Category: Inland Empire

The Ontario Chaffey Community Show Band will present “An Evening at the Pops,” a concert of music from the concert hall and world of popular music, 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 15, at the Merton E. Hill Auditorium on the campus of Chaffey High School, 1245 N. Euclid Ave., Ontario. Admission is free, and before the concert, the Woodwind Celebration Ensemble will perform at 7 p.m. in the lobby, where coffee and cookies will be available. Featured soloists from the band will be Gary Simpson, Trisha Molina, Francisco Mowatt, Natasha Le and John Holguin. Gary Simpson, a trumpeter in the band, has made an arrangement of the first movement of Franz Joseph Haydn’s 1796 Concerto per il Clarino (Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major), and he will solo in the band’s performance of that piece, according to a news release. Flutist Trisha Molina will be featured in her original composition “Libertango,” a piece for flute and alto flute that breaks away from the traditional tango. Francisco Mowatt will play an alto saxophone solo in “Never Let Me Go,” a ballad from the 1950s popularized by Nancy Wilson

Grammy Award-winning jazz musician and band leader Gordon Goodwin, a 1973 graduate of Bonita High School, returned to the Bonita Unified School District with his Big Phat Band for a March 16 concert that showcased All-District Jazz Ensemble musicians and served as a tribute to longtime Bonita High School music teacher Robin Snyder. At the event at the Bonita Center for the Arts in San Dimas, Goodwin performed with All-District players during their opening set, then led a nearly two-hour performance with his 19-member group. In between pieces, Goodwin reminisced about his years at Bonita High School and how the late Robin Snyder helped develop his career. “This is a true honor for me to come back and play with a new generation of jazz players,” Goodwin said at the event, according to a news release. “When I walked into the Bonita band room after 50 years, it just seemed so familiar, like I had never been gone. It’s surreal to be able to look back at your life and see how it all fell into place.” Goodwin’s appearance was spurred by a chance meeting

Pasadena residents can safely get rid of broken or unwanted electronics at a free e-waste event, the city announced. Paper shredding to help curb identity theft will also be available at the event, which is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Parking Lot I outside the Rose Bowl Stadium near Brookside Park, 360 N. Arroyo Blvd. According to the city, electronic waste items include computers, keyboards, printers, monitors, laptops, docking stations, scanners, shredders, fax machines, computer mice, telephones, televisions, flat screens, VCRs, DVD players, PDAs, cassette players, tape drives and stereos. Residents can also bring household batteries, fluorescent light bulbs and LED light bulbs for safe disposal. “These items should never be disposed of in your trash or recycling containers,” city officials said in a statement. The event, organized by the Pasadena Public Works Department also aims to help help prevent identity theft with free paper shredding, officials said. City residents can bring as many as three legal-size boxes for shredding. Items acceptable for shredding include sensitive documents such as receipts, checks, pre-approved credit applications, credit card statements, outdated tax returns, pre-printed envelopes, return

By Greg Archer | Contributing Columnist Hazel’s Hands, a nonprofit in Eastvale, which offers resources, services, and leadership for at-risk youth and their families, is expanding its reach. President and CEO Dr. Tyrone Spears and a team of executives, board members, and volunteers hope to achieve the 2024 fundraising goal of $30,000. “We’re 100% donor funded, so everything we operate is through donations and/or grants,” Spears said. “Our target population is youth in foster care, kinship, and aged-out foster youth. We work directly with foster family agencies, group homes, or, as they are now called, short-term therapeutic residential living.” We provide resources “in the form of the residential needs, and for the transitional age foster youth, we help them with their daily needs.” In addition to focusing on housing needs of youths, the organization also offers assistance with food and education resources. “If there’s food insecurity, we provide gift cards for food,” Spears said. “We’ve provided laptops for those that are in college who don’t receive a laptop from the institution. And for foster youth, we have two main programs.” One of them is called

Los Angeles County’s two largest juvenile detention facilities, at risk of closure for failing to meet minimum standards of safety and care, won a last-minute reprieve Thursday, April 11, when state regulators allowed them to remain open. The Board of State and Community Corrections, the regulatory board overseeing California’s prisons and juvenile halls, voted to lift its “unsuitable” designation for both Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey and the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility in Sylmar. Both facilities could have been forced to shut down April 16 because of failed inspections over the past year, though no backup plan existed to relocate the hundreds of youths housed there. “No way should this be considered by anybody in our virtual audience, or in this room, as ‘Mission Accomplished’ by L.A.,” said BSCC chair Linda Penner, the former chief probation officer for Fresno County. “Your mission now is sustainability and durability. We need continued compliance.” The vote passed by a much more narrow margin than is typical for the board, with only six of the 13 board members offering support. Three voted against it, saying

