Congressman Pete Aguilar

Another Shoe Drops For San Bernardino Mayor John Valdivia

10 Sep 2020 Leave a comment

Many of the allegations that Mayor John Valdivia made to staff in his office were substantiated in a recent investigation. Articles written by the San Bernardino Sun downplayed the bombshell report but many out in the public are wondering why he has not stepped down as San Bernardino Mayor!

San Bernardino Mayor John Valdivia made unsolicited and graphic sexual comments to a former city employee last year and repeatedly berated subordinates in private and public settings, an independent investigator has found.

The city’s top elected official also told a former employee in January that he is “always receiving gifts and not reporting them,” according to Los Angeles attorney Carla Barboza, with whom the city contracted in February to investigate sexual harassment and hostile workplace claims against Valdivia.

Released Tuesday, Sept. 8, executive summaries of the months-long probe substantiate certain allegations brought forward by former city employees Mirna Cisneros, Karen Cervantes and Jackie Aboud.

Seventeen witnesses were interviewed, however, and documents were reviewed as Barboza set out to determine whether it was more likely than not that the allegations were true.

As such, she found Valdivia repeatedly subjected Cisneros, in particular, to lewd and suggestive sexual comments in person and through text messages.

The investigation, which cost San Bernardino $68,000, confirmed Cisneros’ claim that in December, Valdivia bragged about being offered a private jet and how he would “work something out where he does not have to claim it on his forms,” referring to documents elected officials must file when they receive gifts.

A witness confirmed Valdivia went on to tell Cisneros: “There is always a way to get around everything.”

Through interviews, Barboza corroborated Cisneros’ claim that in January Valdivia told her and other staffers not to eat at a dinner recognizing San Bernardino commissioners. The investigation also confirmed that the mayor told Cisneros and others present that the dinner was all about “the John Valdivia show.”

A witness backed Cisneros’ claim that earlier this year Valdivia asked her to be vague when processing a reimbursement to the San Bernardino International Airport for a meeting. He also requested Cisneros not “name names” of whom he met with.

Valdivia told Cisneros a day later that he “always” receives gifts and fails to report them, according to Barboza.

For a copy of the report click here

Read the full story here

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Trailers for homeless with coronavirus symptoms set up at Glen Helen Regional Park Looks Like a Scam

17 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by rialto-now in #CA31st, Ana Gonzales, and the unincorporated communities of Bloomington and Muscoy, Andy Carrizales, Aquenetta warren, Assembly Woman Eloise Reyes, Budget, Ca, Colton, Congressman Pete Aguilar, Corona Virus, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Deborah Robertson, Ed Scott, Fontana, Grand Terrace, Henry Nickel, Inland Empire, Joe Baca Jr, Josef (Joe) Britt, Rialto, San Bernardino

About 20 trailers set up at Glen Helen Regional Park will play a key role in slowing the novel coronavirus spread among the local homeless population and community.

The trailers, purchased by the state, arrived Thursday, April 9, at the park near the Cajon Pass in San Bernardino County. They will house homeless individuals and families who have tested positive for COVID-19 or are suspected to have the illness.

“When our medical experts give us their very best educated medical advice, that advice applies to everyone equally,” Supervisor Josie Gonzales said referring to the guidance from public health. “We must not discriminate because the virus does not discriminate.”

The trailers are part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $150 million emergency funding package to shelter homeless people during the coronavirus pandemic. Fifteen trailers were set up this week at Riverside Municipal Airport for the same purpose.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s Homeless Outreach and Proactive Enforcement, or H.O.P.E. team, has placed 26 people — some with families — in a hotel on Hospitality Lane in San Bernardino, county spokesman David Wert said.

The move has drawn the ire of San Bernardino city officials who say they were not consulted during the planning process.

Councilman Henry Nickel called the relocation of out-of-town homeless people to a city already overburdened by the population “negligent” and “irresponsible.” Even before the coronavirus pandemic swept the region, San Bernardino was stretched thin on resources for the city’s most vulnerable, he said.

