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Rialto City Council Approves Plans To Destroy A Majority Of The Last Standing Historic Orange Grove

12 Apr 2016 Leave a comment

On an early Tuesday morning our staff decided to take a look at the agenda for today’s city council meeting. Once we opened the agenda packet we were both glad and sad at the same time. The agenda includes nine proclomations, fifteen consent calander items and eleven tab items. The highlight of the agenda is the Proclamation-Mary McCombs 100th Year Birthday. You may not know Mrs McCombs but she is one of the last living Woman Veterans from World War II (you can see her in a video below).

One very sad side of tonight’s agenda is the approval of destroying 7.5 acres of historic orange grove to build high end condos with no private yards in an area already struggling with crime issues. The area has had 92 different crimes in the first four months of this year and most of them were drug or property crimes. Adams Acres owner John Adams told us that the Orange grove and farm has been operating at a loss since 1960 but his family kept running it to keep the historical monument and orange trees part of the Rialto landscape. The property in total is ruffly 9.5 acres and Mr. Adams is selling off 7.5 of those acres and keeping 2 acres of fruit trees and vegetable gardening land. The main portion of the trees on the land that is being sold to the developer of Crestwood Communities is Valencia Oranges that are mainly used for juice and don’t carry a high price in the market. There will be over 600 fruit tress on the remaining 2 acres containing 200 varieties of fruit. Mr. Adams has other off site gardens where they grow vegtables at other locations in the city of Rialto, but nothing with so much historical importance.

I bet you said to your self recently we don’t have enough tire shops in Rialto, right? No your probalby tired of Rialto holding the record for having the most indoor swapmeets, Mc Donalds and Tire Shops. Well if you liked to hand car-wash on Foothill near Eucalytus because the city in all it infinite wisdom has approved yet another tire shop that will run from the corner of Eucalytus all the way to the Exudoz Car Dealership.

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San Bernardino Schools Student Discipline & Citations Discussion

11 Apr 2016 1 Comment

by rialto-now in 100 Black Men, AFL-CIO, Assemblymember-Elect Cheryl Brown, Ca, Congressman Pete Aguilar, Crime, Currupt, Inland Empire, Marijuana, Medical Marijuana, pete aguilar, Public Safety, San Bernardino, San Bernardino PD, San Bernardino Police, SB Sun, youth

About 120 people from San Bernardino Unified School District, School Police, School Board members and various ethnic based organizations from throughout the San Bernardino area met at the San Bernardino Club and Events center to go over sweeping changes to student discipline that many in the community see as adding to the dangers that exist within the city of San Bernardino. Out of the 120 plus people in attendance we only count nine parents. Most of the people in attendance are people that are advocating and receiving funding for the sweeping changes in student citations.

Both Pete Aguilar and Cheryl Brown had people from their office here in attendance. On top of that we had four San Bernardino School District Board Members a clear violation of the Brown act. The violation is that out of the seven members that sit on the board Scott Wyatt, Barbara Flores, Abigail Medina and Mike Gallo are here creating a quorum. Apparently this isn’t the first time San Bernardino School Board has had a quorum without putting out the public notice of the meeting. School Board Sup Dale Mardsen said that since they have four board members at the meeting they now have to fly this as a public meeting after the fact. We asked board member Barbara Flores about this and she said “who cares this is important what are they (DA Ramos and his public integrity unit) going to do slap our hands? I’m ok with that!” To make matters worse later on into the meeting another Board Member (that makes five) came into the meeting Board Member Rogers. It was clear that these board members have no respect for the laws that govern them.

Dr. Harold Vollkommer and Superintendent Marsden worked hand in hand to control the conversation of the meeting leaving ZERO room for real questions or allowing people to speak their minds. It was so bad that Student Parent advocate Steven Figueroa said so in his comments publicly. The only people for this failed plan to remove consequences for the very things most parents work so hard to protect their children from were the people who stood to make money off of implementing the programs. From the mess of switching from different colored paper that was all out of order, poor time management and having the wrong information in the packets this meeting was a mess.

Another key person that stood out to us here is that Rialto School Board Member Dina Walker who was in favor of these horrible ideas making us wonder if Rialto Schools safety is now in jeopardy? Why would a Rialto School Board member attend a meeting like this, speak favorably of it and not have plans for using it in Rialto? Also Mrs. Walker was not there in another capacity alone she self identified as a Rialto School Baord Member and Dale Marsden also introduced her solely in her title as Rialto School Board Member.

