Where Rialto Democrats come together to talk about national and local policy issues affecting you.
The Greater Rialto Democratic Club is uniquely honored to feature reports by Congressman Joe Baca (distinguished as the Inland Empire's only Democratic Congressman), San Bernardino County School Board Member Gil Navarro, Rialto City Mayor Pro Tem Joe Baca, Jr., and Rialto School Board Members Dr. John Kazalunas and Joe Ayala at the monthly meetings.
Follow the Dirty Republican Money Local News Webmaster Friday 12 February 2010 - 19:00:00
Dirty Republican Money has been traced back to the Colonies corruption scandal. Follow the dirty money trail below.
Many of Republican PACs listed below have targetted some of our local Democrats in recent elections. Remember to vote responsibly. Vote Democrat!
Postmus, Erwin charged in "biggest corruption scandal" in county history Local News Webmaster Wednesday 10 February 2010 - 19:00:00
It's called the biggest corruption scandal in San Bernardino County history!! Everyone is talking about all the chaos and problems in the Republican ranks.
It's great to be a Democrat!! Register Democrat today!
 Postmus, Erwin charged in
"biggest corruption scandal"
in county history
By Joe Nelson Posted: 02/10/2010 10:47:07 AM PST
Prosecutors today charged two former top county officials with conspiracy, bribery and extortion, and identified five other co-conspirators in what was described as the "biggest corruption scandal in San Bernardino County's history."
Former Assessor William Postmus, 38, of Victorville, and former assistant assessor James Erwin, 47, of Highland, were arrested early this morning and booked into jail in lieu of $225,000 bail and $380,000 bail, respectively.
During a news conference at the District Attorney's Office, District Attorney Michael A. Ramos and state Attorney General Edmund G. Brown described a wide-ranging conspiracy to secure a legal settlement between the county and Rancho Cucamonga developer Colonies Partners in November 2006.
Two Rancho Cucamonga developers, a public relations consultant for the developers, members of the Board of Supervisors and one chief of staff to a county supervisor conspired to illegally secure the landmark $102 million settlement, which was not signed off by any of the county's attorneys or their outside counsel. "What is significant here is the most appalling corruption case in decades, certainly in the history of San Bernardino County and maybe California itself," Brown said during the news conference. "Individuals corrupted public office and were able to grab more than $100 million of the taxpayers money through this scheme."
Brown called the case "a shocking example of how money can corrupt the government process and not only bring government in discredit, but cost the taxpayers so much money at a time when people are being laid off and the state, cities and the county are facing a real fiscal crisis."
Erwin is charged with two counts of corrupt influencing, two counts of offering a bribe to a supervisor, two counts of extortion, one count of misappropriation of public funds and one count of forgery. He faces a maximum of 12 years in prison.
Postmus is charged with one count of accepting a bribe, one count of conflict of interest and one count of misappropriation of public funds. He faces up to eight years in prison if convicted.
At the time of his arrest, Postmus was found in possession of methamphetamine, an addiction he has been battling for more than three years. He has a pending drug possession charge in San Bernardino Superior Court.
"Also part of a conspiracy we have five unnamed and uncharged co-conspirators, two of whom began the scheme to obtain tax dollars by corrupt means," Ramos said.
He said conspiracy is two or more people agreeing to commit a crime, which requires at least one overt act to commit the crime.
The criminal complaint listed 45 overt acts, beginning in 2005 with a trip to China and ending with overt act 45, a forgery, by charged defendant Jim Erwin in 2008," Ramos said. "The overt acts will detail the threats, the extortion, the inducements and the bribery."
He identified two general partners of Rancho Cucamonga-based Colonies Partners, one media consultant for Colonies, one chief of staff for a county supervisor and a county supervisor as the co-conspirators, all identified as "John Does."
None of the five co-conspirators have been charged because prosecutors do not feel they have gathered enough evidence to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt in court, Ramos said.
The investigation, however, is far from over, Ramos said.
"I want to make this very very clear today, this is an ongoing investigation and things can change as to those uncharged co-conspirators," Ramos said.