Los Angeles County’s two largest juvenile detention facilities, at risk of closure for failing to meet minimum standards of safety and care, won a last-minute reprieve Thursday, April 11, when state regulators allowed them to remain open. The Board of State and Community Corrections, the regulatory board overseeing California’s prisons and juvenile halls, voted to lift its “unsuitable” designation for both Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey and the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility in Sylmar. Both facilities could have been forced to shut down April 16 because of failed inspections over the past year, though no backup plan existed to relocate the hundreds of youths housed there. “No way should this be considered by anybody in our virtual audience, or in this room, as ‘Mission Accomplished’ by L.A.,” said BSCC chair Linda Penner, the former chief probation officer for Fresno County. “Your mission now is sustainability and durability. We need continued compliance.” The vote passed by a much more narrow margin than is typical for the board, with only six of the 13 board members offering support. Three voted against it, saying

The post Arcadia Weekly_4/11/2024 appeared first on Hey SoCal. Change is our intention..

Los Angeles County’s two largest juvenile detention facilities, at risk of closure for failing to meet minimum standards of safety and care, won a last-minute reprieve Thursday, April 11, when state regulators allowed them to remain open. The Board of State and Community Corrections, the regulatory board overseeing California’s prisons and juvenile halls, voted to lift its “unsuitable” designation for both Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey and the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility in Sylmar. Both facilities could have been forced to shut down April 16 because of failed inspections over the past year, though no backup plan existed to relocate the hundreds of youths housed there. “No way should this be considered by anybody in our virtual audience, or in this room, as ‘Mission Accomplished’ by L.A.,” said BSCC chair Linda Penner, the former chief probation officer for Fresno County. “Your mission now is sustainability and durability. We need continued compliance.” The vote passed by a much more narrow margin than is typical for the board, with only six of the 13 board members offering support. Three voted against it, saying

The post Monrovia Weekly_4/11/2024 appeared first on Hey SoCal. Change is our intention..

The post Pasadena Independent_4/11/2024 appeared first on Hey SoCal. Change is our intention..

Gil Navarro is seen Oct. 14, 2003, during his campaign for the San Bernardino City Unified School District board. He died Saturday, April 6, 2024, at age 81. (File photo by Greg Vojtko, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) Inland Empire activist and student advocate Gil Navarro has died. Navarro, 81, died Saturday, April 6, at St. Bernardine Medical Center in San Bernardino, according to his family. Although he was a Navy veteran, Navarro had worked at the corporate office for Carl’s Jr. and for IBM, owned a taxes and bookkeeping business and a mailbox business and was a notary. But he is best known for his advocacy work. The longtime San Bernardino resident, who previously lived in Riverside, spent the past three decades holding public school districts and other local government agencies accountable across the Inland Empire. Though he often pushed school districts on policy or economic issues, he was most often seen fighting for the rights of individual students. “My eldest brother was the first one to get in trouble” in 1990, said his son, Joe Navarro, who is now president of the Jurupa school board. “Some

More than 650 student musicians from throughout San Bernardino County were selected to perform in three recent honor concerts. The concerts are sponsored by the Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools in partnership with the San Bernardino County Music Educators Association. To qualify for a spot in one of the honor concerts, students audition in front of professional musicians. The students chosen for the honor concerts then have three rehearsals together before their performances, according to a news release. More than 300 student musicians performed during the Basin Honor Bands concert held Feb. 10 in Memorial Chapel on the University of Redlands campus. Directing the bands at that concert were retired music teacher Robert Barton, conducting the elementary band; music teacher Scott Bonner, conducting the middle school band; and Gregory Whitmore, conductor of the University Symphonic Winds at Cal State Fullerton, conducting the high school band. Nearly 200 students performed in the High Desert Honor Bands concert, held Feb. 24 at Oak Hills High School. Directors for that concert were retired music teacher Leonard Narumi, leading the elementary band; Dan Barilone, a U.S. Army School of

It’s rare that I attend a council meeting in Riverside, but I decided to show up Wednesday, given the situation. Post-election, three council members were leaving and three replacements would be sworn in. During the afternoon session came a few last blasts from regular critics. Contract extensions for City Manager Mike Futrell and City Attorney Phaedra Norton were on the agenda. Several speakers griped about transparency, backroom deals, timing, “optics” and lame-duck decisions. RELATED: Riverside’s new city council looks different. Will it matter? “There’s a reason some of you aren’t coming back to the council or didn’t go on to higher office,” one woman said tartly. Two of the outgoing councilmembers had had enough. “I definitely won’t miss this,” Gaby Plascencia said of the criticism. Ronaldo Fierro seemed to be beyond his last nerve. The extensions have been talked about for months, he said. Council members’ job is to make decisions up to their last meeting. Outgoing U.S. presidents pardon people — “not that this is like that,” Fierro hastened to say, thinking better of his own analogy. Fierro wondered aloud if there was a

