Wednesday, November 28, 2012

GAS PRICES: Did oil firms manipulate market, senetors ask... Press enterprise.. Nov. 28, 2012

GAS PRICES: Did oil firms manipulate market, senators ask


 /AP
California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are among those calling for a federal probe of gas price increases they say might have come as a result of market manipulation by oil companies in the West. 
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November 27, 2012; 05:54 PM 
WASHINGTON – A group of lawmakers including California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer is calling upon federal authorities to launch an investigation into possible market manipulation by oil companies, following a pair of gas price spikes that drove fuel costs above $4 per gallon across the West.
In a letter sent Tuesday, Nov. 27, to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the contingent of six U.S. senators, all Democrats, urged the Justice Department's Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group to conduct a "refinery-by-refinery level probe" of the May and October price increases.
Earlier this month, a report from McCullough Research, a Portland-based energy consulting firm, concluded that industry explanations for the price spikes were contradicted by emissions data. Specifically, the research indicated that some West Coast oil refineries may have been producing oil last May despite public reports that they were shuttered for maintenance. Also, both spikes came while crude oil, the main driver of gasoline prices, was decreasing, the senators note in their request for an investigation.
"Taken together we believe these facts paint a picture of a highly unusual set of concurrent events in West Coast petroleum markets," they wrote. "Given the hit to American families and businesses from gasoline price spikes, we urge the Working Group to use every existing authority and regulation to identify, stop, and prosecute any and all instances of false reporting, manipulation, or anticompetitive behavior in the West Coast petroleum wholesale markets."
An industry official said the petroleum companies dispute the notion that any false reporting or manipulation took place.
"We went through a very difficult time in the marketplace in the past few months," Western States Petroleum Association spokesman Tupper Hull said. "We experienced some very real and demonstrable disruptions in supply."
Hull said members have Congress have made similar appeals to authorities in the past and, despite dozens of investigations, the petroleum industry has never been found to have manipulated prices.
The McCullough report, however found that such manipulation could be easy to coordinate between companies.
"In highly concentrated industries, the exercise of market power through production reductions or cooperative pricing can require no more than an email or a phone call," it read.

RIALTO: Man convicted in bus driver killing.. Press Enterprise Nov. 28, 2012

RIALTO: Man convicted in bus driver's killing


Larry Kester, 47, of Fontana was fatally stabbed May 7, 2010 while driving an Omnitrans bus in Rialto. 
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STAFF WRITER 
November 27, 2012; 05:41 PM 
A jury that convicted a Rialto man of murdering a 2010 Fontana bus driver in 2010 will next have to decide whether he is insane.
Robert Darrell Johnson, 36, was found guilty of murder Tuesday, Nov. 27, for stabbing an Omnitrans driver on board a bus near a busy Rialto intersection in May 2010. The stabbing caused the bus to crash into a tree.
The jury also found a special allegation true that he used a knife.
Lawrence Kester, 47, was the father of eight and driving his normal route on Base Line from San Bernardino to Fontana when Johnson attacked him on the bus, which was carrying four other passengers. Authorities said the attack was without warning or provocation. No other passengers were injured.
Police said Johnson ran through a bank, where he dropped a knife, and into a supermarket, where he was arrested.
Johnson pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the murder charge. A jury is set to return Wednesday to begin hearing evidence in the sanity phase of the trial.
Leading up to the trial, a judge had initially ruled Johnson incompetent to stand trial, based on two doctor's reports on his mental fitness. Johnson was ordered placed in a psychiatric facility and to undergo medication.
He was reevaluated in May, where doctors reported he was stabilized on medication and the judge found him fit to stand trial, according to court records. He had no prior criminal record in Riverside or San Bernardino counties.
Johnson could face up to a life sentence for the murder charge

Sunday, June 17, 2012

RIALTO: Rodney King drowns in own pool; autopsy report pending.... Press Enterprise, by Richard K. De Atley

