Sunday, October 19, 2008

Rialto to fight blight with Grant Money (Inland Daily Bulletin Sept 30, 2008) When is that Construction going to start for Rialto Renaissance??

BS Ranch Perspective:
 
Home improvement problems are important, but what I was wondering is when the Rialto Renaissance was going to get underway!! I am looking so forward to shopping in the new shopping center that once was the Historic Rialto Miro Field Airport!! That they were so eager to get rid of for a pipe dream of a, what TARGET STORE?
 
BS Ranch
 

Rialto to fight blight with grant money

Josh Dulaney, Staff Writer

RIALTO - City officials are confident an injection of federal money will go a long way to curing the problem of eyesore properties. At the same time, they are touting two programs of their own to wipe blight from the landscape.

The city will receive about $5.5 million in grant money from Housing and Urban Development's $3.92 billion Neighborhood Stabilization Program designed to help local governments buy, fix and sell properties abandoned to foreclosure.

"We could intervene in the marketplace for a portfolio of single-family units," said Robb Steel, economic development director. "It could possibly be a financing mechanism for soft-second (mortgages) for buyers."

City leaders can also use the grant to demolish abandoned properties and offer down payment and closing-cost assistance to home buyers whose household incomes do not exceed 120 percent of area median income.

They can also create land banks to assemble, temporarily manage and dispose of vacant land for the purpose of stabilizing neighborhoods and encouraging reuse or redevelopment of urban property.

The city may also revitalize some of its troubled multifamily projects, Steel said.

He said officials are looking forward to two workshops where they will further explore their options.

At the same time, they are reminding residents of two programs they hope will curb blight and encourage more buyers to fill abandoned houses.

"Some of the properties out there are in pretty bad shape," said John Dutrey, housing program manager.

The Minor Rehabilitation Home Repair program will assist homeowners and first-time home buyers with repairs to their homes.

A homeowner with a fixed-rate mortgage on the house in which he lives may borrow up to $10,000 at a zero percent interest rate, to do repairs. There are no equity requirements, Dutrey said.

Qualified home buyers who purchase vacant, foreclosed homes will also be eligible.

Dutrey said some of the vacant houses need up to $20,000 in work.

The Emergency Mobile Home Repair program is a grant for owner-occupied mobile homes.

Mobile-home owners who need emergency repairs may apply for up to $7,000 to correct code violations, safety and hazardous conditions.

Applicants must have resided in the mobile home for at least one year.

Both programs require prospective applicants to meet low- to moderate-income guidelines, and the properties must be located within the city.

"We're looking to do two things with these houses," Dutrey said. "Get a family in, and get the property looking better in town."

Steel said the HUD grant may not necessarily go to the two programs, but that the projects it funds would not supplant them either.

For information on the city's home repair programs, call (909) 879-1140.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

EPA ducks perchlorate standards (Contra Costa Times September 27, 2008) White House Edits Draft!!

BS Ranch Perspective:
Alright everybody that drinks water in the City of Rialto, get ready to suffer from Cancer and the like it is great that the government is standing by everything that we do for them! The Tax Dollars at work I always say. Drink up and get that Stomach Cancer and dwindle away to nothing! I have seen this happen first hand!
That is the scary part, and to have the Government, our Government turn their backs on the tax payers of the Inland Empire is beside me!!
BS Ranch

EPA ducks perchlorate standards

White House edits draft
Jason Pesick, Staff Writer

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not plan to set a drinking-water standard for perchlorate, a common regional contaminant used in explosives like rocket fuel and fireworks.

The decision, first reported by The Washington Post, came in a document indicating the EPA had made a "preliminary regulatory determination" not to set a standard.

The Sun has obtained a summary of the report from staff for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

According to the summary, the EPA draft underwent heavy editing from the White House, and the EPA's original suggestion to have a 45-day comment period was reduced to 30 days.

Perchlorate has been found at 400 sites nationwide, including more than 100 in California.

Locally, it has been found in especially high concentrations around Riverside, the San Gabriel Valley, Redlands and Rialto, where the EPA is close to naming a 160-acre area a Superfund site.

Perchlorate can interfere with the thyroid gland, affecting metabolism as well as mental and physical development.

California has set a maximum standard of 6 parts per billion, and Massachusetts has set one at 2 ppb in drinking water.

In 2002, EPA scientists developed a draft protective level of 1 ppb for drinking water, assuming all perchlorate intake comes from water. In reality, perchlorate is also found in milk, breast milk, lettuce and other food sources.

The National Academy of Sciences

was then tasked with coming up with a recommendation and came up with a reference dose of about 20 ppb, assuming a body weight of 150 pounds and that all perchlorate is ingested through water.

Environmentalists and some members of Congress blasted the news as an example of the White House and Pentagon - much of the perchlorate contamination is at old Pentagon and defense contractor sites - influencing the EPA.

"The Defense Department's response to perchlorate contamination raises serious questions about the appropriateness of its role in the EPA's internal regulatory process," Rep. Hilda Solis, an El Monte Democrat, and Rep. Gene Green, a Texas Democrat wrote to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.

The Sept. 23 letter asks for all communications on the issue since last year.

EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones said the agency plans to issue the preliminary determination in the next couple of weeks and the final one by the end of the year but that "no decision has been made."

"This is an open and transparent process," she said.

Solis and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., have sponsored legislation to require the EPA to set a perchlorate standard.

In March, the Government Accountability Office criticized the EPA's risk assessment process and said it is not transparent enough and allows too much influence from other federal agencies, including the White House.

Boxer mentioned the issue at a May committee hearing.

"We had a full hearing on a GAO report ... and the fact that EPA is trying to shunt the scientists to the back, put the (Department of Defense) contractors to the front - at the table - and they said it's very dangerous," she said at the May hearing.

An EPA decision not to regulate perchlorate in drinking water would not have a major effect on Superfund sites with perchlorate, like the one on its way to Rialto, said Kevin Mayer, the EPA's regional perchlorate manager and a Superfund project manager.

Treatment systems the EPA uses in Rialto should remove all perchlorate from the water, he said, but the agency won't have to clean water contaminated at lower levels than the state standard, 6 ppb.

"In a Superfund program, we're required to meet federal and state standards, and we're required to assess the risks for those contaminants that don't have standards," he said.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

California Attorney General Takes Orange County Deputies' side in Pention Fight!! (L.A. Times September 3, 2008)

California attorney general takes Orange County deputies' side in pension fight

Jerry Brown speaks of filing a brief opposing the county's effort to slash the benefits. The county's lawsuit seeks to repeal a retroactive increase, saying it was unconstitutional.
By Christian Berthelsen, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 3, 2008
California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown waded into the legal fray Tuesday between Orange County and the union that represents sheriff's deputies, taking the union's side and saying he would seek to file a brief opposing the county's effort to slash deputies' pensions.

Brown's entry came after months of discussions with Tom Umberg, a former Democratic state assemblyman now representing the deputies union as a lawyer in the case, and Wayne Quint, the president of the union.

The two flew to Oakland to meet with Brown on two occasions in recent months, according to people familiar with the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about them.

