Crime | rialtonow

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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Ex-Rialto police officer sentenced to 2 years in prison for having unregistered firearms, silencers

13 Mar 2020 1 Comment

A Corona lawyer and former Rialto police officer was sentenced Thursday to two years in federal prison after unregistered weapons and bomb-making materials were found in his possession.

Sergio Lopez de Tirado, 44, was sentenced for possessing unregistered firearms, silencers and a hand grenade that were found inside his truck during a law enforcement stop, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Thursday.

He plead guilty in April 2019 to one count of possession of unregistered firearms and a destructive device.

Law enforcement officials found Lopez de Tirado asleep and apparently intoxicated in the passenger seat of a pickup truck that was parked with its door open, blocking a Norco driveway, on Dec. 21, 2018.

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Lori Daybell Mother of Missing Children Has Roots in Rialto

07 Mar 2020 2 Comments

Lori Daybell the mother who is accused of refusing to inform Idaho authorities on the location of her adoped son JJ and daughter Tylee has roots here in the city of Rialto. Lori Daybell (maiden name Cox) grew up in Rialto and graduated from Eisenhower High School. One of Lori Daybells old high school freinds and fellow cheer team member says that the Lori she new and the Lori now are two totally different people.

Lori was known as the fun loving blonde bombshell that loved to have fun with her friends, got good grades and was the FLYER on the cheer team (the person that the team would throw up in the air). According to friends on the cheer team Lori was a fun loving person that just wanted to hang out with her friends and wasn’t very interested in boys until her Senior year. Lori came from a very large Mormon family and her family never came to her cheer events which friends say didn’t bother her much at all. Lori’s path was directed by her faith and her plans were to go to BYU and to do mission work for the Later Day Saints church after high school common to most Mormon kids.

It was after high school that something went terribly wrong in Lori’s life. She married a non Mormon man right after high school and that was a marriage that didn’t last long and that husband is all but a secret as even larger news organizations have not been able to identify that man. What is known is that Lori’s wild behavior is that multiple marriages, lies, death and now the disappearance of her two youngest children now lay in her wake. A reporter spoke to Lori’s first son Colby about his mother Lori, missing siblings and his dead step father and uncle.

Colby told the reporter that his mother just showed up one day at his place of work with his two step siblings and said I found a new job we are moving, little did Colby know that would be the last time he would see his siblings before they went missing. Colby said that he learned about his moms new marriage, place of residence and disappearance of his siblings through the media.

Lori isn’t the only one in Cox family to go off the deep end in this story or in life in general. Lori’s brother Alex Cox tazzed Lori’s Texas husband and threatened to kill him and shot and killed Lori’s husband in Arizona. Alex Cox passed away a few months after killing Charles Vallow in 2019. Lori Daybell is being investigated for a string of deaths that lay in her wake as well as the disappearance of her two younger kids. Lori had a court date in Idaho where her bail was reduced from 5 million to just 1 million. Recent reports show that Lori only needs $150 thousand at most to bail out. She will need to wear an ankle monitor and remain in the Rexburg Idaho area.

Lori’s children, Tylee and JJ, have been missing for more than five months. JJ was last seen on Sept. 23 in Rexburg and Tylee was last seen Sept. 8 in Yellowstone National Park. The FBI is asking anyone with photos of that day to turn them over to FBI officials so they can try and track where the family may have been seen in the park.

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After the election turmoil remains high for West Valley Water

19 Feb 2020 Leave a comment

After the dust settled after the most recent West Valley Water Board elections the turmoil has yet to settle. Many were surprised to see the current board that was left virtually in tact except for the election of new comer Channing Hawkins and that this board relinquished the seat of President to the newly elected Board Member Hawkins. So have said that this seems to be a trap to set Board Member Hawkins up to fail. We have reached out multiple times to speak with Board President Hawkins about this but have failed to speak to him.