Los Angeles County has passed two critical inspections necessary to potentially avoid the closure of two troubled juvenile detention facilities and the relocation of hundreds of youth in the county’s custody. Staff at the Board of State and Community Corrections, the regulatory body that oversees California’s prisons and juvenile halls, say the two county-run facilities, Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey and the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility in Sylmar, have come back into compliance with the state’s minimum standards after having repeatedly failed inspections over the past eight months. The agency’s inspectors now are recommending the board vote at its meeting Thursday, April 11, to reverse an earlier decision that would, if left unchanged, force the closure of both facilities on April 16. The board must make the final determination as to whether L.A. County has improved enough to avoid the shutdown. State support likely History suggests the BSCC is likely to support keeping the facilities open. The agency has forced the closure of only two juvenile halls in its 12-year history, but in those cases, which also involved Los Angeles County

Veteran San Bernardino County sheriff’s Deputy Christopher Bingham made one thing clear during an interview Wednesday at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga: he is not a member of the Mongols outlaw motorcycle gang. “It’s insane. One-hundred percent I am not a Mongols gang member,” said Bingham, 45, who was clad in a green jail jumpsuit and sitting behind a glass partition in the cell block at the jail he has been housed in since his April 4 arrest. During his arraignment Tuesday, April 9, in San Bernardino Superior Court, the Twentynine Palms man pleaded not guilty to 10 felony charges, including grand theft of a Remington 870 shotgun, allegedly stolen from the Sheriff’s Department, possession of a machine gun, a short-barreled AR-15 assault rifle, two projectile explosive devices and four gun silencers. He is being held on $240,000 bail and was ordered to return to court April 18 for a preliminary hearing. In his only interview with the media since his arrest, Bingham confirmed Wednesday he will exercise his right to have a preliminary hearing within 10 days of his arraignment. During

The Colton City Council’s recent decision to approve modifications to the zoning entitlements for the Agua Mansa Logistics Center, located at 1400 and 1500 Agua Mansa Road and led by IDI Logistics, has ignited a firestorm of controversy among local residents and city officials. The modifications, which include changes to the street width and drainage plans for Agua Mansa Road, have raised serious concerns about public safety, infrastructure, and the city’s commitment to its citizens. In a contentious council meeting, Resolutions R-15-24, R-16-24, and R-17-24 were passed, allowing for a reduction in the originally required street dedication width from 90 feet to a 66-foot half-street width. This decision marks a significant departure from the city’s initial requirement for a full street right of way, a change attributed to what Development Services Director Heidi Duron described as a “staff error.” “The most the City can require the developer to dedicate is sufficient right-of-way to provide for a half-street width along their project frontage, which is 45 feet,” Duron explained. “The inclusion of the requirement for full-width improvements was a staff error.” The approved modifications entail constructing

The first action of the new Riverside City Council was to potentially reverse a move by the previous one. Riverside’s outgoing council voted Tuesday, April 9, to extend employment agreements with the city attorney and city manager. But hours later — after three new members were sworn in — the new council decided to reconsider the pacts at a future meeting. At the council’s afternoon session, a four-year agreement and an annual pay increase of about $49,500 for City Attorney Phaedra Norton won unanimous approval. And a three-year extension of City Manager Mike Futrell’s agreement was approved 6-1. Riverside City Manager Mike Futrell is seen during the Tuesday, April 9, 2024, Riverside City Council meeting. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) Riverside City Attorney Phaedra Norton is seen during the Tuesday, April 9, 2024, Riverside City Council meeting. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) Ward 4 Riverside City Councilmember Chuck Conder speaks from Washington, D.C. during the Tuesday, April 9, 2024, meeting. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) Riverside City Attorney Phaedra Norton, left, talks with City Manager Mike Futrell during the Tuesday, April 9

Pasadena is appealing to the public for information related to recent thefts of bronze light poles. (Courtesy of City of Pasadena) Pasadena is appealing to the public for information related to recent thefts of bronze light poles, some of which have historical significance dating back to the 1920s. Approximately 11 bronze street lamp posts have been stolen in the last week, said Lisa Derderian, a city spokesperson. “Vehicles are used to intentionally ram the light poles, and then the entire pole is stolen by the suspects,” she said. Most of the recent incidents occurred along South Orange Grove Boulevard between Green and State streets. The first theft took place on Saturday, March 29, with the most recent occurring Monday night. Typically, they take place between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m., Derderian said. The recent incidents are part of a trend that initially started with stealing copper wire, which prompted collaboration between Pasadena officials and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to offer rewards for catching the thieves. After the police made an arrest in connection with the copper wire thefts, the incidents appeared to