In announcing his intent to file a friend-of-the-court brief, Brown said in a statement: "The deputy sheriffs put their lives on the line for us, and they deserve fair compensation for their hard work serving and protecting the people of Orange County. County supervisors are not entitled to suddenly change their minds and decide to take away important pension benefits that the deputies bargained for in good faith."

The attorney general's decision has the potential to bring more attention to the case, a high-stakes battle over public employee retirement benefits that could have far-reaching consequences yet has received little attention outside the public employee pension realm.

"We are glad the attorney general is interceding," said Quint, president of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs. "It truly reflects the magnitude of the issue."

At issue is the structure of a labor contract between the union and the county that has been adopted by countless government agencies throughout the state for all manner of public employees, including police, teachers and general government workers. All but two of California's 58 counties have adopted the same type of deal with their public safety unions.

The 2001 agreement increased pensions by one-third and granted the benefit retroactively. This year, the county, now led by an entirely new Board of Supervisors, concluded that the retroactive portion was unconstitutional because it violated a state prohibition on pay for work already performed, and filed a lawsuit seeking to repeal that part of the contract.

Board of Supervisors Chairman John Moorlach estimates that the deal allows deputies, on average, to retire with a pension of $70,000 a year, and that the retroactive portion will cost the county $187 million over the next 30 years.

Brown's announcement did not articulate the legal grounds on which he intends to challenge the county's lawsuit. A spokeswoman for the attorney general said the legal arguments were still being developed and were not ready to be unveiled.

Separately, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the $230-billion public pension fund that administers benefits for government workers, said Brown would be representing its interests in the court case. CalPERS contends that the benefits are constitutional.

Mario Mainero, the chief of staff to Moorlach, who led the county to file the suit, criticized Brown's decision to get involved as political and said his initial comments indicate that he doesn't understand the basis of the lawsuit.

"It's pretty clear here that Atty. Gen. Brown, who apparently wants to be governor again, is going to try to gain the support of people who can raise a lot of money for him," Mainero said.

christian.berthelsen

@latimes.com

Monday, June 16, 2008

Rialto Looking to Upgrade Its Down-Home Downtown (Inland Empire Daily Bulletin) June 13, 2008

BS Ranch Perspective:
Looks like Rialto now has the right idea with downtown's Improvements! The way that I see it is that they are looking to a slow build up of the downtown area with a 10 year build up. There is an old time Dance Club that will be opening soon, however with the Current DUI Laws that are on the book, it is difficult for type of Dance Clubs, which rely on the drinking of the patrons to sustain their business, and keep them in bread and butter!! But many of the Dance Clubs that have come before have fallen down, especially with the current DUI Laws that are on the books. Which has forced people into Alcohol Classes that are designed to make the person that is picked up on the DUI Charged convinced that they are an alcoholic!
It seems that the more DUI's that get arrested from a Certain Club also gets the word out that the law enforcement works it pretty steady and it doesn't matter if you have nude girls and boys in that club working for you, they will not come in with that kind of enforcement outside!!
So, they are forced to close or move to another location! For the sake of this new place I hope that they do well!
I also cannot wait for the new Lowe's to open up, it will be nice to have it down in the southern end of the city. I am just sorry that they are so far away from me!! Once again with these Gas Prices I am forced to shop closer and use Aces on Highland Ave in Muscoy! just because of the $4.40 a gallon that I just paid for gas!
BSR

Rialto looking to upgrade its down-home downtown

Jason Pesick, Staff Writer

RIALTO - Downtown has a small-town charm and businesses that have been there for decades.

But it also has a fair bit of turnover, a number of vacant buildings and no real draw to attract pedestrians.

Bringing some life to downtown once again seems to be a priority at City Hall. A new plan to guide the way has been completed and a number of modest or sizable projects are in the works.

"But the bottom line is there is a change coming through," said Joe Flores Jr., president of the Downtown Business Improvement District Association and owner of J & J Auto Fabrics.

In July, the City Council will decide whether to adopt a vision plan developed for downtown. The plan has a wish list that would take tens of millions of dollars to complete.

The recommendations include adding housing downtown, taking advantage of the Metrolink station for development, and building a new civic center with connections to Riverside Avenue.

Also recommended is cleaning up Trickleside Alley west of Riverside Avenue by putting the power lines underground, improving building facades and opening businesses to the alley.

In addition, the city wants to put together a deal with Newport Beach-based KDF Communities to build a 117-unit affordable senior housing project with 5,000 square feet of retail on the first floor.

"We've been going back and forth and negotiating a lot," said city Housing Manager John Dutrey.

The city is also

planning to expand its Metrolink parking lot and has been aggressively making facade upgrades to improve the look of buildings downtown.

"We're going back to how downtowns used to be - a destination where people can park the car and be able to walk around," Dutrey said.

The Mexican restaurant Cuca's was recently remodeled, and new businesses like an art gallery and clothing boutique are on the way.

Brian Powell, whose sister, Tanya Powell, opened Todie's Apparel on Riverside Avenue about 1<MD+,%30,%55,%70>1/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>2 months ago, said business has been good.

"People are starting to respond pretty well," he said.

A new, midpriced, American restaurant should be coming to the downtown by the middle of next year, said developer Scott Beard, who is behind the restaurant - kind of like City Hall's own Old Ebbitt Grill, which is near the White House.

"I think there's no sit-down dinner place in Rialto that's any good in my opinion," he said, referring to places that serve American food.

The Alley Kat Jazz Lounge, which will feature live music at night, should be opening by next month.

Dangers do loom for downtown. The weak economy isn't helping revitalization efforts, and a Wal-Mart Supercenter and Lowe's store are on their way two miles south of downtown.

The vision plan isn't the first time the city has tried to bring more life downtown.

"We've had a multitude of these visioning programs that have been done over the years," Beard said. "Obviously, we're hopeful that this one takes hold and the city has the patience and the fortitude."

Dutrey said fulfilling the vision will take time, but it will happen.

"So it's not going to happen in the next five to 10 years."

jason.pesick@

inlandnewspapers.com

(909) 386-3861

Rialto City Looking for Spark in Renaissance Rialto Plan (Inland Valley Daily Bulletin) June 10, 2008