West Valley Water District board member Channing Hawkins reaches after being voted in as President of the West Valley Water District, during a board meeting in Rialto, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2019. (Photo by John Valenzuela, Contributing Photographer)

Whatever the case Board Member Hawkins is the dully chosen Board President and seems to be on a course to make changes within the structure of the Water District. The most notable change is the live streaming of board meetings via Facebook Live and then posting a video recording to the Water Districts newly created YouTube channel. The recent implementation of these two sources have removed a large barrier between the Water Board and the Rate Payers as many people work long hours and have family obligations that make it difficult to show up to regular meetings let alone all the special meeting West Valley has had lately. Now rate payers can remain informed on what is going on without having to disrupt their already busy lives.

About the time that Board President Hawkins took the position of Board President many of the Water District Managers took that opportunity to deliver a letter of no confidence in West Valley Water GM Clarence Mansfield. The letter from the West Valley Managers demanded that he be fired because of poor leadership and alleged cronyism. This letter was put out suspiciously close to a SCNG investigation into a laundry list of problems since Mansfield was hired, they also pointed out his salary of $225k dollars as well.

As someone that has been covering this Water District long before the Southern California News Group. There have been problems for 6 to 8 years with West Valley Water Board where former Board President but still a current Board Member has been running the Water District into the ground and has been using questionable hiring practices since he sat on the Water Board. Another thing is I know Mr Mansfield and I haven’t spoken to him recently I can tell you he has learned the hard way to try and get his job done without running directly afoul of the elected people over him. He was railroaded at LA DWP years ago when questioned certain internal practices, then was made the scapegoat for the laundry list of failures in the sale of the City of Rialto’s Water and Waste Water to Veollia where he was the first GM to tackle that project. Now he is the GM for a Water District that was upside down in questionable behavior for years before he got there.

Board President Hawkins seems genuine in his interest to be transparent holding Facebook Lives to go over the agenda with constituents prior to meetings and there doesn’t appear to be any visible bias in the decisions he has led the district to make. Quite the opposite the oldest and most long standing Board Members have openly attacked Board President Hawkins for some of the preliminary moves he has taken.

Only time will tell what these changes will bring about and what if anything will change with the General Manager job for this struggling water agency.

Click here to read about Martin Piñon as Interim Human Resources and Risk Manager

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Former Officer Glen Anderson Gets Case Heard On Appeal

24 Nov 2019 1 Comment

by rialto-now in #CA31st, and the unincorporated communities of Bloomington and Muscoy, Andy Carrizales, Burglury, Ca, city attorney, City of Rialto, Colton, Crime, Currupt, Deborah Robertson, Ed palmer, Ed Scott, Fontana, Freinds of Rialto K9, Friends of Rialto K9, Grand Terrace, Inland Empire, Joe Baca Jr, Mike Story, Paul Stella, Public Safety, Rafael Trujillo, Rialto, Rialto, Rialto Parks, Rialto Police Department, rialto unified school district, San Bernardino

On November 6th former officer Glen Anderson took his lawsuit over wrongful termination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Officer Glen Anderson’s case was dismissed on summary judgement and his legal team is seeking an appeal of that ruling to send his case before a jury.

Officer Anderson’s attorney does his best to nail down that the career of Officer Anderson was ended because the text he sent to James Freeman was then forwarded to Councilman Ed Scott. He works to show that all of the other cases leveled at Officer Anderson were because they could not legally fire Officer Anderson over the text messages alone.

The attorney for the City of Rialto claim that the claim that Officer Anderson was fired over a text message was false. The attorney for the city of Rialto states that nobody fired officer Anderson over Free Speech issues.

The text in question was sent to Political Consultant James Freeman who then in error sent that text message to Councilman Ed Scott. Once Councilman Ed Scott found out that Officer Glen Anderson was texting out the council he became irate. When speaking to Councilman O’Connell and former Councilman Ed Palmer at the time of the investigations there was a clear message that Officer Anderson needed to be dealt with over that text message.

