May 2008 Archives

SAN BERNARDINO -- At the May 29 economic summit at the National Orange Show, Mayor Pat Morris ended his comments by telling the crowd he saw the city's entrenched challenges up close earlier that morning.

Below is a shot of Morris, right, with EDA Director Emil Marzullo

Photo by R. Rogers

Morris had attended a local job fair for parolees, which he had advocated for with letters to local employers urging them to attend.

Morris told the $50 per plate crowd that more than 1,000 out-of-work people lined several blocks on Base Line.

But the response from employers was "almost pathetic," Morris said, adding that private business had an obligation to partner with the community.

Instead, Morris had to keep a brave face while talking to the parolees, who vastly outnumbered the jobs available.

"I walked down the line, shook their hands, wished them well, and felt like hell," Morris said.

Morris' comments came at the end of a mostly positive ticking off of projects in the city and a light Q & A session with his Economic Development Director, Emil Marzullo.

San Bernardino is home to nearly 2,000 parolees. Studies have shown that California parolees have among the highest rates of unemployment and recidivism in the nation. Morris made clear that, as a former judge, he believed unemployment to be a dominant determinant in whether someone will reoffend.

I attended the economic summit at the NOS this morning.

Very interesting to hear a handful of movers and shakers - including Pat Morris, John Husing and John Magness of Hillwood Development - talk in detail about the health of the local economy.

Click below for a video of Castro fielding questions from students. In this one, he touches on immigration.

By Robert Rogers
Staff Writer

SAN BERNARDINO -- When Sal Castro looks back on the 40 years since he led historic walkouts with Chicano students in Los Angeles, he sees a mixed bag.

On the one hand, more Mexican-Americans are graduating college, earning better wages and attaining democratic power.

On the other hand, Chicano culture and history remain underplayed in media and educational texts, he said.

And war still sends men and women home in flag-draped coffins.

"Many of our kids from the barrio were coming home in flag-draped coffins (during Vietnam)" Castro told a rapt crowd of mostly students. "Sad to say, many are coming home the same way from Iraq 40 years later."

Below is a picture of Castro chatting with students after his speech Tuesday

photo by r. rogers

By Robert Rogers
Staff Writer
FOREST FALLS -- The sturdy residents, many with kids in tow, greeted one another with warm smiles and hearty handshakes. Ham and eggs composed the bulk of breakfast, splashed down with pulpy orange juice and coffee from steaming aluminum urns labeled "leaded" and "unleaded."

In the photo below, County supervisor Dennis Hansberger (right) chats with Tom McIntosh and another resident.

photo by R. Rogers

Click for more story and photos below ...

Pretty interesting event slated for CSUSB next week. I'll be going to hear some interesting perspectives on current issues from students, professors and figures of historical note.

WHAT: "Brown and Proud: 40 Years of Chicano Activism," an educational event highlighting anniversary of 1968 protests in East Los Angeles.
WHEN: Noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 27
WHERE: Santos Manuel Student Union Events Center at Cal State San Bernardino
WHO: Activist Sal Castro speaks at noon.
Professors deliver "Immigrants in the Media" presentation at 1:30 p.m.
Panel discussion, "Latinos in the Educational Pipeline," at 2 p.m.
A reading by columnist Gustavo Arrellano at 3:15 p.m.
"Walkout" movie viewing in the University Theater at 4 p.m.
Admission is free and open to public. For information, contact program coordinator Marcia Marx at (909) 537-7314 or by e-mail at mmarx@csusb.edu.

Fuller story below ...

How bad is the national economic downturn hurting the Inland Empire?
Maybe worse than ever, according to a handful of the region's top economists, labor leaders, health and education officials.

Click below for a fuller story, featuring fresh statistics and some dour warnings from presenters at the May 22 Symposium on Poverty and Economic Security held on Morongo's reservation.

In this clip, NOS Director of Operations Steve Henthorn chats about this year's festival, which kicks off Thursday and runs through the weekend, and about why he and his team of planners decided to turn back the clock in an effort to reverse the trend of dwindling attendance.

The festival is offering free tickets Thursday night, so get out there.

The two-county Inland Empire will swell to nearly 5 million inhabitants by 2015, a growth equivalent to adding the population of the city of San Bernardino five times over.

Click below for a few more highlights.

Click here for the entire 141 page Public Policy Institute of California report.