BS Ranch Perspective:
I am still one that is against this plan, since the airport has been here for so long, and is something that is unique to the city, that San Bernardino is only now getting, and Rialto is giving that up to them, just to have what every other city has!! A Shopping Center, and more housing!
I Agree that housing and business brings in more Tax money that the city can use to pay towards more jobs and higher pay to the existing jobs that are currently in the city, which is something that is good, but Rialto has not had such a great history with a speedy plan for expansion!!
I believe that in the Current Housing Market, that if and when the Airport is closed, and then the City of Rialto has to Pay for the Moving of The Current Businesses at the Airport to Move to San Bernardino, that also Includes the San Bernardino Sheriffs Aviation, and Mercy Air, Both of which have been housed at Rialto Airport since they started, because of the central Location to the South/West County Area, or Inland Empire!
It is only right to keep them in the central area, so that they don't' have to ruin their response time to calls that they currently have to Ontario, Chino and the High Desert. However it is noted that the High Desert Calls to Victorville and Apple Valley will not increase or decrease that much since San Bernardino Airport is just two to three miles to the South of Rialto Airports current location!!, therefore it would only add a couple of minutes to the call for service. But the Far West end of Ontario can make a bit of difference from San Bernardino Airport, since they would take off and then have to fly back over the Airport in which they took off to begin with to get to Ontario. I completely forgot the Copter that takes off for the city of Fontana Police Department and is currently housed at Rialto Airport. They will suffer a great deal of call for service loss of time since they would either have to find a place in their city to have a helicopters-pad in order to gas and keep the copter during their shift for quicker response time! However other then that, I believe out of all the people that have a heliport at Rialto Airport the one that would be the most angry about the move would be Fontana Police Agency!! It would be awful for them the most, for the calls for service that they would have to wait for their copter that was usually a four minute wait is now a seven to ten minute wait!!
San Bernardino Sheriff's Departments Central Patrol will be effected a little by the move, but the move will cost the Sheriff Department a whole bunch, by having to move their whole equipment hangers to the new facilities that will have to be built, provided that the Sheriff's Department Built the current Hanger that they are currently houses there several fixed wing aircrafts, along with their Helicopters.
The City of Rialto will not see a great deal of moving on the build up, since they didn't take any opportunity to allow businesses to build on the Newly Made Easton Ave. (I-210 Business Route). This so called Business Route is not so much of a business route since there has not been any, None of the Businesses that have build opened or started to sell anything to anyone. Even when the Freeway was under construction! Now Rialto if they were a Smart City they would have done like that of their Counter Part, Fontana, and sold Business Construction Permits to businesses that wanted to build on Easton Ave, at the Intersections like Ayala, Alder, Cactus, or even any of the stretches between that could have had some Car lots like that of Fontana.
Maybe Rialto could have had some Hotels or Restaurants built! But they didn't' they want to close a land mark like the Airport, and put it all in one small area of the city and call it a huge expansion with housing business, and well a little of everything!! Everything but, an Airport!!
BS Ranch

City looking for spark in Renaissance Rialto plan


RIALTO - Work to close the city's airport to make way for an ambitious development project could be months away, unless the City Council wants to rethink the plan.

In recent weeks, city officials have completed negotiations with a number of government agencies so the city can turn the Rialto Municipal Airport into the Renaissance Rialto development project.

The next step is to complete the plans and send them to the City Council - something that probably won't happen until the fall or end of the year.

But now there are murmurs that the plans need an extra spark.

"I'm convinced that the smart thing to do is to make Rialto a destination spot," said City Councilman Ed Scott. He mentioned the California Speedway in Fontana and the new stadium in Ontario as examples of regional draws.

The airport sits in the heart of what city officials and a development partnership between the Upland-based Lewis Group and Ross Perot Jr.'s Hillwood want to turn into Renaissance Rialto.

The latest plans for the project include shopping, about 2,000 homes, a school, parks and industrial and office space. A SuperTarget would anchor the retail center.

"We're going to need at some point to be very clear on what we're trying to accomplish," said City Councilwoman Deborah Robertson.

She said she is a fan of transit-oriented development and might want to bring an educational institution specializing in local concerns like

transportation and logistics, environmental issues or language to the city.

"I think we all are looking for the ideal draw," she said.

A regional draw could be a good idea as long as it complements other landmarks, like the Speedway, said City Councilwoman Winnie Hanson.

"I'm interested. I think it's a great thing to explore," she said.

Hanson said she doubted altering the project would delay it.

Approving the plan is important so the developers can start purchasing the airport property from Rialto and fronting money to relocate the tenants. Many tenants also won't sign on to fill the shopping area until a project has been passed.

The airport probably won't be closed for two more years because new facilities have to be built for the tenants before they can leave Rialto. Money to do that will initially come from the developers once a project is approved.

In the past few weeks, the city and the Federal Aviation Administration formally agreed on the value of the airport land and Caltrans officials agreed to give Rialto access to property the city needs to build Renaissance.

Federal legislation passed in 2005 allowed the city to close the airport with the condition that it had to pay 45percent of the value of the airport property to San Bernardino International Airport, which will receive many of Rialto's tenants.

Rialto has also submitted an airport closure plan to the FAA.

"I don't think we have any issues with this plan," said FAA spokesman Ian Gregor.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Rialto City Council gives chilly reception to fuel pipeline proposal (Press Enterprise May 6, 2008)

BS Ranch Perspective:

My feelings on this is that the Gas Line should have been proposed thought as a closed session and not such a public affair, now there is a problem of a terror situation where some Nimrod wants to make a name for himself and blow up the line etc, But, we cannot go back and re-light the candle. To reroute the pipe line only thought an Industrial area, would only move the pipeline approximately fifteen hundred feet to Locust Ave. If there was an accidental Explosion of that pipeline the street of Linden would be effected, it might not be as much, but it would still be effected, especially of the falling waist that is unburned from the gas the spouts from the pipeline. Then in the more then thirty years that they have had these pipe lines they have had only one, ONE, incident, where the pipe burst, & that was caused because of a derailed Train!!

BS Ranch




Rialto City Council gives chilly reception to fuel pipeline proposal



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10:00 PM PDT on Tuesday, May 6, 2008
By MARY BENDER
The Press-Enterprise

RIALTO - The Texas company that wants to expand its 233-mile, Rialto-to-Las Vegas fuel pipeline should choose a route far from residential neighborhoods and must guarantee the safety of the drinking water supply, city leaders said Tuesday night.

A representative of Houston-based Kinder Morgan Energy Partners came to the Rialto City Council meeting to outline the company's plan to add a 16-inch-diameter underground pipeline to its existing system, called the CalNev Pipeline.

Currently, Kinder Morgan owns and operates a 14-inch-diameter and an 8-inch-diameter pipeline, both of which originate at a tank farm at 2359 S. Riverside Ave., south of Interstate 10. The pipelines transport "refined petroleum products," including jet fuel, diesel and gasoline, said Allan Campbell, the company's director of project permitting.

Once the largest pipeline is built, the smallest would be taken out of service, Campbell told the City Council. Kinder Morgan wants to expand CalNev's capacity to supply more aviation fuel to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, based on projections that passenger travel will increase significantly in the next 20 years.

Rialto council members gave the proposal a rather chilly reception.

"I'm adamantly opposed to your project," Councilman Ed Scott said. "Your (company's) maintenance and safety record is less than stellar."

The CalNev Pipeline exploded in May 1989 along Duffy Street in San Bernardino, about two weeks after it was damaged in a train derailment. Two people were killed and 31 injured in that accident. Kinder Morgan didn't own the pipeline then.

Scott outlined his fears that any leak of fuel from the pipeline could pollute Rialto's drinking water supply, which already is tainted with the chemical perchlorate.

The city has spent millions of dollars over the years outfitting its wells with equipment that removes perchlorate -- and Rialto is trying to get the businesses and governments that allegedly polluted the water decades ago to help pay for the cleanup.