Parents spoke about how the district is making parent involvement extremely difficult in this process and in attending this meeting. They are right this whole process has been made out to be as secret and behind closed doors as possible. San Bernardino School District is paying 1,500 a day for an upland based attorney to oversee this process. When this plan was launched it was done in a district employee eyes only email and employees were told they would find trouble with the district if they shared the information that is within.

Dale Marsden told us that no decision has been made and that this DRAFT proposal and that the School Board still has to approve it. The only problem is that Five board members are there all speaking privately about the Draft Proposal and they all are in favor of the proposal.

12th Annual Puttin’ on the Ritz Fine Arts Gala

07 Apr 2016 Leave a comment

The highly anticipated Youth Talent Showcase for the Students of Rialto Unified School District is upon us once again. This event is not only a showcase of Rialtos awesome young talent but a fundraiser for Fine Arts in the District. It also serves as one of the largest collections of the Who’s Who of Rialto. One of this years talent is Sarah Urbieta the Current Youth Chair of the Rialto Community Coalition and an all around awesome young lady. See her preform last year at the Positive Images Conference held at Bob Murphy High School.

12th Annual Puttin’ on the Ritz Fine Arts Gala are now open! This year’s impressive lineup of talented student performers is sure to leave attendees in awe:

2016 Ritz Talent

Owen Knapper, Jr., 6th Grade – Kucera Middle School

Aimee Monge, 5th Grade – Simpson Elementary School

Aubrey Stevenson, 3rd Grade – Fitzgerald Elementary School

Angelica Gonzales, 6th Grade – Rialto Middle School

Jalen Adams, 7th Grade – Kucera Middle School

Chiana Hedgeman, 12th Grade – Eisenhower High School

Kiarissa Ortega, 11th Grade – Eisenhower High School

Luis Vidana, 5th Grade – Casey Elementary School

Alyssa Edwards, 8th Grade – Kolb Middle School

Jocelyn Vega, 10th Grade – Carter High School

Sarah Urbieta, 6th Grade – Kucera Middle School

Casey Ballet Folklorico, 3^rd and 4^th Grade – Casey Elementary School

Rialto Royalz (Dance Team), 8th Grade – Rialto Middle School

Noted as the largest fine arts, student based Gala in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, the Ritz has raised over $420,000, benefiting RUSD classroom students and teachers. Since the Ritz’ inception, over 300 students have shared their incredible talents on stage with more than 7,000 audience members throughout the event’s lifetime.

This year, we are proud to welcome esteemed guest emcee, Frank Pine, Executive Editor of the Los Angeles News Group (LANG), which encompasses The San Bernardino Sun and Daily Bulletin. We are also excited to welcome back, as co-emcee, the talented and entertaining 96.7 KCAL Rocks Radio Personality, Jimbo.

Tickets can be purchased by contacting Lana Kosh at (909) 820-7700 ext. 2140 or online by clicking the link HERE

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Rialto High School Finishes 1st Place at Nationals

26 Mar 2016 1 Comment

The photo above is from the Rialto Knights Twitter account. The picture shows the waiting moments of waiting for the results on their first place finish at Nationals In Anahiem on Sunday. Well a picture is worth a thousand words and this picture tells it all.

Well if the 1st place finish at the USA Spirit State Championships wasn’t enough your Rialto High School Cheer Team has now finished 1st at the USA Spirit Nationals. The Rialto Cheer team division had nine teams for preliminaries on March 19th and three teams for finals on March 20th. Thousand Oaks placed third and Temple City placed second behind your Rialto Knights!!!!!! See the video of the winning cheer Below:

The AWESOME team of girls took over the stage at the Anaheim Convention Center and owned their performance. The Inland Empire was well represented with teams from Fontana, Rialto, Chino Hills and Beaumont all competing for a win on the National Stage. Were super excited to see this team representing not only the Inland Empire but Rialto in a big way. It’s awesome to see that they were sent off by their classmates in the best way possible to get they big win.

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Rialto City Council Meeting Tonight

22 Mar 2016 Leave a comment

Well after a month between meetings we are back from Washington and ready to get back to the business of spending your money. This agenda is super top heavy with lots of Proclamations and Awards for all types of things. One that stands out to us is:

5 16-180 Proclamation-National Public Safety Telecommunications Week Mayor Deborah Robertson

What are we Proclaiming here? With wait times on the phone being as much as 30 minutes and residents reporting that they have called dispatch only to get a recorded message. Yes we know their job isn’t easy but when do we get off that excuse and ask the Police Department to get dispatch under control?