On May 29, 2008, The Sun will publish 40th anniversary coverage of Robert F. Kennedy's visit to San Bernardino.

What makes this especially exciting is that we are asking you, the readers, to contribute to the story.

The Sun will reproduce photos, videos and written reflections from that day in a comprehensive online historical database. Imagine hundreds of never-before publicized photos and/or videos suddenly accessible to the public. Also, we encourage you to share your thoughts and reflections in written form.

Below is a shot from our archives of RFK intermingling with West side residents on Base Line.

We will basically be creating an interactive Web site commemorating the day, and contributing to our understanding of this important history.

Photos can be emailed or mailed U.S. post, in which case they'll be copied and returned. If you have photos, videos or memories of RFK's jaunt through San Bernardino May 29, 1968, call reporter Robert Rogers at (909) 386-3855 or email photos, written memories or queries to robert.rogers@inlandnewspapers.com

Below is a taste of what the coverage will be like May 29

SAN BERNARDINO -- Riding a seemingly inexorable wave of momentum through the nations largest state, Robert F. Kennedy swept through San Bernardino on May 29, 1968.

It was just a few hours of a single day, but it left thousands with indelible memories.
The Sun is looking not only to revisit memories of that day this May 29, the 40th anniversary, but contribute to a fuller picture that not only makes vivid again the mental images for those who were there, but a deeper understanding for those who were not.

On May 29, an extended story with eyewitness interviews will be paired with a handful of archived newspaper photographs of Kennedy, his wife Ethel, and the jubilant crowds that greeted them that day.

Our hope is that you - residents and readers - who have memories, photos and videos of that day will share them with us so that we can assemble on online, historical database on our Web site.

Just one week after sweeping through San Bernardino, in a Los Angeles hotel, the euphoria would be dashed in a grainy televised haze of gunshots, screams, acrid burnt powder and screams.

But Kennedy's trek through San Bernardino lives on, if under a tragic pall that has never completely lifted.

His motorcade had steered first into the city's impoverished, minority West side, a powerful testament to his devotion to the underprivileged.

While motoring down Mount Vernon avenue and surrounding streets, the cars slowed to a crawl and the candidate, as had become his awe-inspiring custom, plunged his body into the clutching hands of supporters.

Photos from newspapers published the next day reveal the bustling, electric quality of the visit, as Kennedy's shirt was stretched and untucked by the gauntlet of loving hands that clutched at him.

Kennedy's route would culminate at Pioneer Park, now the site of Feldheym Library, where Kennedy delivered a speech to thousands.

The headline in the May 30, 1968 issue of The Sun read: "Huge S.B. Turnout Buoys Kennedy Election Hopes."

The second paragraph crystalized the mood of the city and country in that moment of history: "Kennedy, with his presidential hopes on the line in the California primary Tuesday, drew the loudest applause when he promised he wouldn't be satisfied until the Vietnam 'war is over and American soldiers brought home.'"

The Inland Empire is the 2nd hardest hit area in the whole nation for foreclosures.

I visited some SB offices Thursday where those on the lowest rungs of the housing market's deepest collapse wander in, glassy-eyed, for help.

ACORN's D Street offices don't charge anything, but they also don't have advertising, so they're still a bit of a secret.

But they are invaluable consultants and advocates for people who are totally overwhelmed in the housing morass. Most of the homeowners coming in know little about banking and fine print.

Maybe half speak only Spanish.

The service is available every Thursday. The number and address are in the story below ...

Went to a heartwarming event this morning.

About 50 local Norwegians turned out at city hall for a small, quiet recognition of their far-off homeland's independence day.

What struck me initially was that these people represented all that has become idealized in American history about those waves of immigrants in the 18th and 19th centuries. People with a quiet recognition of their homeland, but a fierce pride in America, and a clear hierarchy that put their adopted country ahead of that of their ancestors.

People who were determined to adapt to American culture as opposed to transplanting theirs here.

But then I talked to Pat Lindberg, whose grandparents came from Norway. Just two generations removed, he lamented that at age 41 he retained next to nothing of the culture - no language, no cooking talents, no rituals.

He said he wished his grandparents had better balanced their hunger to become American with an effort to preserve their cultural heritage.

I won't have it here, but it's an interesting debate. Assimilation versus preservation, and what kind of balance is desirable.

Lindberg actually mentioned Mexican and Asian immigrants, and the way some of today's immigrants speak their native language and observe their customs, as models of what he wished he had.