In a phone interview, Nickel said city leaders still are unclear how the county plans to transition the homeless individuals out of the hotels; provide security at the facility; ensure the population doesn’t “migrate into our community”; and what impact the temporary move will have on residents’ long-term health and safety.

“It’s unacceptable,” Nickel said. “What the county has done is just unconscionable. The fact they never notified the city before engaging in this decision, to me, shows bad faith.

“We cannot trust the county in terms of their homeless operations if this is the behavior they’re going to engage in.”

For The Full Story Click Here

Two Council Members Enter Runoff For 5th District seat on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors

05 Mar 2020 10 Comments

by rialto-now in #CA31st, and the unincorporated communities of Bloomington and Muscoy, Ca, City of Rialto, Colton, Congressman Pete Aguilar, Currupt, Ed Scott, Fontana, Grand Terrace, Jesse Armendarez, Joe Baca Jr, Rafael Trujillo, Rialto, San Bernardino

Rialto Councilman Joe Baca Jr and Fontana Councilman Jesse Armendarez have finished in the top two spots in the Election to replace termed out Supervisor Josie Gonzalez. In the presidential primary election on March 3, Baca Jr. received 12,442 votes (39.38 percent of the total) and Armendarez gained 8,624 votes (27.30 percent), according to final unofficial results released by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office.

This election had four people running for the newly open seat. Business Owner Nadia Renner & Colton School Board Member Dan Flores both finished at the bottom of the race. Since nobody obtained more than 50% of the total vote the top two vote getters will be in a runoff in the November Presidential Election. One interesting portion of this race was how people decided how and when to enter the race.

Dan Flores more than just a School Board Member for the Colton Joint School District he was Supervisor Josie Gonzalez Chief of Staff. Dan Flores was seen as the heir to the throne when it came to the 5th Supervisors Seat. Dan spent the longest building his campaign and seemed to have support from many areas across the district, that was until the filling period loomed in the distance. Councilman Joe Baca Jr has been seeking an exit to teaching and being a Council Member on the Rialto City Council and it seems he found his out. Even though Rialto seems to be booming with economic activity, there are a lot of looming issues that the current council has been ignoring or kicking down the road. Councilman Jesse Armendez is an entirely different situation because he only got into local politics to be a paid puppet for Fontana Mayor Aquenetta Warren. Fontana Mayor Warren has spent the last six years buying elections and putting people on boards so she can feed contracts to her donors and control elected bodies.

Most people we spoke to thought both Councilmen were grasping at straws entering this race. Joe Baca Sr has done much damage to the Baca dynasty name and Joe Baca Jr seems like a vanilla local elected official looking for new power and a bigger paycheck. Jesse Armendarez looked even worse, with very little elected experience and little to no name recognition outside of the Fontana political structure. Yet both Councilmen used some divisive tactics to overcome the other two running for Supervisor to. Joe Baca Jr used his ability to fund raise from local and regional Democrats as well as using his name recognition to overcome his opponents. Jesse Armendez tactics were business as usual for an Aquentta Warren Campaign. Using the force behind the Inland Empire Business Alliance coupled with some lies in the campaign Jesse finished in the top two.

Jesse Armendez worked to lure in Democrats that were undecided between the two Democrats in the race coupled with his lack of name recognition by putting out different mailers. If you were registered Democrat you got a flyer that said Jesse was a Democrat, Republicans got a mailer labeling him as a Republican. Jesse’s PAC’s also spent money sending out lies in mailers that Dan Flores a long time Democrat was a Trump Republican. Donald Trump should make sure he creates space between himself and Mayor Warren since she seems quick to use Trump hate to derail campaigns. This Campaign came down to Moderate Democrats vrs Progressive Democrats. Political power houses like Congress Woman Norma Torres and Congress Man Pete Aguilar supported Dan Flores.

Will Socialism Save Rialto?