In November 2006, the Board of Supervisors approved, after nearly four years of legal battle, the landmark $102 million settlement with Colonies Partners. Supervisors Bill Postmus, then the board chairman, Gary Ovitt and Paul Biane voted in favor of the settlement. The lawsuit stemmed from a dispute over costs for flood control improvements at the Colonies Crossroads residential and commercial development adjacent the 210 Freeway in Upland.
Within six months of the settlement, Colonies contributed $400,000 to political action committees tied to the three supervisors who voted in favor of the settlement and one operated by Erwin, who served as an intermediary on behalf of Colonies during the settlement negotiations.
Mark Kirk, Ovitt's chief of staff, ran one of the political action committees and took a $20,000 consultant fee once the contribution was received. Erwin also received a luxurious trip to New York City, a Rolex Daytona watch and the services of a prostitute from Burum for his role in the settlement negotiations, according to court records and officials law enforcement documents  
Get Out the Vote For Our Democratic Candidates! Club News Webmaster Sunday 24 January 2010 - 19:00:31
Lines to shift for I.E. politics: Area could gain clout in Congress Local News Webmaster Friday 01 January 2010 - 22:51:11
New Year...Great things to look forward to....shifts in lines may mean more Democratic congressional seats in the Inland Empire...
Lines to shift for I.E. politics: Area could gain clout in Congress
James Rufus Koren, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun, 12/20/2009, Front Page It's not clear who will redraw California's congressional districts in 2011, but it's a near certainty that the Inland Empire will have more seats in Congress once the new lines are in place, experts say.
Thanks to the state's partisan redistricting process, a new Inland Empire seat would likely be Democrat-controlled and would come at the expense of the Bay Area, which has grown much more slowly than San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
"It's probably going to be a regional shift of seats from north to south," said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College.
When new congressional districts were last drawn in 2001, all of California's 53 districts had roughly the same population. But a report from Claremont McKenna's Rose Institute of State and Local Politics shows that most of the Inland Empire's congressional districts are overpopulated while the Bay Area's are underpopulated.
Six Inland Empire districts - including the San Bernardino County districts held by Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino; Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands; and Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Santa Clarita - are among the most overpopulated in California.
The district held by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and the four districts surrounding it are among the state's most underpopulated.
In 2011, following the 2010 census, the state's congressional districts will be redrawn. Unlike the state's Assembly and Senate districts, which will be redrawn by an independent citizens commission, the congressional districts are set to be redrawn by the Democrat-controlled Legislature.
That means, Johnson said, Democrats will try to maintain or possibly increase the edge held by Democrats in the state's congressional delegation. Out of 53 seats in the state, 34 are held by Democrats and 19 by Republicans.
"There's a pretty good chance the Democrats will collapse a Democratic seat in the Bay area," said Doug Johnson, a scholar with Claremont McKenna College's Rose Institute of State and Local Government. "Then the top priority would be to draw a new Democratic seat somewhere else. That could be in the Inland Empire."
They'll do that by taking Democratic voters out of Republican-held districts and creating a new district, likely with a Latino majority.
The federal Voting Rights Act demands that, when redistricting, states try to draw districts that unite ethnic communities. With both San Bernardino County and the entire Inland Empire seeing huge growth among Latinos in the past decade, Pitney said the area is likely to see a new district that includes a Latino majority. Johnson expects to see a Democratic district created out of pieces of the Inland Empire's current districts. "They'll pull Democrats out of the Mary Bono Mack seat (R-Palm Springs), out of the David Dreier seat (R-San Dimas) and the Lewis seat and create a new seat that's Democratic," he said.
That would give Democrats a new seat and preserve their grip on the state's congressional delegation, but Pitney said Republicans might go along because drawing a new Democratic district - especially if it's a Latino majority district - would make today's Republican districts even more solidly Republican.
"Republican incumbents would be happy to see another Democratic district drawn in the area if it makes them more secure," Pitney said. "It really wouldn't change the partisan balance, but it would make existing Republican districts more Republican."
