). We did speak to John Welsh with Riverside County Shelter systems and he did say he would be reaching out to local media (including this publication) to work to educate residents on the change in shelter services

While the Riverside shelter is beautiful and very state of the art, we have questions on whether the facility is designed to handle animal services for two counties let alone two of the biggest counties in the State of California. John Welsh told us that this contract was possible because of the work that Riverside County has done to address their numbers of animals housed in their shelters. John Welsh seemed pretty optimistic that there wouldn’t be any problems with reaching capacity.

We sat down with Police Captain Wilson with Rialto Police and he said that this is not a perfect situation, but it was something worth looking into. He also broke down some of the items that were not clear in Police Chief Kling’s presentation to council on June 12th.

Devore requires injured animals to be taken to a vet prior to being admitted to the shelter forcing the city to pay a separate vet bill – Captain Wilson was not sure why in house vet services covered by SB County are not used to cover these costs.
Devore doesn’t like to take cats and will not take kittens. Currently if we have kittens we have to take them to Grand Terrace at a cost of $70 a kitten. Riverside County will take cats and kittens as part of the contract – Reports from people living in the Riverside County area are reporting that even though Riverside County takes kittens, they euthanize them (see image below). John Welsh from the Shelter system wasn’t sure about the complaint below but did acknowledge that they are getting better at dealing with felines.
Riverside County has a panel set up for animal seizures from homes found to be unfit costing the city money to hold the animals while the case is adjudicated – What this will do is build a greater barrier between owners who may be likely to seek out an opportunity to fix the problems found and keep their animals.
There is no plan to address the longer travel time to the new shelter when picking up lost animals – According to the last Southern California Associated Governments local profile on Rialto “32 percent of Rialto households own one or no vehicles”. This means over a third of our population will lack the needed resources to travel 55 mins to get to the shelter to pick up their animals. Another problem is that 7.8% work and live in Rialto, while 92.2% commute to other places meaning that people who have a car to get to this far away shelter are at work and stuck in traffic. The Riverside shelter does not have late hours and are only open for a short time on Saturdays and closed on Sundays.
There is no plan in place to deal with the problem of what happens when the shelter is full – Riverside County already has a big problem with lost and abandoned animals. Now with Fontana, Rialto, Loma Linda, Grand Terrace and Colton adding animals to the system the question isn’t if , but when they hit capacity. John Welsh told us that this contract was possible because of the work that Riverside County has done to address their numbers of animals housed in their shelters. John Welsh seemed pretty optimistic that there wouldn’t be any problems with reaching capacity.
When asked about the accusation that Riverside County is reaching well outside their boarders in an effort to fill the gap of a lack of adequate funding in a County facing massive budget shortfalls Captain Wilson confirmed knowledge of Riverside County hasting budget problems and that these contracts would provide some relief – So the question is how can we guarantee that we will still get what we have been promised out of the contract and that they wont start making massive cuts to save the program? John Welsh admitted that the shelter spent the last year in the red but that they did not hunt out this contract, the city of Rialto came to them.

We spoke to someone in the office of SB County Supervisor Janice Ruthaford. They claimed that Riverside County was poaching San Bernardino County cities in an attempt to cover cuts in funding, that SB County has set aside $10 Million to develop a new state of the art animal control facility to be placed in a more central location to cities in the valley that currently use Devore. Dan Flores from Josie Gonzalez office also confirmed that there is a plan to build a facility here in the Inland Valley region. He did say that if they did not have the partners from local cities that they may be forced to re think the design and capacity of the facility.

The problem with this is that the change in shelter services was made without any public input. The Police and city are quick to run out and promote the latest tax increase or law, but when they are looking at a hot button issue like moving animal shelter services they are tight lipped and move under the cover of darkness.

The problems that still exist are access to the animals for the Rialto population, why the city was so tight lipped about the change and why are they still waiting to tell people about the anticipated change in shelter locations? We here at Rialto Now feel confident that we have spurred the right people into moving with the information sooner rather than later.

RUSD, First K-12 District in So Cal to Own/Operate Compressed Natural Gas Station

20 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by rialto-now in #CA31st, Ana Gonzales, and the unincorporated communities of Bloomington and Muscoy, Andy Carrizales, Assembly Woman Eloise Reyes, Budget, Ca, City of Rialto, Colton, Dr. Cuauhtémoc Avila, Fontana, Grand Terrace, Inland Empire, joseph williams, Own It Rialto, Rialto, Rialto, rialto unified school district, RUSD, San Bernardino

Rialto, CA, June 18, 2018 – The Rialto Unified School District (RUSD) has made regional environmental history as the only K-12 school district in Southern California to own and operate a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) station that will, unprecedentedly, also to be opened to the public 24-hours, a day, seven days a week.