"You have the potential for contaminating the drinking water for 100,000 residents of our community," Scott said.

Further, the councilman told Campbell that Kinder Morgan's franchise agreement with Rialto is "old and archaic," and that the company ought to be a good corporate citizen and renegotiate it.

The pact, believed to have been executed in the 1960s, pays Rialto $193 per year to run the fuel pipeline several miles through town, Mike Story, the city's director of development services, told the council. Outside the meeting, Story said the franchise agreement expires in 2018.

The current pipeline runs near some homes and schools. Its route along Linden Avenue goes directly past Wilmer Amina Carter High School. Scott wondered aloud how the Rialto Unified School District received permission to build the school next to the pipeline.

Rialto resident Patty Salas has lived on Linden Avenue, directly across the street from Carter High, for 35 years. She told the council that the city should insist on the 16-inch pipeline being built only through industrial areas, away from residential neighborhoods.

Reach Mary Bender at 909-806-3056 or mbender@PE.com

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Rialto Police Reintroduce Bicycle Patrols, Anti-Gang Unit, Mobil Command (Press Enterprise April 27, 2008)

Rialto police reintroduce bicycle patrols, anti-gang unit, mobile command



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11:14 AM PDT on Sunday, April 27, 2008
By PAUL LAROCCO
The Press-Enterprise

Video: The ups and downs of Rialto police on bikes

RIALTO - The two Rialto police officers outside Wal-Mart didn't turn heads.

It was a quiet Sunday morning, and officers Shaun Mooney and Mike Morales were ticketing a car illegally parked in a handicapped space.

There wasn't a patrol car in sight -- and that was exactly the point.

"People aren't expecting police on bikes," Morales said.

He and his partner are on the department's bicycle patrol, one of several details recently revived by Chief Mark Kling after disappearing under tumultuous past administrations.

Since taking the job in late 2006, shortly after city leaders ditched a plan to disband the department and have county sheriff's deputies take over, Kling has led a steady rebuilding effort.

Story continues below
Greg Vojtko / The Press-Enterprise
Rialto police officers Carla McCullough and Mike Morales are on patrol atop their bicycles on Riverside Avenue in Rialto. Officers regularly ride bicycles in pairs through the city's most troubled apartment complexes and busiest commercial centers.

An anti-gang detail, the return of bike officers and an expanded traffic division are among the changes.

"We're starting to do things that we should have been doing all along," Kling said. "We're examining every single aspect of the department and trying to make it better."

People already have noticed. When Wal-Mart's private security guard, Elizabeth Suer, saw the officers ride through the crowded parking lot, she enthusiastically flagged them down.

"It's about time," she said later of the return of bicycle officers. "We could use them here."

Pedaling Police

Mooney and Morales are members of a team of five officers who ride mountain bikes, in pairs, at least twice a month through Rialto's busiest commercials centers and most troubled apartment complexes.

The philosophy is that an officer on two wheels can go places -- both noticed and unnoticed -- that an officer in a patrol car can't.

Story continues below

"We interact a lot more," Mooney said. "It's all proactive, and when we're in our cars we can't say that."

On the recent Sunday, the two officers pedaled through Rialto's downtown, then south to the stretch of motels, gas stations and shopping plazas along Interstate 10.

They stopped a homeless woman cutting copper wire behind a Hometown Buffet; a man jaywalking across busy Riverside Avenue; and a teen using a knife to slice open a pack of peanuts near a convenience store.

The longhaired, backpack-toting teen, who said he was passing through from Venice Beach to Arizona, bristled when the officers attempted to question him.

"You should thank us because you could easily get robbed standing here," Mooney told him. "We get a lot of drug dealing in this area."

A supervisor said that kind of interaction is the point of the patrols, which are slated to expand to a full-time detail in coming months.

"It gives us a leg up," said Sgt. Vince Licata, a member of the department's original bicycle patrol in the early 1990s. "There's an element of surprise to it. Most of the criminals don't expect this."

The Return

To revive the bicycle team, Rialto police reached out to the community. Local homebuilders donated thousands of dollars to purchase the bikes, special uniforms and wireless communication tools used by the officers.

The patrols were eliminated during former Chief Michael Meyers' tenure, which ended with a no-confidence vote by officers and the City Council's vote to disband the department.

By the time the council backed off that decision and an interim chief had stabilized the department, Kling inherited a force that was a shell of its former self. Dozens of officers had quit. He slowly began recruiting and budgeting improvements.

In late 2006, Kling formed the Street Crime Attack Team, made up of four gang investigators and a sergeant. He also expanded the narcotics and detective bureaus.

Today, Kling proudly points out a new $350,000 computer system in the department and a $205,000 mobile command center that can serve as a main dispatch center should power to the main station fail. The former crisis-negotiation van was a converted Frito-Lay box truck.

There still are budget issues and several open positions yet to be filled, but Kling said that the mood in the department has turned a corner.

"I think the employees here went through tremendous turmoil they'll never forget," he said. "Now, all these good ideas, they're coming from within the department."

Reach Paul LaRocco at 909-806-3064 or plarocco@PE.com

Rialto police have revived or expanded several details since the department was nearly disbanded in 2005.

Bicycle Patrols: Donations from local businesses helped purchase equipment and uniforms for the team to return last May.

Street Crime Attack

Team: Specialized anti-gang detail returned in 2006.

Mobile Command

Center: Department spent $200,000 for the crisis-negotiation vehicle that arrived last month. Officers previously used a converted Frito-Lay truck.

Source: Rialto police Department


BS Ranch Perspective:

The Rialto Police Department was the first Agency in the Inland Empire to start a Bicycle Patrol, Myself, Officer Joe Castillo (God rest his soul), then Officer Tony Farrar (now he is Capt. Tony Farrar), Officer Todd Wright, Officer Tim Lane (now Sergent Tim Lane), I believe that even Matt Huddleston (God Rest his soul) had a turn on the bikes for a short time during the start of the patrol!

At that time there was a dream of having a full time Bicycle patrol, but Capt. Becknell could not perswaide the chief to the idea of a full time Bicycle Patrol Division at that time, it was then that I switched to the Motorcycle Patrol of the Traffic Division especially since I could and was able to ride the Police Motor's before going to Motor School, with the training of the Motor Officer, which helped me during my time at Motorcycle School.

BS Ranch

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Rialto Apartment Complex Fire Leaves 30 Homeless (Press Enterprise, Thursday, March 20, 2008)

BS Ranch Perspective:

It is always a fire like this that reminds us how lucky we are that we have what we have, and so it always brings us to tug our heart string and give to those that need something that they could use! The food and water and even that they have children and it is scary that they don't have a place that is secure to live and, living in an apartment it is very tenuous, that with this happening it could place those that were living in an apartment, out on their own with no apartment, or any permanent address for quite some time, there fore now they are forced to look over their shoulder and see if Child Protective Services is after them or their Children to place them in a Foster Care situation away from their Mother or Father!! Being a person from a broken home that would be one very uneasy feeling that I could not take I would run away before they would take me away from my family!! But that is just me!!