17 Feb 2020 4 Comments

by rialto-now in #CA31st, 100 Black Men, AFL-CIO, Ana Gonzales, and the unincorporated communities of Bloomington and Muscoy, Assembly Woman Eloise Reyes, Ca, Colton, Congressman Pete Aguilar, Fontana, Grand Terrace, Josef (Joe) Britt, Rafael Trujillo, Rialto, San Bernardino, youth

Many of your local, state and federal leaders are leading the charge to throw the Rialto region into the arms of socialist leaders. Leading the charge is 47th Assembly District Woman Eloise Reyes. Eloise and her team of mini socialists are flooding the district pleading with young people to push the socialism king Bernie Sanders into the presidential race. Bernie Sanders is trying to sell his dream of fairness and equality with Free Education and Medicare for all to the masses.

The Washington Examiner posted and article about the woes of Medicare for all in Canada. The Canadian system is what Bernie Sanders has in mind for the United States Medicare for all. In the Canadian system people can not pay to have private insurance that would provide them quicker access to specialists and procedures. This is what Bernie Sanders plan has in mind for Americans as well.

In the Washington Examiner article “as a result, everyone must wait their turn for care paid for by the public system. Last year, Canadians faced a median wait of nearly 21 weeks to receive specialist treatment after getting referred by a general practitioner. Certain procedures come with longer waits. End-to-end, patients waited a median of 39 weeks for orthopedic surgery in 2019.”

Everyone remembers the train wreck Obama Care created with overcrowded hospitals and waiting rooms, a California website that took years to get off the ground and a lie of if you like your doctor and your plan you can keep them. After watching that hot mess of a health care fiasco Millennials claim to be craving more inept government control led by our failing leaders.

Parents Right Groups Call For School Boycott Over New Sex Ed Curriculum

19 Sep 2019 Leave a comment

Thursday September 9th 2019 a group of parents rights advocates the Alliance to Protect Children planned to remove their children from school today to protest the Latest Sexual Education Bill AB 329. The group Informed Parents of California take issue with the rights of parents being removed from this decision on what and how to teach their kids about sex, sexual orientation and how to deal with unplanned pregnancies. Sit outs are planned all over the state to send a clear message that parents are mad and not going away!

In the video below you will see what has been uncovered in the Riverside County Education System. This information was dug up by Don Dix and Tim Thompson. What they found was a disturbing sex ed curriculum that taught kids about anal sex, fisting, dental dams and homosexual role playing.

In today’s age of internet sexual perversion it seems odd that California Democrats would double down on such a divisive curriculum that taught some of the most outrageous forms of sexual perversion that some people in the video above had to look up some of the things that they were being taught in school. Rialto’s own Assembly Woman Eloise Reyes Gomez and Assembly Man James Ramos both voted for this bill and condone what is in it by virtue of their vote. We reached out for comment but their staff simply sent us to voicemail.

Probably the most disturbing part of the video above is the under cover video of Moreno Valley School District officials teaming up with the ACLU and Planned Parenthood to coach staff on how to remove more parental rights by hiding the fact that a student left school to have an abortion. During the Q&A portion of this meeting many staff seem to have questions about how the school will hide the fact that in this digital world the parents and see their child’s attendance. The ACLU staff go as far as to create a legal lie involving school administrative staff on how to “legally” keep parents in the dark about what is going on with their child.

So it looks like parents have to think before they vote for leaders in the state assembly, senate and governor, do you think:

It is the schools job to teach kindergarten school kids about sexual identity?
How far should the schools be allowed to go in teaching sexual education?
Do you think it is right for the schools to remove you as a parent from any choices concerning your kids?

Another concerning factor here is that lack of opposition to this bill and the standards set to be implemented in our local schools. In the video above you will see that Moreno Valley pretended to have no plan yet their consultants were hitting the ground running showing they had received support from the schools and were already holding implementation workshops. Not one single School Board member from any local school has gone on record against this bill or any plans to implement these into the education system. Some parents are saying that their silence means they are complicit and need to be removed.

