Brad Mitzelfelt @ the Helm -- Does Anyone Smell a Long Term & Coordinated Land Grab in the Making??

Some food for thought for our million dollar man, Brad Mitzelfelt:
1. Litigation between VVEDA [Victor Valley Economic Authority--a interim step to what was rumored to be Terry Caldwell's & Jim Cox's dream of creating a supercity for the High Desert, which absorbed Adelanto, Hesperia, Phelan & Apple Valley under Victorville's leadership's control] & Adelanto; the litigation between VVEDA & Adelanto ends after an election changes the council mix to a pro-Victorville cadre, the water consultant for the Adelanto side in the Adelanto v VVEDA lawsuit (the former 3rd in command in the US EPA) mysteriously dies in his home before the case was to come to trial and the new Adelanto City leadership appoint an attorney to replace the attorney battling for Adelanto; the newly elected Adelanto City team appears to cave on the VVEDA litigation over the base/water rights despite Air Force records showing the U.S. Government considered Adelanto to be the owner of the water rights under the former Air Force base footprint (and in fact paid them for the water used!); shortly thereafter, Hesperia & Apple Valley pull out of VVEDA; Victorville develops the base, gives access to water for the power plant, makes plans for a power plant, gives water rights to a bottling plant(& the beat goes on).
P.S.
(A) Brad Mitzelfelt mentioned in the most recent County Supervisorial District Redistricting Workshop on June 17, 2011, that the Victor Valley should stay together because of the serious dialogue "about becoming one city"--mmh...revival or a continued battle plan??
(B) I served on an George AFB closure committee in the early 1990s where there were reports of all sorts of dangerous chemicals in the water from engine degreasing, JP-4 fuel additives, etc. I was inexplicably dropped off the Committee when I raised concerns about whether the plume was being properly characterized, the extent of the plume, where it was leaking into, what type of contaminants were involved (benzenes) & about low level radioactive waste (from medical equipment) tossed into the rip rap below the golf course potentially presenting a threat to the Mojave River; bad news about the water is not what Victorville wanted to hear;
2. MWA (the Mojave Water Agency, with an elected board that is far too developer & realtor friendly in this blogger's opinion) snatches up the pumping rights in a lawsuit against everyone using more than 10 acre feet a year along the Mojave River, whether or not the farmers & ranchers on the river could afford $75,000 to $100,000 in legal costs defending their water rights against being taken by MWA restrictions being imposed (which most could not afford); MWA takes control of pumping rights, implements ramp down penalties to family owned ranches and farms that did not plant until market prices changed and by that effectively seized historically owned water rights without compensation;
3. Victorville attempts to annex land along the Mojave via LAFCO, which Mitzelfelt serves on;
4. Victorville & Mitzelfelt push for the land swap with CEMEX for barren land to the North of the river which will involve, in order for there to be development, water from the Mojave basin
5. Adelanto's Re-Zones barren desert within its zone (which does not have enough water to develop)
6. San Bernardino County Flood Control does not repair the damage caused by runaway waters in their channels in the Oro Grande area, but instead is looking at getting a FEMA grant to buy everyone out and move them; Brad is pushing for the FEMA grant?
..
Common demon-inator. Brad Mitzelfelt (who sits on all the key boards, panels and commissions). What super Mensch(-es) does he serve? No one has ever done an in depth investigation into Brad Mitzelfelt's masters. Mitzelfelt is slick--in the middle of corruption & conflict of interest investigations, his wife gets reportedly a $80k/yr county job (she has now "quit"), he spent discretionary funds for political photo shoots for years (thankfully that just ended by a vote of the board), he muffles/chills potential critics (reporters) in the media by hiring them to serve on his field staff at salaries 2 to 3 times more than what they were getting paid working for their former employers, he was Postmus' chief of staff during all his tweeking & hospitalizations & aided in the cover-ups of the real Postmus. During the Colonies settlement process, who do you think ran the office and lobbied the other two members of the Board & their staff, yet Kirk gets prosecuted & Brad Mitzelfelt doesn't? Maybe its time for the mainstream media to ask the hard questions and quit lobbing soft pitches. Besides, what's with the bowl cut?

On Redisrtricting in San Bernardino County....

(1) Redistricting at the County level has an interesting factor thrown into the mix--keeping the Districts as close to what they were is a factor that the county's consultants have been asked to consider. Really what it boils down to is keep the advantage intact for the incumbents. For example, in what was a slip at the meeting last friday, one of the consultants referred to the numbers of voters as a factor---WRONG......its the total number of citizens, not the voters. That reveals a bias to
maintaining numbers for electability purposes;
(2) I believe a Voting Rights Act violation is in the making for the first district;
Barstow and Hesperia, on two different maps are carved out of the 1st Disrtrict--Barstow on one and Hesperia on the other; both cities have significant Hispanic populations and are being shipped, if the maps are approved "down the hill" where their votes will be diluted.

Does Anyone in this County Care About Our Election Laws???-- COUNTY REDISTRICTING OFF TO A BAD (maybe illegal) START

WHAT THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS SAID THEY'D BE DOING: The County's Press Release said that the Board of Supervisors will conduct its first redistricting workshop Tuesday, May 24, at 10 am, in the Covington Chambers of the County Government Center. ... On Tuesday the board will receive a presentation on the current population situation, consider a proposed set of redistricting criteria (not vote on them), discuss next steps, and hear comments from the public."
WHAT THEY DID: Pass a "RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING CRITERIA FOR THE 2011 COUNTY REDISTRICTING"
Of Interest: At the back table, the Resolution was not available to this attendee (even though the attendance was sparse and appeared to be mostly County or County-affiliated employees). One of the few members of the public present said he thought it was supposed to be a workshop and saw nothing which indicated an action item, and incredibly, our newest supervisor (Rutherford) made what I would call a belittling verbal smack down of that citizen's complaint (I guess Janice did not do to that demeanor class yet). Frankly, the guy from Yuciapa was absolutely right. I read the press release and saw nothing indicating a resolution was going to be on the agenda. If it was posted on even the door I do not recall.
PROBLEM: On the criterion list (and at the meeting) the County Supervisors gave lip service to the Federal Voting Rights Act and the various criteria California law requires, but they salted the process with protection of their seats by inserting as No. 6 "Each new district shall preserve the corresponding existing district's population and territory to the degree possible given the total criteria".
IMPRESSION:
1. The Supervisors insert, with MANDATORY language (the words "shall preserve the existing territory") a term/phrase that protects not the voters in a district but a "territory"-- the very language chosen shows what is wrong with the system--the incumbents view it as their "territory" & make a mandatory criteria the protection of their turf;
2. The discussion of the other terms was frustrated by the unavailability of the resolution or any staff reports to support the criterion chosen before the vote (I was handed the resolution AFTER the vote and frankly when I got up to speak, did not know a resolution was going to be voted on--I thought it was a workshop like stated in the press release);
3. The discussion misses inclusion of Prop 11's requirement that communities of interest be created which are defined by Prop 11 as "a contiguous population which share common social and economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation."
4. What criteria No. 3, adopted by the board speaks of, is a "contiguous territory", not population as Prop 11 requires--there's that its my territory stuff again;
5. NO WHERE in the criterion adopted by the County Board does it refer to "population sharing common social and economic interests"!--opps
BAD START--MAYBE EVEN AN UNLAWFUL ONE!