BS Ranch



Rialto apartment complex fire leaves 30 homeless



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10:27 AM PDT on Thursday, March 20, 2008
By JOHN ASBURY
The Press-Enterprise

Video: Evacuated residents talk about Tuesday's Rialto apartment fire

RIALTO - About 30 people were left homeless Tuesday night after a fire charred a Rialto apartment complex.

The fire broke out in a parked van about 9:30 p.m. and crept up the side of a building, damaging the roofs of at least five apartments. Thirty residents whose homes suffered fire, smoke and water damage were asked to leave the complex, which was declared uninhabitable.

All but two families stayed with friends or relatives. The American Red Cross opened a shelter for four people at the Unified School District on Willow Street.

Story continues below
John Asbury / The Press-Enterprise
Residents load their belongings from a Rialto apartment complex Wednesday in the 300 block of West Ramona Drive after a car fire that spread to five apartments on Tuesday night.

Some residents returned Wednesday morning to retrieve clothing and other belongings.

At the shelter, Ernest Buford, 33, said he had just moved into one of the apartments on Monday with his mother, Ladonna Christian, 51. They were eating McDonald's breakfast sandwiches Wednesday morning as Red Cross officials arranged for hotel accommodations.

"I don't understand it. It's devastating," Buford said, choking back tears. "I was partying one day and now I can't party no more."

Officials had not determined the cause Wednesday.

Reach John Asbury at 951-368-9288 or jasbury@PE.com

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Rialto City Council to Vote Tonight on Keeping 'Zero Tolerance' Perchlorate Policy (Press Enterprise March 17, 2008)

BS Ranch Perspective
I don't know the out come of the vote, but It would be dumb for the city at this early time to hold back and let loose and just leg go of the "Zero Tolerance" reference such a serious thing as Perchlorate!!
BS Ranch

Rialto council to vote tonight on keeping 'zero tolerance' perchlorate policy



Download story podcast

10:00 PM PDT on Monday, March 17, 2008

By MARY BENDER
The Press-Enterprise

Rialto should stick to its standard for removing the chemical perchlorate from city-owned drinking water wells, even though the state of California has set a less stringent standard, attorneys for the city have recommended.

The Rialto City Council is scheduled to act on that issue during its meeting tonight.

Rialto residents get their drinking water either from two private agencies -- West Valley Water District and Fontana Water Company -- or from the city's own utility, the water division of the Public Works Department.

The city provides drinking water to about half of Rialto's residents -- roughly 11,000 connections. To filter out the perchlorate that contaminates the groundwater under Rialto and to make the water safe for drinking, the city installed equipment on three of its wells.

Tonight, special legal counsel for the city will advise the council to reaffirm Rialto's "zero tolerance policy" on perchlorate. The city first adopted the policy in 2003, and reconfirmed that stance in 2005.

"Under this policy, the Water Division is to shut down any municipal well in which the perchlorate is detected, and not to serve water from that well until the Water Division can reliably remove the perchlorate down to the point that perchlorate cannot be detected in the treated water," attorney Susan Trager, the city's special counsel on perchlorate matters, wrote in a report.

Equipment on city wells can't detect perchlorate at levels less than 4 parts per billion, Trager said by phone on Monday.

In October, the state Department of Public Health adopted a standard for perchlorate in drinking water, setting the maximum allowable contaminant level at 6 parts per billion.

But Trager, in her report, explained that it wouldn't save the city any money to relax its own standard to the perchlorate level that the state of California says is acceptable. It wouldn't be worth the cost and effort of recalibrating the equipment on the city's three wells, she advised.

In the treatment process, the perchlorate gets stuck to tiny resin beads in the water. "They molecularly attract the perchlorate and filter it out," explained Francis Logan, an attorney with Trager's Irvine-based firm, which specializes in water and land-use law.

Perchlorate is an ingredient in fireworks, munitions and solid rocket propellant. During World War II, the federal government purchased 2,800 acres of land in northern Rialto to build storage facilities for rockets and munitions, which contained perchlorate.

After the war, the government sold the land. In the ensuing decades, assorted defense contractors, fireworks manufacturers and other companies have done business on the land, and the city alleges that all parties share responsibility for the perchlorate contamination of Rialto's groundwater.

The land is roughly north of Highland Avenue and west of Locust Avenue.

The perchlorate plume polluting the Rialto-Colton Groundwater Basin is believed to be about six miles long, and to spread at a rate of about three feet per day, according to city officials.

Reach Mary Bender at 909-806-3056 or mbender@PE.com

Rialto to Consider Funding Recreational Trail (Press Enterprise March 31, 2008)

BS Ranch Perspective
 
It is a good idea to do this no matter what the cost to bring back the tracks that once took the place down town Rialto, and used to go South to Riverside! With the Price of Gas and the way that our Energy costs are going it is a great Idea!!
 
BS Ranch
 

Rialto to consider funding recreational trail


  Download story podcast

10:00 PM PDT on Monday, March 31, 2008

By MARY BENDER
The Press-Enterprise

Rialto's portion of a 21-mile recreational trail to Claremont could get the green light tonight if the City Council approves the funds needed to plan and design the westernmost segment.

The Pacific Electric Inland Empire Trail is a walking and bicycling path being built on the route of a former streetcar line. The old "Red Cars" of the Pacific Electric system traveled all over Southern California, and Rialto was a stop on its 59-mile, San Bernardino-to-Los Angeles line.

Segments of the new recreational trail already have been built along the old streetcar right-of-way in Fontana, Rancho Cucamonga, Upland and Montclair.

Story continues below

Tonight, the Rialto City Council will discuss whether to spend $350,000 in Redevelopment Agency bond funds to pay for design of a 1 ¼-mile segment between Maple and Cactus avenues, on the western edge of town.

In a written report to the City Council -- which doubles as the Rialto Redevelopment Agency board -- a consultant hired by the city estimated that portion of the trail would cost $2.5 million to build.

The firm, Rancho Cucamonga-based Dan Guerra & Associates, conducted a feasibility analysis for Rialto's entire 2.5-mile portion of the Pacific Electric Inland Empire Trail, between Maple Avenue on the west and Pepper Avenue on the east. Railroad tracks remain along the route, which is parallel to and a few blocks north of the Metrolink tracks.

In Rialto, part of the old Pacific Electric route is still used by Union Pacific freight trains, which deliver lumber from Oregon once a week to Orange County Lumber, at 436 W. Rialto Ave.

The company, which owns 14 acres near Lilac Avenue and Rialto Avenue, moved to the site in the early 1990s, said Richard Hormuth, co-owner and president of Orange County Lumber.

The consultant's report addressed obstacles the city would have to overcome if it wants to build the Pacific Electric trail across the lumber company's land.

That portion of the trail would be part of the project's second phase, a three-quarter-mile segment between Cactus and Riverside avenues. "Options to consider include relocation of the lumber yard ... or reassigning the rail service to Burlington Northern Santa Fe (tracks), south of the lumber yard, and truck (the deliveries) on-site," the Guerra & Associates report said.