Vice President Gonzalez said something about the West Valley Water Board agendas that makes sense all over especially in Rialto. Millions of dollars is hidden and spent in the Consent Calendar. As you can see below the three we highlighted below are all things that should be examined individually not all at once hidden is a blanket motion. Here is how we break each one down:

E.6 – Request City Council to Approve Amendment No. 1 to the Exclusive Right to Negotiate Agreement with Fernando Acosta for the Development of Approximately 8 Acres of Property Located at the Northeast Corner of Ayala Drive and Renaissance Parkway.

Fernando Acosta is being given exclusive right to negotiate on the cities behalf on a portion of land that has 3 major owners and one that fell under our scrutiny when Cal Trans was using it as a construction storage facility and was full of blight and graffiti. Why is Fernando being given Exclusive Right to Negotiate? Is it because Ed Scott has majority power on the council right now and he is a donor to Ed Scott’s Campaign? Fernando live in the Flores Park Community but is never seen participating in the community efforts and his businesses only help organizations that are close to the Baca Foundation. Even local schools that are struggling to provide for low income kids cant get Fernando’s support. But were giving him access to what would be a multi million dollar deal?

E.10 – Request City Council to Approve an Increase to the Purchase Orders for Fritz Ford for Vehicle Parts in the Amount of $5,000, for a Total Not to Exceed Amount of $20,000.

Pay close attention to how staff spelled FRITTS FORD. We pay these people a lot of money and they can’t even spell the name of a business right especially a business that is Outside of the city of Rialto and is getting $20,000 of our tax money.

E.12 – Request City Council to Authorize an Increase to the Purchase Order with the Daily Journal for Advertising Services in the amount of $15,000 for a total amount of $30,000 in the 2015-2016 Fiscal Year

This one steams me how much are we paying for a subscription to a legal paper? This paper is just a news site for the legal world. Isn’t this something our well paid city attorney should be signing up for? The city claims it has no money for youth development and enrichment and the mayor is attacking groups like the Rotary and Chamber of Commerce all while wasting $30,000 a year on a digital newspaper subscription?

TAB 5 – Request City Council/Rialto Utility Authority to Approve a Third Amendment to the Agreement with West Valley Water District for Operation and Maintenance of Groundwater Contamination Treatment Systems for the 2015/16 Fiscal Year in the Amount of $68,381.69.

This final item is an TAB item (what the items above should be on) and what makes it stand out is the fact that the current President and Vice President of West Valley Water Board spent months telling us that their Groundwater Contamination Treatment Systems are not functioning properly in an effort to damage former General Manager Butch Ariza’s reputation. So the question is are we paying over $68,000 for treatment systems that are not functioning?

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Tying The Police Hands & Violence Towards Police Hits Close To Home

18 Mar 2016 Leave a comment

by rialto-now in Ca, Colton, Crime, Currupt, Inland Empire, Public Safety, San Bernardino, San Bernardino PD, San Bernardino Police

In the past a bad guy would think twice about shooting at a police officer but according to new national statistics, 42 police officers were shot and killed in 2015. Four percent more law enforcement officers at the federal state, territorial and local levels died in the line of duty in 2015 than in 2014, according to a preliminary report from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Local Law Enforcement supporters have watched the violence towards the police take place outside of the Inland Empire. Outside of the occasional gun battle between gangs and San Bernardino Police the IE has yet to have a random shooting at Law Enforcement until March 9th that is. Last week an unamred San Bernardino City Community Service Officer was shot at while in his vehicle. According to the ABC 7 news report below the officer was looking to recover a stolen vehicle when shots rang out and struck has patrol car. This happened on the border of Rialto and San Bernardino in the area of Meridian and Foothill. This area is known for rampant drug and gang activity as well as one of the highest concentrations of prostitution in the city of Rialto. The question is how long will it take San Bernardino Police to stop living in the shadow of San Bernardino’s Bankruptcy and Terrorist Attack and get to work cleaning up the mountain of crime? Where is the collaborative efforts to have Rialto Police work with San Bernardino to get things on the border under control?

http://abc7.com/news/san-bernardino-police-searching-for-suspect-who-shot-at-officer/1238774/

The scarey part is there is going to come a point where San Bernardino’s crime will become Rialto’s problem. Another question is are the anti cop crowd now attacking Inland Empire Cop’s?