RIALTO: Rodney King drowns in own pool; autopsy report pending


 TERRY PIERSON/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Rialto Police Detective Carla McCullough, left watches as technician Noretta Barker photographs evidence by the pool in Rialto where Rodney King was found dead, Sunday, June 17, 2012. 
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Rodney King, whose videotaped beating at the hands of Los Angeles police officers set in motion events that would lead to the deadly Los Angeles riots of 1992, died after an apparent drowning in the backyard swimming pool of his Rialto home. He was 47.
The encounter with LAPD officers in 1991 brought King his unwanted fame. And it was law enforcement officers who provided the coda to his life early Sunday, June 17, when they jumped into the pool wearing their uniforms and equipment in an effort to save him.
His death was not regarded as suspicious, police said. But neighbors said it followed a Saturday night party that led into a late-night and early-morning argument, or at least noisy exchanges, between King and his fiancée that were loud enough to cause some neighbors to shout out a request to stop the ruckus.
An autopsy was scheduled for Monday morning June 18, said San Bernardino County Sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller. She said toxicology tests were also being performed.
The results will take weeks to return, she said. The county coroner releases autopsy and toxicology results at the same time, she said.
Rialto police Capt. Randy De Anda said in a Sunday June 17 afternoon news conference that it was not unusual for King to go swimming at any hour, including the early morning.
He said that King's fiancée, Cynthia Kelley, discovered at about 5:25 a.m. that King was at the deep-end bottom of the pool. "She said she heard a splash in the rear yard … she found Mr. King … at the bottom of the pool. He was at the deep end," De Anda said earlier Sunday.
He said Kelley, whom he described as "not a strong swimmer," tried to pull King out, and called 911 when she could not.
Responding officers jumped in and retrieved King. They tried to give him cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Rialto Fire Department paramedics also treated King at the scene. He was taken to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, and pronounced dead at 6:11 a.m.
"Last night I heard a commotion," said neighbor Bob Carlberg, 53, who lives two doors away. "It really wasn't like a fight-fight-fight, but it was like yelling back and forth," he said. "He had a little party yesterday."
"He had something going on all night … the neighbors that live behind him were kind of yelling over to be quiet … the people who actually live next door to him said it was really loud," Carlberg said.
Carlberg said the disturbances were uncharacteristic of King, who lived on East Jackson Street, which is lined with single-story ranch-style and tract homes with well-trimmed lawns and shade trees. "He really kept to himself. The last couple of weeks he had more people over because he was planning his marriage. That's only my theory."
A neighbor of King said that around 3 a.m. she heard music and people talking next door and what sounded like someone who was very emotional.
"It seemed like someone was really crying, like really deep emotions," said Sandra Gardea, 31, a dental hygienist instructor who recently moved in. "And it just got louder and louder. Everybody woke up. Even the kids woke up."
She described the sound as "like moaning, like in pain. Like tired or sad, you know?"
Gardea said this went on for some time and then stopped.
"I heard someone say, 'OK, Please stop. Go inside the house.' … We heard quiet for a few minutes. Then after that we heard a splash in the back. And that's when a few minutes later we see the cops arrive and everyone arrive and we see him being taken in a gurney."
"You didn't see parties here or a lot of people. He was very withdrawn, and (kept) to himself," said neighbor Tondalaya Baker, 55, who lives around the corner from King's home. She said she most often saw him when he was working on his lawn or the front of his home.
De Anda said King was "poolside throughout the early morning, and he was in verbal contact with his fiancée throughout the morning. She was having a conversation through the rear sliding-glass door, and apparently when she heard the splash."