The Grand Opening/Ribbon Cutting for the new CNG Fueling Station, located at 261 South Lilac Avenue, in Rialto will be held on Monday, June 25, 2018, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. “Our new station allows the District to lower the cost of fuel, while increasing our operational efficiency in ways that are environmentally responsible for our students and our community,” said Mohammad Z. Islam, RUSD Associate Superintendent of Business Services. “Our drivers currently have to drive to the cities of Fontana or Riverside to obtain fuel for our 38 CNG buses at a much higher cost.”

Over a decade ago, the District’s Transportation Department began the dialogue of providing clean fuel school buses. Five years ago, the RUSD Board of Education authorized the implementation of the CNG station, “In 2006, the RUSD Transportation Department began the journey of reducing our carbon footprint on the environment by incorporating clean fuel school buses, which reduces the amount of carbon dioxide emitted
during the transporting of students,” added Dora Parham, RUSD Transportation/Garage Manager. “Our buses are yellow, but our fleet is turning green.”

The District shared a strong business partnership with the California Energy Commission (CEC), Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committee (MSRC) and The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD). “The hard work of our staff and the focus-based support of the Board of Education will now benefit our entire community of Rialto,” stated Dr. Cuauhtémoc Avila, RUSD Superintendent. “This is another success story in which, innovative, smart decisions are made in the best interest of our younger generation. Although we are educating our students, through modeling the importance of environmental science, the District is also excited to offer this fuel service station to the entire community of drivers.”

For more information on the CNG Grand Opening, please contact Syeda Jafri, Director of Communications/Media Services, at (909) 820-7700, Ext. 2127. For corporate account information to utilize CNG services, please contact Derek Harris, Lead Risk Management and Transportation Agent, at (909) 820- 7700, Ext, 2110.

Rialto’s Budget Advisory Committee Proposes to Bring Back PERS Tax

15 Jun 2018 Leave a comment

by rialto-now in #CA31st, Ana Gonzales, and the unincorporated communities of Bloomington and Muscoy, Andy Carrizales, Barbara A. McGee, Budget, Ca, City of Rialto, Colton, Deborah Robertson, Ed palmer, Ed Scott, Fontana, Grand Terrace, Inland Empire, Mike Story, mmatson@t-rockcap.com, Public Safety, Rafael Trujillo, Rialto, Rialto, Rialto Fire, Rialto Police Department, Robb Steel, San Bernardino

Look we don’t want to say we told you so but…. we did!

We told you it was only going to get worse and we told you that the people leading this city could care less how much people struggle and how expensive it already is to live in the Inland Empire. Yes the Police, Fire and City Staff want to squeeze every bit of money you have until you are sucked dry!

The video above is a portion of the Facebook Live we did at the last Budget Advisory Committee meeting. In this meeting a tax that was fought off years ago never went away and there are a lot of people on the committee that want to bring it back including Police and Fire union reps. The fire union thinks you will be ok with another tax because this one can’t be abused like the Utility Tax, Trash Road Fee and all the grant money that spills into the city. You see this money can only be used to Pay PERS, it wont cover all of it but will cover a portion of the massive $20 Million a year (growing by $1.5 Million a year).

So ask yourself, Are you ready for ANOTHER tax?

Hmm seems like we have been saying that a lot lately? We wonder if the people are going to wise up soon?

More taxes on the horizon are:

Increased gas taxes
Sales Tax
Fire Tax

Heck soon you will be taxed on the air you breath!

Common Sense Says No To Measure M

01 May 2018 12 Comments

TheREAL FACTS About Measure M

Measure M is a tax increase. The 8% Rialto Utility Users Tax (UUT) was given to the city council and all they did is abuse the tax and waste time and money. Now to remove any responsibility to the voters they are giving themselves a permanent TAX increase FOREVER!!!!!!!
This levy on utility bills provides roughly $14 million in revenue per year. These funds go into the General Fund and are abused by the city. The mayor and council play games with your taxes and name buildings and parks after their political allies. The council needs this money to cover the MILLIONS in Lawsuits that they have single handily brought on Rialto Tax Payers.
To scare you into voting for this measure the city is using the old scare tactic of taking away police and fire services. Councilman Ed Scott has been Quoted saying that rialto police the bottom of the barrel.
- The police never respond to complaints and are causing more problems then they solve. Rialto Police are famous for the drive by they do when they respond to a call. This consists of cruising by the location at 45 MPH. Rialto Fire spends more time outside the city under a mutual aide agreement than they do inside the city. Also they are preparing to stack a Fire Tax on top of this one next year. ALL WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT!
- Reducing the Public Works Department by 11 positions, will make little change since the city looks horrid as it is so nothing will change.
Had it not been for dedicated people like us the Council was HELL bent on charging this tax on all seniors!
Rialto Fire charges annual fees to pick you up in an emergency leading to more people avoiding calling for help and risking further injury by waiting or self transport.
Rialto charges you a TRASH TAX because BURRTEC trucks are too heavy for Rialto streets but we can’t charge BURRTEC for it because they are political allies of Mayor Robertson.
$100,000 a year is paid so that our elected leaders can travel all over the country on your DIME.
Even if this measure passes Rialto will still be bankrupt in 4 years. The only difference is you will be stuck with a Utility Users Tax that NEVER ENDS!!!!!
The people signed onto this TAX are doing so to keep the flow of your tax money into their pockets. A small handful have been bullied into signing on to this tax. Multiple people have reached out saying that the Mayor said get on board or else.