We reached out to San Bernardino PD about this shooting. We had not heard back from SBPD so we decided to attend a Coffee with a Cop event at Farmer Boys in North San Bernardino. Lt Walker of San Bernardino PD said that they did detain multiple persons of interest but due to the trama of the shooting the CSO was unable to identify the person. They are waiting on DNA and gun powder residue to identify if any of the persons of interest match the evidence that was located.

On another note Lt Walker said that they will be hitting that complex hard with their gang team over the next two days to deal with the issues going on in that complex. Lt Walker said that five homicides in one week.

We had yet to hear from newly elected Councilwoman Littlefeild. People close to her camp have attacked us for asking her for a simple statement on this issue. We will have more on that story later………

Unboxing the Rialto Water Services Water Saving Kit

14 Mar 2016 Leave a comment

As you saw in our un-boxing video there are a number of things you can do inside of your home to save water and most of those things came in this water saver kit. In the video below Joel Greene host of Curiosity Quest shows you how to use the things inside this box and why they work.

Now Rialto Water Services claims to have increased customer service and is working to make your experience with them as painless as possible. What is funny is if you spell the name Rialto Water Services right in google you get this:

Rialto Water Services has not registered their new address with Google. Well who cares right its not like were living in a digital age where use google to locate places. Rialto Water Services spends money where it counts, on the pet projects of our elected officials. Go ahead try and get them to donate money to keep kids off drugs or help people without jobs get training that will help them find work. Unless your connected to one of the elected officials you will find ZERO help here.

Now if your having a bad day you might just stumble over the correct search as long as you don’t click Googles correction of your spelling of the name RialtoWaterServices.

So if your looking for Rialto Water its not as easy as they make it seem………..

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Rialto Mayor Goes After Rotary & Chamber of Commerce

13 Mar 2016 Leave a comment

Money and the way it is spent has been a hot topic over the last few council meetings. Reports of the mayors spending coming under possible investigation have led Mayor Robertson and Councilman Ed Scott to attack the events that have been a part of the fabric of Rialto for years.

Councilman Ed Scott was more subtle in his attacks on events and the city of Rialto. Councilman Scott attacked the very development firm that is tasked with bringing the dream of retail/restaurant/entertainment zone to where the Airport once stood. He seems to praise the warehouse developers (except for the Target cold storage facility) and do everything he can to shoot down the development the city really wants to see. It is dangerous to have Mr. Scott on the Economic Development Committee and the Sub Committee that is overseeing the projects under development in the old Airport zone. Looking at Mr. Scott’s Campaign Contributions it makes you wonder what is really going on here. Also Mr. Scott who last Council meeting took issue with the fact that the people in Las Colinas collected food and toys for the less fortunate. Now he is trying to drag the city of Rialto into looking to go to districts rather than an at large council? He claims that South Rialto is under represented where is his proof?

Mayor Deborah Robertson’s attack wasn’t so subtle. She called out to have organizations that hold events in the city of Rialto pay back the money that the city has contributed to the private events being held on city property. Mayor Robertson called out two organizations in particular the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce. In the video below Mayor Robertson chooses to attack the organization that helps school children (Rotary) and the Chamber of Commerce an organization that strives to create a healthy environment for business to thrive in Rialto. It is dangerous for the mayor to attack the Chambers Taste of Rialto event because it has been the event that shows off the different business owners that are bringing the different food options to the customers of Rialto.

It sounds as though the Mayor is still trying to make her possible misuse of public funds from the General Fund over the last few years ok. The problem is the events she brought up are community interest events and the funds the city applies are pre-approved via the special events committee where the city provides services like street closures and other services that the event can’t hire out privately. The mayors event attached a PRIVATE TRUST FUND to the cities GENERAL FUND and then failed to report the trust fund and cost the city thousands in lost dollars in fines and penalties. Some on the Council called this floating loans from the General Fund. Also the Mayor claims the State of the Woman event comes at an annual cost to the city of only $9,000. We wish she could explain the $22,000 plus dollar figure that this event cost the city in 2013 when the city made repairs to a private building’s roof and bathrooms and spent thousands on special media equipment and staff time to make this location work.

Mayor Robertson would like to make this out as an attack on the State of the Woman event but it isn’t that at all it is and always was about the gross waste of money. When the voters approved the cities extra tax on the tank farms the voters were promised that the city would be wise with the money entrusted to them. Well from the looks of things not everyone was or is on board with this promise.