He said he did not know the content of the conversation. "At this time I do not know what Mr. King's toxicology was, or if he was intoxicated, or whether he was under the influence of any substances." He said detectives would try to determine what was going on at the moment King fell into the pool.
On Sunday afternoon, evidence was being carted away from King's home, including what looked like a marijuana plant. King had said in interviews last year that he had a doctor's recommendation to use medical marijuana. Medical marijuana users are permitted some legal cultivation.
De Anda said a coroner's investigation will include an autopsy and a toxicology report. He said there were no signs of drugs or alcohol near the pool when officers arrived, and that detectives had interviewed Kelley as a routine matter. Kelley had been one of the jurors who awarded King $3.8 million in his lawsuit against Los Angeles over the beating. King said recently he had spent most of the money.
Neighbors described King as friendly and willing to talk about anything except what happened in Los Angeles two decades ago. "The best neighbor in the neighborhood," said Baker, who said she spoke to him frequently.
Asked if King ever discussed his past, Baker said, "he never wanted to talk about that. He really just stayed to himself … he was extremely private." She said he often kept his drapes drawn at the home.
Carlberg said he liked to talk about cars with King.
"He was a pretty nice guy. Seemed like a real nice guy, I had no problems," Carlberg said.
Carlberg described the neighborhood "real quiet, peaceful, friendly. Everybody gets along. Everybody talks to everybody."
Two decades ago, King uttered five words that captured the sentiment of millions of Americans horrified by the scenes of death and destruction in the Los Angeles riots.
"I just want to say, you know, 'Can we all get along?'," King said in a quavering voice after rioters ravaged Southern California neighborhoods.
King was pulled over by LAPD officers in 1991 for speeding. He was drunk but unarmed. Officers responded to King's lack of cooperation by beating him with batons and kicking him repeatedly.
The beating was video-taped by a bystander, which elevated the case to international headlines.
Four of the officers, all white, went to trial. Their acquittal sparked the infamous Southern California riots on April 29, 1992. At least 53 people were killed, more than 2,000 were injured and more than $1 billion in property was damaged or destroyed.
King reflected in an interview with The Press-Enterprise in early April on how his lawyers handed him a four-page statement to read at a news conference. It was 1992, two days after the beginning of the disturbances that began when four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of beating him.
But instead of reading the statement, King improvised.
"I spoke from my heart, you know," King said. "I felt there was a need to say something from the heart."
King moved to Inland Southern California from Los Angeles County in 1999 to escape some of the continued attention.
"At the time, I felt a little too much heat," he said. "The smoke hadn't cleared in Los Angeles for me. I thought it would be more comfortable for me to be in the IE."
Recently, King said he supported himself in part by doing handyman and construction work. He's also made money on reality-TV appearances, including "Celebrity Rehab."
The headlines that followed King during his 13 years in the Inland area generally had not been complimentary. He wasn arrested several times, including for driving under the influence and domestic violence.
In the latest case, he pleaded guilty in February to reckless driving after he was pulled over in Moreno Valley.
King acknowledged his mistakes. He wrote about them in his book, "The Riot Within," which was released in April.
He said his days of drinking heavily were over — although he said he hadn't quit alcohol entirely.
"I sip now," said King, whose father was an alcoholic. "I'm not guzzling drinks anymore. No one knows the future, but I sure feel comfortable where I am today with myself."
Staff writer David Olson, dolson@pe.com, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.


