Barstow is in Crisis with City Manger Firing

Barstow is in Crisis with City Manger Firing

City Manager Hector Rodriguez

The City of Barstow is under siege and is now in full blown crisis mode, while most citizens are either unaware or just don’t care. For two years or more now, I have been blowing the whistle about the climate of corruption that has been brought on by the influence peddling of Barwest. Now our worst nightmare has come true with the firing of the best City Manager we have ever had and the best asset we currently have going for us - Hector Rodriguez.

We now know that Barwest has spent a total of 19 million on their Barstow project. That is 19 million dollars in influence peddling in a city where most of that influence could have been bought for a fraction of that cost. Some of that money was spent on the purchase of the property for the project from the cronies that have been running this town forever and keeping this town economically depressed with their incompetence and self serving interest. Two of these cronies, the Hackbarths and the Currans, reinvested that money in a speculative manner by purchasing adjacent parcels to the Barwest project. Then Barwest as part of that deal elected their children onto the City Council to protect that investment. Barwest also made a deal with Tim Silva to sell out the City funded Chamber of Commerce in exchange for his seat on the Council.

Now the Barwest project has disintegrated into the toilet as well it should have and as I predicted. But in the process, Barwest and this Council’s blind allegiance has diminished the possibility that we will ever have a casino project. Tom Shields the liar in chief who claims over 300 political campaigns to his credit and boast that he could elect a rock, has proven total lack of any experience is not an obstacle to holding office in Barstow. In their campaign literature designed by Shady Shields, Tim and Julie were billed as “The Turnaround Team for Economic Development.” In reality, neither one of them has squat in the way of experience of any kind and neither has ever entertained an original idea in their life.

As a result, we now have a Council that is totally controlled by this corrupt Mayor. We have replaced local democracy with Dictator Dale and he has used that power to the advantage of his special interests. Canceling the HDR contract and replacing it with MicroMedia (with no proven tract record and not a single model of a waste water treatment system to their name), is an act that should have already cost Dale his job. MicroMedia is his special interest and it was wrong for Dale and his actions on their account have already been adjudicated as illegal by our City Attorney.

Our distinguished and honorable City Manager was the only one standing up to Dale and so our Mayor has been trying for some time to do away with him. With Dale’s buddy Ron Rector as our new City Manager the current level of local corruption will sky rocket and this town is doomed to have a Mayor who treats our city like a cheap whore. There is reason to believe that Hector was also discriminated on because he was NOT white, NOT Republican, and NOT part of the crony politics.

If this action is allowed to stand, this town is in big trouble. It is past time for the good citizens of Barstow to stand up to local special interest and the tyranny of Mayor Dale. It is time to throw the lot of them out and those who participated in Hector’s firing should be recalled and/or indicted. It is time for a citizen revolt to take back this town. I am calling for a protest movement and a boycott of Del Taco and Silva’s mortgage business as a good starting point.