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Rialto Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem & Councilman Spin Miss-use of Public Funds Into Tears and Past Tragedy’s

22 Feb 2016 Leave a comment

Questions over the Mayors use of public funds for her State of the Woman started with a request from City Treasurer Ed Carrillo to the state and county organizations that are responsible for keeping elected officials from overstepping their authority and keeping them honest. Ed Carrillo (as seen in our prior story) reported Mayor Deborah Robertson for her use of public funds, city resources and staff to put the event together, repair bathrooms and other misuse of funds (Here it from the City Treasurer Below):

As you can see from the City Treasurer he has many concerns. Two years ago when the city succeeded in selling the community on Measure “U” a measure that imposed hire fees on the Gasoline Tank Storage farm in the south end of the freeway. When the city went on their PR push for this measure the city promised these things:

The City told us that they would be transparent with all money that was spent here in Rialto no matter the source grant funds to general tax fund expenditures the money would be spent wisely.
A Yes vote on Measure U will finally require the billion dollar oil and gas companies who store their fuel in the “tank farm” on South Riverside to sacrifice just like Rialto residents and small business have.
If Measure U passes, Rialto residents will get a break in the form of lower utility taxes with a cut the utility tax by 2%.
Safety measures for the dangerous rails to trails project.

None of these things are happening and we doubt they ever will. What is happening and what was happening as these promises were being made was a raid of Rialto’s general fund and city resources. When was the last time the city came by and covered the cost of repairing your roof? Fixing your plumbing? Redoing your bathrooms? When was the last time the city ever covered the cost of turning on your utilities or even paying the bill?

Mayor Robertson worked very hard to insulate herself from these bad choices by having City Administrator Mike Story say he was the one who authorized the city staff to make repairs on a privately owned building, turn on utilities, pay utility bills and use staff time and resources to set up this event. Special sound and camera equipment were also purchased for this event. City Administrator Mike Story said that the use of the building was donated so the additional costs were appropriate. Normally when you rent a facility the costs are not $20 thousand and your not required to make improvements to the rental property.

To make matters worse is there is a private trust attached to this event and the GENERAL FUND!!!!!! This private trust cost the city of Rialto’s General Fund an additional $10,500 due to improper reporting practices!!!!! So lets do the math…….

10,500 + 20,000 + 9,000= $39,500

As you see from the image above the Mayor Deborah Robertson’s event is only supposed to cost $9,000 not $39,500. You see the Mayor Robertson thinks she is above being questioned. She thinks she is better than the rest of Rialto. So over the last few years we watched our former airport and beautiful fields that used to be filled with wildflowers of all different colors being filled with big ugly warehouses right in the communities back yard. Can you guess where Mayor Robertson is holding her self promotion events now? Inside the very warehouses she pushed on our small community. Mayor Robertson complains that there is nowhere BIG ENOUGH to hold her event. Yet it is unclear if the Mayor has ever looked to use one of the three gyms that at any of the Rialto High Schools or even asked to rent space from Calvary Chapel Rialto, Sunrise Church or Lighthouse for the Blind all who have large newer buildings that would accommodate the Mayors event.

Councilman explains his issues with the money being spent on this event.

Below is a complete record of the tab item where Ed Scott uses his sons death and the Mayor cries to try and cloud the issue with emotion and taking your eyes off of all the money being spent on the mayors private event.

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To Hack Or Not to Hack Is The Question

17 Feb 2016 Leave a comment

by rialto-now in and the unincorporated communities of Bloomington and Muscoy, Bad Commerce, Ca, Colton, Crime, Fontana, Grand Terrace, Inland Empire, Public Safety, Rialto, San Bernardino, San Bernardino PD, San Bernardino Police

Photo Credit from http://whatsupic.com/science-tech-usa/1426280017.html

The debate over cyber security has kicked into high gear with the FBI’s lack of access to the I Phone 5 of the San Bernardino Terrorists. I Phone Technology will deleate all the info on a device once the wrong password is entered incorrectly 10 times. So to avoid lossing information that the FBI thinks is vital to understanding the minds of the two terrorists in San Bernardino.

Apple has refused to assist the FBI with accessing the information and the Terrorists turned off the Automatic Updates to the Cloud storage system making the phone even more valuable. Now 2 months later the Federal Goverment has finally obtained a court order that should force Apple to assist in unlocking the phone.

Some seem to think that Apple will refuse to abide by the order citing customer information is private even if it is the phone of two terrorists. So were are you on this issue should Apple open the phone or not?