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Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Now MEN are victims of Military Sex Assaults.. Male on Male attacks up since repeal of Dont Ask, Don't Tell... by Bob Unruh

Now men are victims of military sex assaults

Male-on-male attacks up since repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

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While the full picture remains far from clear, signs of the ill effects of the Democrat-initiated law allowing homosexuals to serve in the U.S. military without hiding their sexual preference are beginning to appear.
The newest reports, for Fiscal Year 2011, have just come out, and Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, immediately noted that sexual misbehavior is on the rise.

She has completed an analysis of the the reports, including the overall military assessment of sexual assaults as well as the
army’s Gold Book report, and it cites 515 rapes, 414 aggravated sexual assaults and 349 forcible sodomies documented by just the Criminal Investigation Command in 2011.
“Pentagon officials regularly praise their own work and proclaim undeserved ‘success,’ even though evidence of sexual misconduct, both consensual and non-consensual, continues to accelerate, year after year,” she said.
“It is time to reconsider and change flawed policies that are weakening the culture of the only military we have.”
In December 2010, Congress repealed the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy established by President Clinton that allowed homosexuals to remain in the military on the condition they not make a public issue of their sexual lifestyle.
The new law, for first time in U.S. history, allows homosexual members to openly acknowledge their sexual choices.
Among the details in the reports: While, since 2006, 5 percent of the violent sexual assaults have been against men, recent reports now put that figure at 12 to 14 percent.
The Army said it is “currently monitoring same-gender sex crime for a potential increase in forcible sodomy and other sex offenses related to the disassociation of homosexuality from the crime itself.”
Non-consensual sodomy attacks for fiscal 2011 totaled 7 percent of the nearly 2,500 attacks cited on one military report.
In several cases “the victim ceased cooperating with the military justice proceeding and the subjects were given no judicial punishment for consensual sodomy.”
Other case descriptions from the Department of Defense included:
  • “Male victim alleged that male subjects groped him through clothing and attempted sodomy with a broom handle.”
  • “Male victim alleged that male subject performed oral sodomy on him in bar bathroom while he was passing in and out of consciousness from drinking.
  • “Male victim alleged that the male subject, National Guard soldier, took out his penis, and straddled his thigh in the motor poll while in Iraq.”
One of the reports said 9 percent of the victims claimed to be victims of “non-consensual sodomy.”
The more than 700 pages of the compiled reports, however, did not mention homosexuality.
Donnelly told WND that the statistics show a more than 20 percent increase in reported sexual assaults on males.
And she said researchers specifically announced plans to track numbers to monitor the increase, since “this category of homosexual conduct no longer is illegal.”
“It’s way too soon,” she said, to come to definitive conclusions. But she said the “numbers have gone way up.”
She said the military’s efforts to deal with the complications of women in the ranks, which have been around for years, as well as the new issues of open homosexuality, are failing.
“What they need to do is get rid of gender-integrated basic training,” she said. “That conclusions was drawn that it did [increase] and still is increasing disciplinary issues.”
“If you don’t learn the basics of discipline [in basic training], it won’t happen later,” she said.
Donnelly’s organization just released its policy analysis drawing information from the Army “Gold Book” report on wartime personnel stress, the most recent annual report of the Defense Department Sexual Assault Prevention & Response Office, and a 2010 report on ship captain firings from the Navy.
“Both the Army ‘Gold Book’ released in January and the Defense Department SAPRO report released last Friday hid the bad news in plain sight. Instead of reconsidering social policies known to increase disturbing disciplinary problems, the Pentagon is pressing ahead with costly, time-wasting programs that are not working,” she warned.
Take a guided tour into the future of the U.S. military once homosexuality is welcomed with open arms. Read Whistleblower’s special issue, “DROPPING THE ‘H’-BOMB.”
She said teams of professional sexual assault response counselors, untold hours of mandatory training, preemptive punishments, bureaucracy, conferences, meetings and feel-good gimmicks have produced:
  • A hike of 22 percent since 2007 in the sexual assaults in all branches
  • A doubling since 2006 of the number of violent attacks and rapes in the Army, from 663 in 2006 to 1,313 last year
  • A “chilling trend” of violent sex crimes rising at the rate of 14.6 percent annually, “and the rate is accelerating”
  • A 28 percent increase in the offense rate and a 20 percent increase in offenders from 2006-2011 in sex crimes in the active-duty Army
  • A jump in male sexual assault victims from 10 percent in 2010 to 14 percent in confidential reports for 2011
  • The need to fire senior enlisted Navy officers at the rate of nearly two per month because of sexual misconduct.
Donnelly explained the problem has been developing for some time. She cited the 1997 recommendation from the Kassebaum-Baker Commission for the Army to end the gender-integrated basic training, because it was “resulting in less discipline, less unit cohesion, and more distraction from training.”
But the advice was ignored, she said.
And Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, even while noting that the military branch experiences three sexual assaults every day, called for observance of a “Sexual Assault Awareness Month” that included “adult interactive plays.”
“Despite tangible evidence of failure, the same officials expect free-rein to implement policies that would worsen the situation. On Feb. 9, 2012, Pentagon briefers announced their intent to promote ‘diversity’ by incrementally implementing controversial recommendations of the Military Diversity Leadership Commission,” she said.