"The city has never contacted me," Hormuth said Monday.

A spur from the Union Pacific tracks veers onto the company's property, long enough to fit 10 freight rail cars.

If the city decides that the lumber yard's deliveries should be rerouted onto the BNSF tracks, then the deliveries would have to be unloaded from the rail cars, transferred onto big-rig trucks, driven to the lumber yard and unloaded, Hormuth said.

The extra steps would drive up Orange County Lumber's expenses, he said.

"I guess it would be feasible, but it would be costly," Hormuth said. "Here, we unload the rail cars with our forklift, and the material is set on the ground in our yard."

Orange County Lumber is among the city's top 25 sales tax generators, Hormuth said.

City officials hope to get some money from San Bernardino Associated Governments, a county transportation planning agency that has helped other cities pay for their Pacific Electric trail segments. SANBAG's funds come in part from a countywide quarter-cent sales tax.

A portion of the Pacific Electric trail in Fontana's downtown runs between Juniper and Palmetto avenues. West of that, crews are building another segment from Juniper to Tokay Avenue, said Kevin Ryan, principal transportation planner in Fontana's city Engineering Department.

That stretch will be complete this spring, Ryan said. Fontana's next segment is expected to be a 1 ¼-mile portion, running from Palmetto east to Maple Avenue -- which would hook up with Rialto's first segment, he said.

Reach Mary Bender at 909-806-3056 or mbender@PE.com

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Did Rialto Violate Brown Act (San Bernardino County Sun March 23, 2008) Meetings on Toxin Issues Questioned

BS Ranch Perspective
 
Wow, More trouble for Rialto, first the firing of Owen which was the first RIGHT thing that was done, But then to work though the rest of this without a Lawyer looking over your shoulder to make sure that the Brown Act was followed in all meetings is needed and for Rialto to not do this is well their fault for allowing this to happen again!! It is the leader of the City Council which looking at this last News Report looks like Ed Scott is the leader Once Again, over the Mayor, Grace Vargas Every time there is some wrong doing by the City Council it is Ed Scott that is quoted, WHY IS THAT?? HUMMM???
 
Question: Could it be that it is Ed Scott making the decision that is causing the Illegal Problems for Rialto?? HUH??
 
I say that it is the decisions that ED SCOTT has Made!! It just makes me sick that nobody else has seen this, Why when the decision was made to Contract with the San Bernardino Sheriff Department for Law Enforcement in the City of Rialto, it was Edward Scott that was Quoted Each and every time, he was available every time that there was anything that was discussed on this issue, by the attorneys, and the like, I believe it was because EDWARD SCOTT was the sole Decider in the Sheriff Being the Law Enforcement for Rialto, since he had a Unfinished Law Suit against the City for the Police Department Arresting Him for DUI one Summer night, Edward Scott was So Wasted on Alcohol that he could hardly stand on his own power, back then The Chief of Police was not available to come down to the Police Station, I think that the Chief was out of town at the time. Well, Back then Lt Wylde decided to take it into his hand and break into the Chief's office and allow Scott to sit down in there, but he was so liquored up that he threw up in the Chief's office, and on the floor to the LADIES RESTROOM ACROSS the hall from the Chiefs office.
 
It was only until approximately 04:15 hrs that Edward Scott was loaded into his Car along with Lt Wylde and the Dayshift LT whom came in early followed them to EDWARD SCOTT'S House and took him home.
 
When this incident is brought up to Mr. Scott he always says that he wasn't arrested, but he was arrested, but he was not charged for the offence of 23152 CVC, only arrested and later Released with all charges Dropped!!
 
Other then that, I don't believe that Edward Scott is a great Person to represent the City of Rialto, because of the past decisions that he has made.
 
BS Ranch
 

Did Rialto violate Brown Act?

Meeting on toxin issues questioned
Jason Pesick, Staff Writer

Rialto City Council members may have violated a state law last month while in the nation's capital.

A majority of the council joined representatives from several local government agencies in a meeting on Feb. 27 with Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino.

Under California's Ralph M. Brown Act, a majority of an agency cannot meet "to hear, discuss, or deliberate upon any item that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body or the local agency."

Officials from San Bernardino County, Colton, Rialto, the West Valley Water District, Fontana Union Water Co. and the state met with Baca to discuss the formation of a joint-powers authority to lobby for federal money to clean up chemicals - primarily perchlorate - contaminating local drinking water.

"Whenever the council gets together in a majority fashion to deal with something of official significance to the city - that is a meeting," said Terry Francke, general counsel and founder of Californians Aware, a nonprofit that promotes government disclosure.

"For a meeting like that, the law requires that the time, place and subject matter of discussion be posted for any remote meeting like that."

In addition, Francke said the public must be able to attend, even if the meeting is out of state.

When the meeting with Baca began, only two Rialto council members - Winnie Hanson and Baca's son, Joe Baca Jr. - took part.

"I didn't want there to be any perception

that there would be a Brown Act violation," Councilman Ed Scott said.

But Rep. Baca told Scott he could attend the meeting because no decisions were going to be made.

Scott said the Brown Act was not violated because the meeting consisted of Baca talking to the local officials.

"It's just ridiculous," Scott said about suggestions that the Brown Act was violated.

Scott said he would contact the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Public Integrity Unit to ask for a formal inquiry.

In this case, the only sanction the council members could face is an admonishment not to do it again, Deputy District Attorney Frank Vanella said Friday.

"I've had no phone call," he said.

Rep. Baca said the Brown Act was not violated.

"If it was about Rialto and Rialto only and no others being involved, then it would be a violation of the Brown Act," he said.

Colton Mayor Kelly Chastain said she stayed out of the meeting due to concerns that she would violate the Brown Act.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Rialto Police Ask for Help from Clergy (San Bernardino County Sun March 27, 2008)

BS Ranch Perspective
 
It is always great that there is help from all angles to control Crime, because crime isn't just a way that people look to get rich, it is a way that they use to give people something for their Family, something like FOOD, or MILK for their children!! I am talking of coarse about Providing for their Family, and Crime is in some ways that big reason why people are committing crimes, just to stay ahead of the curve and ahead of the make roll. I want to stay way ahead of the criminal curve and the way that they have planned it all out is the right way to go, Ask the clergy men not to accuse people but for help to assist their people in their flock if they need help.
 
BS Ranch
 

Rialto police ask for help from clergy

Jason Pesick, Staff Writer

RIALTO - Police want local religious leaders to lend a helping hand to their community- policing program.

"Wouldn't it be a better place to go to a faith-based organization instead of a street gang?" Police Chief Mark Kling said.

Police Department officials met on Thursday with more than a dozen local religious leaders to take an inventory on counseling services, what could be done to feed the homeless, and the kinds of after- school programs available.

Churches offer English classes, football fields, gymnasiums, basketball courts - all things that help young people stay on the right track.

There is a concern that state funding for after-school programs might disappear given all the buzz over budget cuts, Kling said.

The Police Department has been reorganizing its policing efforts into an "area-command program."

This would divide the city into three areas and seek to create better relationships with residents.