Thought provoking. Anyway, click below for a story ...

The National Orange Show Festival has been a city tradition for a few seasons shy of a century.

With attendance slumping in recent years (and a number of legal battles and bad accidents facing the NOS grounds compounding the problem), planners are pitching an interesting concept: Reversion to the "good ol' days."

In a one-on-one conversation I had with NOS Director of Operations Steve Henthorn at The Sun offices Wednesday, he even mentioned fictional, idealized television shows like The Andy Griffith Show and Leave it to Beaver as cultural shorthands for the ambiance he hoped to achieve at the festival in coming years.

Steve is a longtime Berdoo guy, someone who drove his muscle car around town in the 1960s and 1970s, so he knows something about the "way we were," if you will.

Here is Henthorn, pictured below, sitting near my desk during our discussion.

At several other points, he posited that during "tough economic times" and amidst an "increasingly complex" world, people crave simple pleasures with clear, discernable value-structures more than in times of roaring prosperity.

So he didn't quite make a Barack Obama-esque faux pas and say people are clinging to guns and bibles, but he clearly is banking on his event presenting itself as an alternative to loose morals and subprime mortgage scams, or something like that.

Our interesting discussion aside, the NOS festival, which I've been to (on duty) twice, seems like a wonderful way to spend the day, especially for locals. Lots of food, animals, shows and other fair-type stuff to do at pretty cheap prices.

I thought it was perfectly quaint and wholesome last year (The lion-tamer shows were my fav), so I'll look out for any changes.

Click below for a story and schedule ...

Gays are constitutionally afforded the right to marry, the California Supreme Court ruled today.

Click below for a full recap of the events, the implications and the future.

This is, of course, a historic day, no matter what side of this issue you fall on. California, in living up to its progressive leadership reputation and history, becomes just the second state in the country to make this move.

The Supreme Court's opinion will be studied and referenced for decades by historians and legal scholars. What the four-judge majority essentially argued is that being gay is an immutable characteristic, like being black or white or short or tall, and that being different is not grounds for being denied the fundamental right of marriage.

The court also built its legal reasoning on a 1948 case that lifted the ban on interracial marriage in California, explicitly interracial with inter-gender unions.

Click below for more ...

San Bernardino, a gritty, hard-luck dot on a hardscrabble landscape.

This place has meant many things, and spun out much human creativity over the years. Great athletes, great car designs, great music ... it's all come from this place.

And great menudo. Only now, the menudo isn't underground.

Read below a story of local master Ray Calderon and his Mexican dish, a holdover from the country's wealth disparity and hacienda days.

Ray Calderon, accepting second place trophy with Mike "Ughlee" Austin on May 3.

A truly astonishing - and disturbing - story has been quietly unfolding in the High Desert and our downtown courts.

Supreme Court Justice and free speech sentinel Hugo Black: "The Framers knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny."

The latest twist in the story broke in the back pages of The Sun earlier this week. An 85-year-old, quirky newspaper publisher and multimillionnaire named Raymond Pryke was arrested for allegedly hiring a locksmith to help him burglarize a house.

Sound bizarre? You ain't seen nothing yet.

A little lower in our story, we mentioned that Pryke had been embroiled in a drawn-out legal battle with Sheriff Gary Penrod's wife, Nancy, over allegedly libelous stories against her and her corporation.

The Sheriffs was the arresting and jailing agency on Pryke's alleged burglary.

But now, a Press Enterprise story you can see here brings up a number of shocking new details.

1) The day of Pryke's arrest, he was scheduled to be in court for his case defending himself against the allegations made by Penrod's wife.

2) Judge Kenneth Barr issued a protective order preventing Pryke from publishing information about the case before trial. This is what we in journalism call, with great revulsion, "prior restraint." It's a notoriously difficult thing to achieve in courts, and when it is, it is often struck down by higher courts. Having the power to muzzle the press ante publication is dangerous ground. Richard Nixon tried, unsuccessfully, to impose prior restraint on the New York Times to prevent publication of the Pentagon Papers.

3) In 2005, Superior Court Judge Christopher Warner slapped Pryke with a $3 million judgment for refusing to divulge then-anonymous sources and for "impugning" Penrod's wife's character and that of her corporation. This alone is shocking, seeing that public figures (and yes, the Sheriffs wife qualifies) virtually never win libel cases against the press. California also has a shield law protecting journalists from being forced to divulge sources.