The report said, “More than 20 years ago, male and female naval aviators partied wildly at the 1991 post-Persian Gulf War Tailhook convention in Las Vegas. The highly publicized scandal ruined the careers of hundreds of officers.”
Now, “we are starting to see a military resembling Jenga Blocks – a table-top tower constructed of smooth wooden planks,” the report continued. “Players remove planks from the bottom of the tower and load them on the top, destabilizing the structure until it buckles and falls. In the same way, severe budget cuts combined with social burdens loaded on top could irreparably weaken the culture and strength of our military.”
The report said the next White House administration, to minimize damage and reverse course, should “put the needs of the military above ‘diversity metrics.’” And the military should reinforce core values and policies that are known to reinforce personal discipline, it said.
Basic training also needs to be separate for genders, women should be exempt from direct ground combat units, and military policies should be “based on reality, not ‘social fiction.’”
CMR has reported previously on the manipulation of government data that contributed to the Obama campaign to remove the ban on open homosexuality. It cited an inspector general’s report marked “For Official Use Only” that said numbers were combined to present the image that members of the military approved of Obama’s plan for open homosexuality.
It was the military’s original and now-suspect report that famously was quoted as affirming “70 percent” of the nation’s military members believe the repeal of the long-standing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” practice of allowing homosexuals to serve as long as they kept their sexual lifestyle choices to themselves would have either “a neutral or positive impact on unit cohesion, readiness, effectiveness and morale.”
However, the IG in documents uncovered by Donnelly revealed the actual figures for military members were: those who believed the change would impact units “very positively” (6.6 percent), “positively” (11.8 percent), “mixed” (32.1 percent), “negatively” (18.7 percent), “very negatively” (10.9 percent) and “no effect” (19.9 percent).
The only way the 70 percent figure can be reached is to combine “very positively,” “positively,” “mixed” and “no effect.” But this combination counts people with “neutral positions” as favoring the change, Donnelly argued.
Donnelly explained that taking the same figures and lumping them on the other side with “negatively” and “very negatively” would produce a total of almost 82 percent of the soldiers who believe the results of the change would be “negative or neutral.”
The IG report uncovered by Donnelly said exactly that:
We considered that the primary source’s likely pro-repeal sentiment was further demonstrated by his/her inclusion of the key 70 percent figure in the information provided to the Washington Post. … Had [the source] desired to further an anti-repeal bias for the article, he/she could likewise have combined four results categories from that same survey question to conclude that “82 percent of respondents said the effect of repealing the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy would be negative, mixed or no effect.”
The Thomas More Law Center announced a federal FOIA lawsuit against the Navy, seeking to obtain records that are expected to show intentional deception by the Pentagon “to gain congressional support for repeal of the 1993 law regarding open homosexual conduct in the military, usually called ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”
The lawsuit is based on the IG report obtained by Donnelly, “which suggested that a distorted Pentagon study of homosexuals in the military was produced and leaked solely to persuade Congress to lift the ban on open homosexuality.”
Erin Mersino, the attorney handling the blockbuster case, said the organization already has tried to obtain information.
“The Department of Defense and the Department of the Navy have failed to produce a single document despite numerous FOIA requests over the last two years for information to uncover the truth surrounding the congressional repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” she said.
In one side effect that rebounded on the White House, a Senate committee, in an attempt to ensure the law conforms to the new policy, voted to repeal the ban in the military on bestiality, an issue that White House press secretary Jay Carney didn’t consider a serious question.
The Senate quickly backtracked when its vote was revealed.
WND previously reported on CMR’s uncovering of the Inspector General’s report.
That documents how the co-chairman of the commission working on the assessment of the impact on the military, Jeh Johnson, “read portions of ‘an early draft’ of the executive summary … to a former news anchor, a close personal friend visiting Mr. Johnson’s home” three days before service members even were given the survey.
“Contrary to most news accounts, the ‘Comprehensive Review Working Group’ process was not a ‘study,’” Donnelly told WND. “Its purpose was to circumvent and neutralize military opposition to repeal of the law.”
She described the study “was a publicly funded pre-scripted production put on just for show.”
“The … report, completed on April 8, 2011, reveals improper activities and deception that misled members of Congress in order ‘to gain momentum in support of a legislative change during the ‘lame duck’ session of Congress following the November 2, 2010, elections,’” she wrote.
Donnelly explained that days before the survey was distributed, Johnson “was seeking advice from a ‘former news anchor’ on how to write the report’s executive summary more ‘persuasively.’”
Further, “The DoD IG report concluded that someone who ‘had a strongly emotional attachment to the issue’ and ‘likely a pro-repeal agenda’ violated security rules and leaked selected, half-true information to the Washington Post,” she explained.
Within days of the military’s repeal of its ban on open homosexuality, two members of Congress pointed out that the Department of Defense had failed to fulfill its obligations to prepare for the change.
The letter was from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., and Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., the chairman of the personnel subcommittee.
It was addressed to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, whose media office declined to respond to a WND request for comment.