We found the words of the Attorney for the city of Rialto puzzling because he claims that neither the Chief or Mike Story the City Manager had any knowledge of the K9 yard or its construction. The K9 yard was well known throughout the department and the community. The only way Chief Farrar or Deanda could claim not knowing about the K9 yard would be because they are lying or ignorant! City Administrator Mike Story sent years back where the K9 yard used to be located as he was on a mission to build Councilman Joe Baca Jr the 2nd most expensive park in the city Bud Bender park.

No matter if the 9th circuit allows this case go to a jury the people of Rialto should question the leadership of city hall and of the police department. Even no the current leadership of the police department allow people who broke more rules and laws continue to work and hold high ranking jobs within the Rialto Police Department still. The only difference between Glen Anderson and other officers is that the other officers protect Ed Scott and don’t hold him accountable. Remember this all started with a text message sent to Councilman Ed Scott!

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!

All Residents Pay A Unpopular Fee, but Not All Benefit From It

24 Jun 2019 1 Comment

On May 28th we learned something about our least favorite fee in the city that should have your blood boiling. For the last 4 to 5 year you have been paying and ever increasing tax on your monthly trash bill. This TAX was added to deal with Rialto’s streets that are deteriorating much faster than Rialto officials can keep up at least that is what we were told.

On May 28th we found out that streets that are in poor repair will not be fixed with the Trash Fund money, only newer streets will get any work done from the Trash Tax. There is a promise that they will seek out a way to do something for those residents but they say that as we head for Bankruptcy!

Activists told the city council and the residents that the city would find ways of putting this money back into their own pockets and moving street maintenance money around to other pet projects. The last honest Councilman caught his colleagues playing games with this money shortly after it was approved.

Councilman O’Connell was interviewed by Sun reporter Leslie Parrilla and said:

“We gave the impression that we were going to use that money to help improve the roads,” O’Connell said.

The increased rates for the city’s solid waste collection, recycling and disposal service rates were passed to help maintain Rialto’s deteriorating roads. But after the fees started being collected, the roughly $1.2 million normally budgeted annually for road improvements dropped to $600,000 this year, instead of increasing with money from the new fee.

“It seemed to me the citizens got it right when they said, ‘be careful, they’re going to take advantage of it,’ ” by moving money around, O’Connell said.

The plan was to decrease the Trash Tax and fix the roads with Measure U. Well a year later Councilman O’Connell passed away unexpectedly and since then here are all the things Measure U is targeted to cover:

Millions in behind street maintenance.
Reduce the now PERMANENT Utility Users Tax by 25%.
Cover our $150 Million Dollars of Unfunded Liabilities.
Provide for more cops.
Provide more money for Recreation Programs.

The only problem with these promises is that even with best case scenario is that the tax would bring in $15 Million a year. As of today there is less than $10 Million in an escrow account while the tank farms sue us. It looks so grim that the Mayor and Ed Scott are publicly talking about settling for way less than expected just to get something.

While that goes on Burrtec spends thousands of dollars on campaigns for elected officials that act as rubber stamps for their programs and agendas. While Burrtec is holding a fundraising party for the Mayor they got:

Rialto residents to pay for the damage thier trucks do to the road.
A 10 year contract that never expires because it renews for another 10 years each year and we have to give them 10 years notice if we want out of the contract.
They got $1.3 Million back in their pockets that was supposed to go to create a community garden for the North End of the city.
We now are forced to pay burrtec through our property tax bills so we can’t see the many times they raise our rates.

So the only question is, are you mad yet? Don’t forget gas goes up 5.6 cents a gallon on Monday July 1st for more on that story click here!

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Two Dead Bodies Found in Rialto Neighborhood

28 Apr 2019 Leave a comment

Photo of crime scene at Sycamore and Jackson Streets from Loud Labs IE

RIALTO (LoudLabs News)

On Saturday morning, April 27, 2019, the Rialto Police Department along with the City of Rialto Fire Department responded to reports of a two people down. The incident was reported around 6:19am in the 100 block of E. Jackson Street.