"What we're hoping is to get a larger section of the community involved," Kling said.

Suggestions from the meeting included restarting the Police Department's chaplain program so religious leaders can be on hand to comfort officers and residents at emotional crime scenes.

Mike Story, Rialto's development services director, said his staff often runs into homeless people or day laborers.

"We need to know how to help some of these people," he said.

Kling said he thinks the  Police Department should address the causes of crime - instead of just arresting people - and churches can help in that effort.

The Rev. Steven Porter of St. Catherine of Siena said he wanted to talk about how the police handle illegal immigrants.

"But there is a fear from undocumented people that the Police Department is going to arrest them," he said.

Kling said the Police Department does not pursue people based on their immigration status.

"We are not the immigration service," he said.

Sam Petitfils, associate pastor at Sunrise Church, said he liked that there was a lot of discussion about attacking the root causes of crime.

"I thought it was very informative, helpful and the beginning of a very outstanding network," he said.

jason.pesick@sbsun.com

(909) 386-3861

 

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Rialto Airport Closure Leaves Workers With Sense of Loss (San Bernardino Sun Friday Oct. 5, 2007)

BS Ranch Perspective
 
Rialto's Municipal Airport has history within the City that will be sorely  missed, those days that we had Drag Races at the Airport, the Run Whatcha Brung Started at the Airport and I remember one of them that I went to where the City was crying that they were low on money and they didn't have the resources for Security, they held the whole Event at the Airport with no Problems!!
 
That was the last year that they had the Drag Races, because the Federal Aviation Administration took over as the Manager of the Airport and they were the ones that said that the Airport was not going to be closed for anything except being an airport!!
 
The Go Carts Races that were out there for every month some times twice a month and those go carts could almost hit speeds of forty miles per hour on the speedway, straight away!!
 
There has been many things that have been at the airport that have gone by the wayside. for many years there was a Coffee Shoppe where lots of people would gather for Breakfast and Lunch, but it closed for dinner, it was a great Place for Lunch, and Breakfast, The last owner was the best she was one of the friendliest girls, and well she ran a nice place. it was a great business. I met my wife and quit going there as she worked at a competing Restaurant.
 
Now that is all in the past, all the Helicopter Students that learned to fly from Japan, and China that came over to the USA and learned to Fly, But when the Economy Changed just a little the Schools in Rialto Closed ,but not all of them, there was some Helicopter Schools there and Art Schall Aviation Flight School was still working as far as I knew, and Art, was instrumental at keeping a great deal of businesses at the Rialto Airport!!
 
BS Ranch
 
 

Rialto Airport Closure Leaves Workers With Sense of Loss

Posted on: Friday, 5 October 2007, 15:00 CDT

By Andrew Silva, San Bernardino County Sun, Calif.

Oct. 3--RIALTO, Calif. -- Perhaps the silence is the most telling, and the most sad.

On a typical weekday, the happy purr of an airplane engine only occasionally drifts across the wide expanse of Rialto Municipal Airport.

Small airports are often like small towns. Everybody knows everybody. Folks help each other out, work together, party together.

"We're all like a big family," said 61-year-old Manuel "Manny" Lucero, who's been painting airplanes at the airport since 1969.

"You see a hangar door open, it's like a welcome sign," airport Director Rich Scanlan said.

That's all changed since an act of Congress put the venerable Rialto airfield on the path to closure to make way for a sprawling new development dubbed Renaissance Rialto, designed to bolster the working-class city's image and economy.

"The airport is dead now -- has been ever since it sold," Lucero lamented, sitting in his plain office next to the hangar where he's made his living for nearly four decades.

Gone are the weekend barbecues, the impromptu get-togethers, the joyful camaraderie. The airport caf, a central gathering place, closed some years ago and is a poignant reminder of better days.

"It's just like somebody pulling my heart out," said.

News of the impending closure spread through the aviation community nationally and has nearly killed his business, even though it's unclear when the airport will actually close.

A Piper Cherokee Lance sits outside, ready for paint, the first job he's had since November.

Lucero's reputation was such that he once painted a DC-7 for Howard Hughes, employed 17 people and comfortably put his two kids through college.

"The guy said if I do a good job (on the Piper) I'll have 100 airplanes, until the bulldozers pull up in front of my shop," he said.

The Rialto field is going the way of many general aviation airports, done in by skyrocketing land values and officials with dollar signs in their eyes looking to kick-start their community's economy.

All that flat, open acreage is worth far more with offices, shops and homes than it is with any number of Cessnas and Pipers.

"Rialto is a perfect example of competing interests," said Bill Dunn, vice president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. "It was a tremendous asset that was underutilized until a developer came along. Unfortunately, officials look at dollars instead of long-term transportation needs. This is driven by greed."

Rialto's airport is in line to follow other local airfields into oblivion.

Morrow Field in Colton, just north of Valley Boulevard between Pepper and Riverside avenues, and Tri-City Airport, roughly along today's Hospitality Lane in San Bernardino, closed ages ago.

Airports available for public use dropped from 6,437 in 1975 to 5,008 in 2001, according to data compiled by the pilots association.

The Rialto airport was born in 1945 when Sam Miro was passing through town and bought 80 acres of scrubland for $18,000, according to historian John Anthony Adams.

He and his five sons spent a year clearing brush and moving rocks to create a usable runway. He lived on a little house at the airport until his death in the 1970s.

Ironically, the project that sounded the death knell for the airfield -- the extension of the 210 Freeway through Rialto -- years ago triggered a battle between Rialto and Fontana over the airport, which back then was in an unincorporated county area.

People for decades thought the Foothill Freeway, as today's new 210 has long been called, was coming through any time, bringing with it a gold rush of development and growth.

"The thought was that with aviation really hitting its stride in the '60s, an airport adjacent to the freeway would induce corporations to locate here to have access to both the airport and the freeway," said Scanlan.

Fontana made a run at annexing the airport, the airport director said, but Rialto got it in 1966.

It's still home to the impressive air force operated by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, which patrols the largest county in the Lower 48, and Mercy Air, the helicopter ambulance service.

Its most famous tenant was Art Scholl, one of the greatest stunt pilots in aviation history who crashed in the Pacific Ocean in 1985 while working on the film "Top Gun." Art Scholl Aviation continues to operate under the direction of his wife.

As recently as the early 1990s, the airport was still seen as a potential economic boon, if it could capture some of the overflow business from Ontario International Airport.

But then Norton Air Force Base shut down in 1994 and the focus turned to transforming a regional economic body blow back into an economic engine, a process that is just now building a good head of steam after more than a decade of effort.

"I don't think anyone had a crystal ball that in a couple of years (after 1992) this massive Air Force base would be transformed," Scanlan said. "The likelihood of Rialto competing with Norton wasn't very good."

Now the Rialto airport's remaining tenants are awaiting word from the developers on whether they'll be moving to the former air base, now San Bernardino International Airport, or maybe Redlands or Upland or Riverside.

Westpac Restorations Inc., which restores classic aircraft, is already packing up for Colorado.