Monday, April 02, 2012

Closing Rialto Municipal Airport has gotten more complex..by Kimberly Pierceall..... March 30, 2012, The Press Enterprise ...


AIRPORT: Closing Rialto Municipal has gotten more complex


STAN LIM/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
A runway not in use at the Rialto Municipal Airport on March 27. In 2005, Congress authorized the airport to close to make way for homes and shops. The airport has remained open, though, while the city of Rialto and developers wait out the economic downturn and face questions about what the end of redevelopment agencies may mean for the property.
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It should have been simple, or as simple as it can be to shut down an airport after securing the first difficult-to-get go-ahead to make way for homes, shopping and industry.
But closing Rialto Municipal Airport has been anything but easy.
Seven years after a rare act of Congress authorized the airport to close — a workaround that avoided a showdown with the Federal Aviation Administration that had funded the airport's development — it's still open and none of the tenants have been moved to nearby San Bernardino International Airport as planned.
The economy's swift and enduring downfall put plans to develop homes, shops and a business park on hold and made land prices of 2005 unrealistic. By the time land entitlements were complete and a specific plan approved in 2010, "the economy was long gone," said Robb Steel, assistant to the city of Rialto's administrator.
The airport's fate has only been made more complicated with the dissolution of California's redevelopment agencies.
The city's redevelopment agency owned the airport property and had the agreements with a private developer and San Bernardino airport. That agency no longer exists.
"The economy kicked us in the gut and then the state kicked us in the gut," Steel said.
The plan has already cost the city of Rialto and the developer millions of dollars, and the delay kept San Bernardino airport officials waiting for a windfall that hasn't arrived.

View Rialto Municipal Airport in a larger map
In addition to transferring the land to the city of Rialto — which later transferred it to the city's redevelopment agency — Congress required that nearby San Bernardino International Airport would have a 45 percent claim on the appraised value of the land. Those funds, paid by Rialto, would be used for relocating tenants and building hangars to house planes and businesses that had been at the closed airport.
The tenants that remain at Rialto today pay rent month-to-month, knowing the airport will close, just not when.
New tenants have arrived knowing there's still time, including Fontana Police Department's air support and an owner who has ketchup bottles sitting on tables in a soon-to-open restaurant at the airport.
To kick start development, Rialto's City Council approved raising $30 million through a complex financing deal for management of the city's water system that would raise residential rates between 97 percent and 115 percent.
But first, the city has to regain ownership of the airport property and sign new agreements with the developer and San Bernardino airport.
POTENTIAL PROFITS
In 2005, the city had visions of grandeur — development that would include 4,000 homes, shops, restaurants, a corporate park, a school, even a new City Hall — with the project dubbed "Renaissance Rialto."
Lewis-Hillwood Rialto LLC, a combination of the Upland-based Lewis Group of Companies that developed Victoria Gardens and Hillwood, which developed all of the non-aviation space at San Bernardino International Airport, agreed to eventually buy more than 500 acres of what would be the 1,400-acre Renaissance Rialto development.
Early on, the developer agreed to take on all the costs.
Rialto would get paid for the land and share in the profits of development. But the economy inspired a shift in responsibilities as well as a scaled back plan. The two sides were in the midst of negotiating a new agreement when redevelopment went away.
The standstill and uncertainty now is in stark contrast to the speed at which plans and agreements were falling into place between 2005 and 2007, including moving Westpac Restorations, one of the largest tenants at the airport, to Colorado Springs, Colo., at a cost of close to $10 million.
"In 2008, the door shut," Steel said, referring to the economic downturn.
Lewis-Hillwood has spent more than $30 million relocating tenants and securing land entitlements among other costs, "and we are still excited about moving forward," said Executive Vice President Randall Lewis in an email. The city's redevelopment agency has spent about $8.4 million paying back Lewis-Hillwood for some of the costs.
The pay-off was expected to more than make up for the spending. Rialto was poised to make at least $26 million from land sales, not counting a share of profits from the development, as a result of the airport's closure.
The amount the city's redevelopment agency ultimately agreed to pay the San Bernardino International Airport Authority to take on its tenants before the development stalled: $49.5 million.
Recently, negotiations have been revived to move the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department to San Bernardino airport. The agency brought its helicopters and planes to Rialto airport in 1978 and has since outgrown its 20,000 square feet of space. Capt. Jeff Rose said the department could use 65,000 square feet.
The hangar at San Bernardino airport could cost an estimated $8.7 million. A large part — $4.2 million — would come from the city of Rialto when it sells airport property to pay for relocation costs. In prior plans, the Sheriff's Department agreed to pay $1 million, and San Bernardino airport's related Inland Valley Development Agency which oversees redevelopment of former Norton Air Force Base property would cover the rest of the cost and recoup what was spent by leasing the building back to the county for at least 25 years. More than a year ago, the San Bernardino airport authority approved — in concept — to build the space.
Under a new proposed plan, the city of Rialto would pay a $375,000 cash down payment — an advance on the $4.2 million — toward the design of the new hangar. The remainder would still be paid from land sales, if and when that happens. It's a risk because Rialto would only pay the rest if the land is sold, Steel said.
"Now, we've got a few more potholes in front of us," he said.