This all assumes the Legislature remains in charge of redistricting. Last year, California voters approved a ballot measure that put the state Legislature's redistricting process in the hands of a citizens commission. A similar measure, if approved in 2010, would do the same for congressional redistricting.
If that happens, Johnson said the focus likely wouldn't be on maintaining current party majorities or adjusting existing lines, but drawing completely new districts aimed at uniting communities with similar interests. New congressional districts might not seem that important, Johnson said, but district boundaries can have a huge impact on how lawmakers look at an area.
Communities that form the bulk of a representative's district are likely to get more attention - and more federally-funded projects - than a community or section of a community that amounts to only a small fraction of a district, he said.
"A good local example is the San Gabriel Valley," Johnson said. "The whole reason why the Gold Line (light rail line) has stalled in Pasadena and has not been built out to Pomona is that the whole San Gabriel Valley has been sliced and diced."
Five members of Congress represent various parts of the San Gabriel Valley, Johnson said, but many of those districts include more populated areas closer to Los Angeles.
"They're repped by people whose bases are in East L.A. or in Norwalk," he said.
To some extent, that's true in parts of San Bernardino County. San Bernardino, Fontana, Victorville and other cities are split between two districts. That's not likely to change if the Legislature handles the 2011 redistricting, Johnson said.
Assuming the Legislature is in charge, he said San Bernardino County and its new Democratic majority might be subdivided to help spread Democrats into other districts.
"What might benefit Democrats statewide might not benefit Democrats in San Bernardino County," Johnson said. "Instead of seeing another compact San Bernardino County district, you could see Buck McKeon extending more into San Bernardino County, or it could be a Central Valley person coming down. There's a lot of fingers that could come in from other areas."
Rep. Baca says woes are fault of Republicans Local News Webmaster Wednesday 11 March 2009 - 12:15:53
Rep. Baca says woes are fault of Republicans By Josh Dulaney, Staff Writer, San Bernardino Sun Posted: 10/09/2008 08:03:18 PM PDTRep. Joe Baca said Wednesday voters should re-elect him to the 43rd District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives because the Rialto Democrat has the personal and political experience needed in these difficult days.
An Army veteran of the Vietnam War era, Baca was clear in his opposition to President Bush's policy in Iraq.
"We need to say it's time to withdraw; it's time to bring back our troops," Baca said. "Right now, we got into a war we never should've got into." Baca voted for the second version of the economic bailout that was passed by Congress last week and signed by President Bush.
The blame for the financial crisis rests on Republicans who failed to regulate the lending industry while they controlled Congress and the White House, he said.
"They knew the tornado was coming," Baca said. "We had to turn around and do something, and we (Democrats) hated it." Baca, who serves on the House Finance Committee, said Republicans blocked meaningful mortgage legislation for 12 years after gaining control of the House.
"It's not my fault or the chair of the committee's fault," Baca said of Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.
He said a bill he introduced last year mirrors Republican presidential candidate John McCain's proposal for the federal government to buy back bad mortgages.
As chairman of the House Subcommittee on Department operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry, Baca voted to increase funding by $1.26billion for the emergency food-assistance program, a title passed in the 2008 Farm Bill.
He supports extending unemployment insurance and increasing food-stamp benefits to poor families.
"With food stamps in my own personal life, I know what it was like and so was able to convince people we needed to ensure that we provided for the 38 million people going hungry in the United States," Baca said.
He said he would continue to work to make health care more accessible and affordable in the district, one of the poorest in the state.
Baca said things get done in Washington, D.C., because of seniority, which is lacked by his Republican challenger, Councilman John Roberts from Fontana.
"That's how you get the committee assignments; that's how you climb the ladder and deal with issues that are important to a lot of us," Baca said.
"Anybody who gets elected goes to the end of the line."
JOE BACA
On the economy: Baca said the blame rests with predatory lenders and a Republican House that for 12 years refused to regulate the lending industry.
On Iraq: Baca said it's a war we should never have entered into. He wants a timetable for troop withdrawal.
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