The housing market crash now has the timeline more uncertain than ever, as the city and developers wrestle to decide what Renaissance Rialto will ultimately look like.

Since 1969, Bill Gerth, 73, has had a hangar at the Rialto airport where he parks his award-winning 1956 Piper Apache Geronimo. He estimates he's logged at least a half-million miles in the plane, flying all over the country with his wife and kids.

"We used to have hangar parties, barbecues, tell our stories, have our kids here," he said.

Stacks of photos in one of the drawers in his cluttered hangar show smiling friends clustered in chairs or standing with drinks near the barbecue and the airplanes.

When he learned of the closure, his reaction was "gross depression."

The social scene is gone. Friends have passed. The kids have grown. But the memories will endure.

-----

To see more of the San Bernardino County Sun, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sbsun.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, San Bernardino County Sun, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.


 

Source: San Bernardino County Sun

Rialto Airport Land Valued at $77 Million (REDORBIT March, 25, 2008)

BS Ranch Perspective:
 
We don't want to be in the way of the Christmas Season come 2010, for Target Supercenter, after all that is the only Store that drew any interest in the Rialto Renaissance when it was proposed to the Business world in their little Business fair! Why I am still wondering where the In~N~Out Burger is that was supposed to be Built at the Intersection of Riverside Ave. @ Galloway Ave. (Galloway Ave was closed and In~N~Out Burger was going to be built on the E/Curb of Riverside just N/of the 210 W/B Off ramp). According to the talks by the City Planning the Construction of the Restaurant would have started shortly after the I-210 Freeway was opened! Well? The Freeway has opened, yet NO CONSTRUCTION!!
 
Now they are just talking about the Sale of the land for the development of the Airport, I have to say that Lewis and or the other Companies that are doing this in this market just might find themselves filing for Bankrupts!! Before it is all over
 
BS Ranch
 
 
 

Airport Land Value: $77M

Posted on: Tuesday, 25 March 2008, 02:00 CDT

By Jason Pesick

RIALTO - The city and the Federal Aviation Administration appear close to reaching an agreement on the value of the Rialto Municipal Airport property.

On March 18, interim City Attorney Rahsaan Tilford reported that the City Council determined $77.4 million was an appropriate dollar figure for the property.

That value coincides with what FAA officials indicated they were comfortable with, said Rialto Economic Development Director Robb Steel.

"We have approved it in concept, and we are certainly aware of the action that is going before the Rialto City Council," said San Bernardino International Airport Authority Commission Vice President and Loma Linda Mayor Robert Christman.

A significant portion of Rialto's airport tenants and about $50 million will be headed to San Bernardino International Airport roughly 13 miles to the east.

Rialto's March 18 move, which the council could approve in open session on April 1, is another step in the complex process of turning a working municipal airport into a commercial, industrial and residential development known as Renaissance Rialto.

Renaissance, which will be developed by a partnership between Upland-based Lewis Group and Texas-based Hillwood, will be located along the newly extended 210 Freeway.

Rialto's own appraisal put the value of the airport at about $67 million before taking into account the costs of preparing the land for development, but FAA officials thought the value should be higher.

According to legislation passed by Congress in 2005, 45 percent of the value of the airport property must be paid to SBIA.

That amount - $49.5 million - will be governed by a separate value of about $110 million for the property. The new value of $77 million will be used to determine how much of the $49.5 million goes to accommodating new tenants and how much goes to improvements at SBIA, Steel said.

"There's no set guidebook for how this closure works," said Mike Burrows, SBIA's assistant director.

He said no matter how the money is supposed to be spent by SBIA, he's elated that all of it will be invested in the airport.

FAA spokesman Ian Gregor was unable to comment for this story.

Steel said he hopes City Council approves plans for Renaissance by the end of this year, especially since the first payment to SBIA is due in September.

After the plans are approved, the Lewis-Hillwood consortium will start purchasing the 441 acres of airport property, which will be the heart of the 1,500-acre Renaissance Rialto development.

Rialto's airport would close by the end of 2009, after new facilities are built at SBIA and other airports to house Rialto's tenants.

Rialto also needs to regain control of state land so it can move Easton Street and finalize an airport-closure plan with the FAA.

After all the details are worked out, the Super Target-anchored retail center could open in time for Christmas 2010, Steel said. "That's still pretty tight," he said.

(c) 2008 The Sun, San Bernardino, Calif.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.


Source: The Sun, San Bernardino, Calif.

More News in this Category


 

Monday, March 17, 2008

Rialto to be REPAID before its Rate payers (Daily Bulletin March 10, 2008)

BS Ranch Perspective
 
Wow, this is great news for those that were charged through the water Crisis, that the Perchlorate Contamination had put us through!! It is one thing when the mistake was make to fight it the way that it was, Owen was completely wrong, and I don't know why the City Council gave this guy so much of a leash to do these kinds of careless law suits, to benefit his pockets and not the city!!
 
BS Ranch

 

Rialto to be repaid before its ratepayers

Jason Pesick, Staff Writer

RIALTO - The good news for customers of Rialto's water system is that the city has started settling its expensive legal battles against suspected water polluters.

The bad news is that, although customers have been paying for the team of lawyers and consultants through a surcharge on their water bills, no quick reimbursement is in sight.

Rialto has spent at least $20 million treating and investigating perchlorate and other chemicals polluting the groundwater, as well as fighting the suspected polluters in court.

But policies enacted by the City Council since 2004 indicate that the city and its water department, which serves about half the city, get repaid after legal settlements and judgements before the customers.

"I think it's a fair discussion to reconsider that," said City Councilwoman Winnie Hanson, a member of the council's perchlorate subcommittee.

The first settlement in the perchlorate matter is being finalized with San Bernardino County and calls for the county to clean up part of the contamination and pay the city $4 million.

The surcharge customers pay starts at $6.85 per bill and increases with consumption.

Longtime resident Mary Moton said the perchlorate charge on her last monthly water bill of $69.44 was $9.27.

"I think we should get all our money back. That's fair," she said.

When the council established the surcharge in 2004, it passed a policy that states the first priority is

repaying the water department, plus an extra $1.5 million for the department's reserves.

That repayment includes $5 million to City Council transferred from the General Fund reserves to the water department in November 2006 to pursue polluters.

After the city receives from polluters an amount equal to half the surcharges collected, ratepayers will be able to be reimbursed.

In recent months, Councilman Ed Scott, the other member of the perchlorate subcommittee, has said the ratepayers should be reimbursed before the water and general funds.

"That's my preference," he said.

Hanson said the council will probably have to examine the issue. She said members meeting in closed session would decide whether they want to vote on the issue in open session.

Hanson said she hasn't come down on one side of the issue yet. Her determination will include a number of factors, including the fiscal health of various city accounts.

Some residents don't seem to be conflicted.

"I think that the citizens should be paid back first. They didn't waste any time in taking the money out," Rialto resident and water customer Toby Polinger said of the city.

"It seems like the city puts these kinds of things together frequently that the Rialto citizens are often considered last," he said.

jason.pesick@sbsun.com

(909) 386-3861