Video by rialto-now

Rialto Residents Brace for Another Gas Price Increase Yet Again

24 Jun 2019 Leave a comment

by rialto-now in #CA31st, Ana Gonzales, and the unincorporated communities of Bloomington and Muscoy, Andy Carrizales, Aquenetta warren, Assembly Woman Eloise Reyes, Bad Commerce, Budget, Ca, City of Rialto, Colton, Congressman Pete Aguilar, Crime, Currupt, Curt Hagman, Deborah Robertson, Ed Scott, Fontana, Grand Terrace, Inland Empire, James Ramos, Janice Rutherford, Joe Baca Jr, Josef (Joe) Britt, joseph williams, Josie Gonzales, pete aguilar, Rialto, Rialto, San Bernardino, Taxes, Teachers Union

Because we are gluttons for punishment in California and especially in Rialto our fearless leaders are dropping yet another gas tax on people who buy gas in California. Rialto residents get additionally taxed because Rialto residents have to pay for damage that Burttec has caused to our streets.

California is poised to charge the highest taxes and fees on gas in the COUNTRY once the 5.6 cent tax increase goes into effect on July 1st. What is scary is that State leaders say they will still be BILLIONS of $$$$ short of what is needed to fix California roads. They are still trying to fix what is already there still they have no plans on how to increase lanes yet they keep increasing the population. These taxes are part of the SB1 bill that state Demoncrats approved in 2017 and California Voters failed to pass a proposition that would have killed SB1 and the pending tax increases.

Even with the increased taxes the state claims they will be $78 Billion short of what is needed to bring California Roads and Bridges into GOOD repair. Why are all these taxes not enough? Here are some glaring reasons:

More than 60% of the money from SB1 wont ever go to fund a single road repair project, this money is going to mass transit, failed high speed rail and bike lanes.
Caltrans is a drain on society, they work slow and have thousands of engineers that sit around. They agency is full of fraud, bribery, favoritism, bid rigging, and spending work time to derail a citizen proposition.
California leaders have been robbing the road fund for years only to now say we don’t have enough.
Funding health care, drivers licenses, food stamps, public education and so much more for illegal aliens.
They even go so far as to give themselves yet another raise!
Don’t forget the massive looming deficit coming for the State in the Retirement System PERS!

So it looks like California and Rialto are in for more and more increases in taxes until they start speaking louder from the ballot box!

Click here to see how Rialto residents are paying for road services they will never get!

Election Rules Changed To Favor Incumbents & Silence Latina Challenger

08 Jan 2019 Leave a comment

Rialto may seem like a Left leaning city but when it comes to politics, but all sides come out to make sure that honest hardworking voices are silenced.

After the 2016 election where nine different people all were seeking to occupy one of the two vacant city council seats Ed Scott wanted to make sure that the playing field was leveled when he ran for re-election. A city ordnance was put into place banning regular people from being able to promote their intentions of seeking public office. Everyone forgot about the 2017 ordnance and apparently the City Clerks office and Police department were unaware.

On Tuesday August 7th Mayor ProTem Ed Scott witnessed Ana Gonzalez who was seeking to occupy one of the two seats up for re-election with a campaign booth at the cities annual National Night Out witnesses said he came unglued. Mayor ProTem Ed Scott apparently directed Intern Chief of Police Mark Kling to kick Ana Gonzalez out of the event. What happened next was mind blowing the Chief of Police went over to remove Mrs Gonzalez’s booth from the event!

Now the Police Chief doesn’t respond to calls for service, he doesn’t go out on patrol and most chiefs delegate enforcement duties on other officers in their department. Well in this case when Ed Scott says jump the Chief jumps! Witnesses said that the Chief went over to Mrs. Gonzalez and forced her to remove anything about her campaign or leave. When we reached out to Chief Kling this was his response”

“I understand that the City accepted the application from Ms. Ana Gonzales to have a booth at this year’s National Night Out in August, without recognizing that campaigning activities would be conducted or in violation of the City’s enacted policy from 2017. When the application was accepted PD staff did not notice the description of informational postcards about her political campaign. PD staff did recognize that she would also give candy and school supplies to children visiting her booth. No other council candidate was allowed to distribute campaign literature from a booth at the event, pursuant to Resolution 7084.