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Are the West Valley Water Board Members Getting Paid Too Much?

27 Apr 2018 Leave a comment

by rialto-now in #CA31st, Ana Gonzales, and the unincorporated communities of Bloomington and Muscoy, Assembly Woman Eloise Reyes, Assemblymember-Elect Cheryl Brown, Budget, Ca, City of Rialto, Clifford Young, Colton, Fontana, Grand Terrace, Inland Empire, perchlorate, perchlorate cleanup settlements, Rafael Trujillo, Rialto, San Bernardino

As Rialto area tax payers are going to be asked to tax the living HELL out of themselves in June we thought is was time to once again start to air the dirty laundry of local officials. We also would like to remind you that each time these people ran for office they SAID they were running for the people to have a transparent voice yet all they seem to be doing at West Valley Water is getting fat off of the ratepayers.

West Valley Water District Received my freedom of information act documents concerning amounts paid to board members for the months of January and February 2018.

January February

Kyle Crowther 1176.00 1470.00

Michael Taylor 1470.00 1470.00

Greg Young 1323.00 1470.00

Don Olinger 588.00 735.00

Clifford Young 1470.00 1470.00

Total 5439.00 6615.00

This of course is only for meetings they attended, in addition Clifford Young get 530 + each month for Long Term Care with Cal Pers which brings his monthly amount to $2000, Mr. Olinger gets closer to what board members have received in past years and in fact if a board member went over $5000 in a year they had to justify the exceeded amount.

Good thing WV has 34 million in the bank.

Mayor Robertson Chooses Travel Over Doing Her Job Locally

02 Feb 2018 5 Comments

Is Mayor Robertson your Mayor the the warehouses Mayor?

On January 9th The Mayor and City Council missed the third opportunity to do their job and allow Rialto to have a shot at a better financial future. As you will see in the video below not only was the Mayor not here in Rialto doing her job, but Mayor Pro Tem Scott choose to lie about where the Mayor was.

We need people who are in local politics for the people and the community. So many are in it for lush perks, power and the ability to travel on the Taxpayers dime. There is no reason for the Mayor to be in Washington D.C. when there is work to be done here. Also if she had a conflict she could have scheduled a special meeting to go over the new draft documents and move this issue forward. Also why is Ed Scott lying for the Mayor???

Video by rialto-now

An Interview With Rialto Unified Superintendent Dr. Avila

23 Jan 2018 Leave a comment

by rialto-now in Ana Gonzales, and the unincorporated communities of Bloomington and Muscoy, Budget, Ca, City of Rialto, Colton, Dr. Cuauhtémoc Avila, Eisenhower High, Fontana, Grand Terrace, Inland Empire, jobs, Rialto, Rialto, Rialto Police Department, rialto unified school district, RUSD, San Bernardino

About a year ago we had the opportunity to sit down with the new leader of Rialto Unified School District and in our first interview Dr. Avila laid out a plan that sounded great. Well to see where this plan led us we decided to watch the plan move through the process and look for the results. Dr Avila took the initiative to make sure we had time to revisit the previous interview and go over where we were a year later.

As it looks things are progressing pretty well, there were a few bumps in the road but all in all I’m not sure another School District in the area can boast a leader with a clear vision that is producing results and allows to explore other avenues along the journey to the plans end. One of my favorite parts of the long range strategic plan is the fact that it allows for deviation from the plan to explore side avenues that might offer benefits.

Question 1. You eased yourself into the district slowly implementing your plan. How has that gone?

Question 2. Last interview you spoke about your Random Act of Kindness imitative how has that gone and what have you done in your 2nd year as Superintendent of RUSD?

Question 3. In our 1st interview you highlighted awards the schools were getting for excellence. What awards have schools or administrators obtained in the last year or so that we haven’t covered?

Question 4. Last interview you spoke about up coming literacy programs a lot has happened since our last interview in this area. How has the Literacy launch gone and what programs are we working with?

Question 5. Last time we spoke about streamlining STEAM programs k-12 how has that gone.

Question 6. How can we offer more classes that prepare kids for skilled labor jobs? Currently when staff retire from these classes the classes are lost. Is there a plan to address this?

Question 7. Last interview you spoke about your desire to have school principles reach out to the community to work on bringing in a more diverse learning environment into the schools. Have you seen movement in this area?

Question 8. The district not only went through its own strategic planning and each site had their own stab at creating plans how has that gone and what was learned from this process?

Question 9. We spoke about the issues with communication at RUSD. How has the communication issue progressed as you have come on board? What worked? What sounded good but didn’t produce the required results?

Question 10. Rialto has had a long history of issues within the Special Education Program. What are your plans to begin making strides in this program to a better place?