When Officers arrived they located two males, down in the front yards of two different addresses, roughly 200 feet apart. Both victims were pronounced deceased at the scene. Homicide Detectives as well as the Coroner’s Office were just arriving at the scene around 8:30am.

Police investigators working the crime scene where 2 dead bodies were found on the corner of Sycamore and Jackson Streets photo from Loud Labs IE

Details surrounding the two deaths are limited as Police will only say they are conducting a death investigation. No further information was immediately available.

Why are murders and deaths on the rise in Rialto?

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Rialto Police Track Down Hit & Run Suspect

02 Feb 2019 3 Comments

Photo from Rialto Police Facebook Page

On January 27^th at approximately 9:05 a.m., the Rialto Police Department received several 9-1-1 calls from citizens reporting that a young female was struck by a car in the 1500 block of Rialto Ave, in the City of Rialto. After the 14 year old pedestrian was struck, the driver in the suspect vehicle fled the scene without stopping. Rialto police officers arrived on scene within minutes and found the young girl lying in the roadway. The Rialto Fire Department arrived on scene and she was transported to Loma Linda University Hospital with severe head injuries. She is currently receiving emergency medical treatment.

Through an initial investigation which included witness statements, the suspect vehicle was described as a dark colored Jeep last seen eastbound on Rialto Ave, and then northbound Cedar Ave. Rialto Police Officers responded to the area and began their investigation. During an area check for the vehicle, officers were able to locate it in the Walgreens shopping center on the corner of Cedar and Foothill Blvd. Further investigation led officers to conclude the registered owner of the vehicle (Jesus Quinonez-Garcia), was the driver. Officers were quickly able to locate Quinonez-Garcia and place him under arrest.

After obtaining his statement and conducting a DUI investigation, Quinonez-Garcia was found to have a blood alcohol level of almost four times the legal limit. He was later booked into West Valley Detention Center under the charges of Felony DUI and Felony Hit and Run causing injuries.

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City Council Seeks Input On Dumping Woman’s Shelter into Two Neighborhoods

15 Nov 2018 Leave a comment

The city of Rialto after a heated and contentious city council tab item on September 11th 2018 is finally giving Rialto Residents what they deserve, a right to voice their concerns on the proposed project.

The City of Rialto’s Neighborhood, Housing Preservation, and Beautification Commission is hosting a workshop to consider a transitional housing facility proposed by the Time For Change Foundation (“TFCF”). The meeting is on Thursday, November 15, beginning at 6:00 p.m in the Rialto City Hall City Council Chambers, 150 S. Palm Ave. Rialto

The City and TFCF considered several sites in Rialto, but narrowed the choice to two locations:

(1) a 1 acre site at the northwest corner of Olive Avenue and Rialto Avenue owned by the Rialto Housing Authority/Rialto Successor Agency

(2) a 2.2 acre site at 475 N. Linden Avenue, just north of Foothill Boulevard owned by a private party.

The City would appreciate your input on any aspect of the project proposal. The City Council will ultimately decide the project location and characteristics after taking public input.

Both proposed sites have created concern in the minds of residents. The original site is in a downtown area zoned for cottage commercial and is not a desirable addition to the current residents in the area. The 2nd and most recent proposed site is even worse. The 2nd area is an area already dealing with large amounts of crime from other multi family dwellings and has multiple homes that are used as group homes where homeless and mentally ill people roam the streets and harass residents and in some cases have defecated on homeowners lawns. The community on Linden is a older neighborhood and nobody wants to see more transitional housing dumped there.

Even though everyone keeps calling the work being done here a feasibility study the mayor has been jumping into every picture she can and is doing her best to push this facility on Rialto.

Residents with questions or concerns should email jdutrey@rialtoca.gov or call (909) 820-8014

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