4) Predictably, a Riverside appeals court composed of three outside judges threw out Warner's judgement against the newspaperman, concluding that Pryke was protected by California's reporter shield law (gee, ya think) and that Warner had "abused his discretion," strong words between courtrooms.

5) According to the Press Enterprise, Warner wrote as part of his 2005 judgement, "The articles impugn the character, integrity and reputation of (Penrod's wife, Nancy) Bohl and her corporation."

Think about that logic for a moment. Since when do articles that "impugn" public people possibly working with public funds become grounds for ruinous court judgements against the newspapers? The articles in part claimed Penrod's wife's company received favored contracts thanks to her husband's position, something that has not been proved.

Can you imagine if publishers of articles that met those grounds - impugning public people and corporations - were routinely successfully sued by deep-pocketed public officials? Bye bye democracy.

Perhaps Pryke's arrest was a coincidence. Perhaps some deputies who had no idea who he was simply followed the law and put him in jail for burglarizing a house with the help of a locksmith.

Or perhaps the 85-year-old Pryke, purported to be worth well over $10 million, wasn't really burglarizing a home the day before he had to be in court in the case of his life.

I can't say what exactly is going on here. What I can say is that if the free press is pounded into compliance by local policing forces and/or stripped by courts of First Amendment protections to print freely and critically on public people and agencies, then the bedrock principles on which the nation was founded are in peril.

Without question, this issue should be receiving robust front-page and back-page (strong news coverage, strong editorial stances) attention from all local newspapers. Silence and inattention are the enablers of injustice, and if injustices are to occur here, they can stand only if left in the dark.

Frankly, I can think of no greater domestic threat than that of the state (government, courts, police, etc.) abandoning its fidelity to the principle of a free and vigorious press and instead using the power of government institutions to bully the press into submission.

I don't know if that is happening in this case, but the ingredients are clearly present.

Youth organizers with Inland Congregations United for Change (ICUC) will join religious and civic leaders in a prayer and a public meeting to speak out about violence in local neighborhoods and schools. The youths, who attend city schools, will also unveil results of a three year study on violence in local schools.
WHAT: Prayer vigil and public meeting
WHEN: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. May 13
WHERE: Prayer at 1st Presbyterian Church, 1900 N. D St. Participants will walk en masse to San Bernardino High School where study results will be presented from 7:30 to 9 p.m.
WHY: Youth leadership groups have formed in local churches in response to local violence. The movement took hold in 2006.
For information call (909)383-1134 or visit www.icucpico.org

Click below for an interesting story about how the young leaders Hectored the Governor's representative Thursday with sharp, smart questions.

Click below for portions of a story slated to print Monday. Topic is legislation winding through state capitol that would free tightly controlled redevelopment agency funds to be used to buy up foreclosed properties and help families on the brink.

Click below for an astonishing story.

Professors at a number of Cal State campuses have had employment terminated or delayed over refusal to sign a loyalty oath included in the state's Constitution since 1952.

At our local campus, Cal State San Bernardino, an Iraq War veteran currently works for free as a lab technician, unwilling to sign the loyalty oath required to receive payment from the university.

Click below for full story, about 30 percent longer than the one you'll see in print on May 9.

John Pfau, the former president of Cal State San Bernardino, leads a family effort that bestows a $12 million endowment on the university he led from 1962 to 1982.

The Shakespeare Festival is kicking off in Redlands this Thursday.

It's a must see for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of the theme: Power women.

So topical, so contemporary, the greatest English language scribe of them all was centuries ahead of his time.

Click below for a preview of the story of how Cleopatra, Viola and Lady Macbeth were the forerunners of Western Civilizations greatest female leaders, including Jeanette Rankin (pictured below), the Montana Congresswoman and pacifist who was a woman in Congress before the country even guaranteed women the right to vote.

The Berdoo Bikes and Blues Rendezvous was a lot of fun, and drew a nice crowd, as this reporter (I was out there Saturday) can attest.

But how did it do in terms of the raw numbers? The dollars and cents?

We explore that question in a story below. In a nutshell, it didn't set the city on fire economically or literally, which is a good thing.

The bottom line is the numbers were solid, if below expectations. More importantly, fears that the crowd and the atmosphere would be too rough around the edges were assuaged by a decidedly fun - and family-friendly - atmosphere.