Nevertheless, at the event, when Rialto Police Department staff members learned of the activities being conducted at Ms. Gonzales’ booth in violation of the city’s policy, Ms. Gonzales was asked to cease passing out campaign literature, but she was encouraged to continue passing out candy and school supplies to children attending the city sponsored event. At no time was Ms. Gonzales asked to leave the event.“

Nobody stopped Ed Scott or councilman Joe Baca Jr. from addressing the public or having city resources taking photos of them at the event but the Latina Woman running to oppose them she was shutdown?

The question is why such an ordinance even exists and why both city staff and police staff are not aware of a city ordinance?

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Sean Flynn Offers A New Approach To Creating Change In San Bernardino

28 Sep 2018 Leave a comment

We had a chance meet with Sean Flynn a candidate for the 31st Congressional District which stretches from Pomona all the way to Mentone!

This district covers a large portion of Rialto and most of San Bernardino.

The city of San Bernardino has been in trouble ever since the city went through bankruptcy and things have been pretty bleak. Many former San Bernardino residents that have returned for business or visits have described what they see when returning as a gut punch. Public Safety services and General Public services took a hit and still struggle to come back to life as San Bernardino rises from Bankruptcy.

The recent shooting that put 8 people in the hospital including one minor has once again surfaced the talk of what can be done in San Bernardino to deal with crime? The answer currently is to place private security officers at the location of this most recent shooting and argue over how to police a city that seems to be still dealing with the massive collapse of their economy.

The ideas being put forth now are the same old answers that sadly haven’t worked and even though the current congressman feels bad for those effected by this horrible incident he has nothing worthwhile to offer as a solution.

Sean Flynn sat down with us to talk about a lot of what he wants to bring to the District if he is elected to Congress in November. His take on San Bernardino even before this horrible situation is so vital we thought it would be a good idea to put this part out before we release the entire interview.

We thought this idea of taking federal resources and applying them to struggling communities was very innovative and hasn’t been brought forward yet, what do you think?

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.

More Lies Coming From City Hall

13 Mar 2018 Leave a comment

On Monday March 5th the Budget Advisory Committee was given a presentation on why the City Began getting involved in repairing community mail boxes. Committee Member and Rialto Police Benefit Association President Richard Royce brought this issue to the Committees attention and began the process of fishing out one of many ways the city is wasting taxpayers money.

What happened is that these Community Mailboxes have become a haven for criminals over the last few years in a state where you can steal peoples mail and get away with no jail time. So we put everyone’s mail in one location and then decrease the consequences for getting caught it has become a major problem that the post office never foresaw reaching the levels it has today.

The interesting thing here is why did the city get involved in doing something that is clearly a post office issue and why they once again feel it necessary to lie about it? What happened was the post office wasn’t moving fast enough for the Mayor and some of her friends here in the city. A few group of residents in the Las Colinas area of Rialto didn’t like the answer that the post office had a 6 month wait for Community Mail Box Repair and Replacement. So the mayor directed Public Works staff to purchase and replace these boxes after hours on overtime.

What happened next is people talk and then what started as a favor from our Mayor to her friends became a public program that we don’t have the money for. If it wasn’t for RPBA Union President Richard Royce sniffing out this missuse of funds we may have never known that $30k was spent on a program that was not the cities responsibility in the 1st place. Now the Mayor is trying to take a fake victory lap for something she had nothing to do with. The Post Office has ruffly $1.3 million in boxes that will be used to replace damaged boxes.

Makes you wonder what else we don’t know about……………

Image by rialto-now