Got to love the annual chili cookoff, an event that rivals the Route 66 Rendezvous in really capturing the essence of Berdoo.

Take a look at this story, written from my Saturday visit to the cookoff at Perris Hill Park.

That was a big, bawdy crowd. Chances are, you were out there too ...

SAN BERNARDINO -- Red Brecke is a master chili cook. Working his magic under his "Horny Toad Chili, San Diego," canopy, Brecke fried, marinated and strained his way to his signature "intense chili flavor."

The name subtly implies that his chili has aphrodisiac properties, Brecke said with an impish grin.

Passersby sampled and reacted with a range of oohs, ahs and eye flutters.

But Brecke has never won, a testament to just how fierce the city's chili contest is.
"The curse has been on me," Brecke said, though he points out that his wife is a past champion. "But I'm looking to shake it this year."

The California State 35th Annual Chili Cookoff came to Perris Hill Park for the 11th consecutive year Saturday, drawing the state's top-chili chefs and more than 10,000 revelers.

Attendance estimates as of mid-afternoon Saturday ranged from 12,000 to more than 15,000, and two-time state chili cooking champ and cookoff chairman Mike "Ughlee" Austin saying attendance was actually boosted by another major event going on in the city.

"A lot of the bikers have been coming by for some chili," the gravelly-voiced Austin said, referring to the Berdoo Bikes & Blues Rendezvous that drew thousands downtown. "I think this is a little better than last year."

Top prizes for red chili, verde chili and salsa netted between $200 and $1,000 and earned winners a berths in the International Chili Society's world contests later this year.

While the chili remains the main event - with contests and endless taste-tests pleasing attendees' palates - the event was packed with side-events that ranged from cute to just plain crazy.

Crowds swayed and danced to children singing karoke through blasting loudspeakers. Ms. Chili Pepper and Mr. Hot Sauce, aptly named beauty contests, thrilled the crowd.
The "Shoot n' Holler" contest, where contestants threw back shots of Tequila before belting out their best screams, was a fan favorite.

"This is a great event, a people-friendly, San Bernardino event," said Mike Austin Jr., "Ughlee's" son and the 1999 Shoot n' Holler champ.

Austin Sr. echoed his son, noting the seamless alignment between his event, which celebrates a staple dish of the Western frontier, and this diverse, blue collar city built largely on railroads and heavy industry.

"This is a San Bernardino event that appeals to all of San Bernardino," "Ughlee" Austin said.

Below is advance of an article for Sunday's paper.

The downtown bikes and blues event was clearly a hit, drawing thousands and striking a good balance between motorheads and soccer moms.

Expect this thing to keep growing in coming years.

SAN BERNARDINO -- The low roar - rumbling, guttural - of horsepower-packed motorcycles was familiar.

But the reaction was new.

Instead of the chaos-inducing 1960s and 1970s, when renegade motorcycle gangs haunted California lore, Saturday's reception reflected how passe the image of motorcyclists as grease-splattered, leather-clad pirates of the highway has become.

"It's just a wonderful atmosphere," said Shohnii Marston, her 10-year-old son Gavin at her side. "We'll be back next year."

The second and final day of the Berdoo Bikes & Blues Rendezvous, a first-year event aimed at tapping into the city's culture of rollicking music and beefy engines, drew thousands of visitors and motorcycles, creating a curious downtown spectacle that would have seemed impossible just a generation ago.

Hot weather combined with rumbling engines and bluesy live music on stages in front of City Hall and at Meadowbrook Park. Children nearly outnumbered graying, leathery bikers, and the event struck a solid balance between gearheads and car-driving families, said Wayne Austin, president and CEO of the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau.
"The vendors are really thrilled with the crowd," Austin said. "The feedback all-around has been phenomenal."

Vintage motorcycles lined Arrowhead Avenue, in front of the Superior Courthouse where bikers of yesteryear went only under orders, not for fun.

The hot, mad Santa Ana Winds and the marauding San Bernardino County bikers described by Joan Didion and other writers of yesteryear lived in just faintest of spirits Saturday, replaced by nostalgia, shopping and wide-eyed curiosity.

"San Bernardino knows how to host a motor event," said Carl Barnes, while tending to a Wild West BBQ's tri-tip grill, one of the hottest lunchtime draws. "I'm shocked by how good, and big, the crowd is."