After Robert Vasseur wrote another one of his indiscernible rants in a letter to the editor where he resorts to his usual meandering and always irrelevant attacks on me, local Attorney Bob Conaway responded with a letter of his own.
Mr. Conaway poignantly defended my constitutional rights to free speech and the right to dissent. Just like any elected officials, attorneys take an oath to defend and uphold the U.S. Constitution.
Thank you Bob for taking that oath seriously and being counted on the side of Free Speech!
Robert Vasseur’s letter to the editor (”City manager’s removal might be justified,” Nov. 19) highlights one of the current problems facing this country — a tendency to try and make dissension and or vigorous debate something which is partisan. That we have dissension at City Council meetings is patriotism in play.
I have met the city manager, Mr. Rodriguez, and I believe he has the qualifications to serve Barstow well based on a solid resume of prior experience. If there are other problems we aren’t being told about, I suppose the Brown Act can be blamed, but whether the blame is somewhere else or not, people like Larry Halstead have a right to voice that opinion.
As long as Larry lives in Barstow, he has a constitutional right in public comment periods to criticize government operations and leaders in Barstow. As a regional director for the California Democratic Party, I have sat in council chambers and have heard Larry make it clear that while he is a member and president of a local democratic club, he does not speak for the state party and as a California Democratic Party state officer, I can assure Mr. Vasseur the Democratic Party is not organizing nor supporting a recall in Barstow nor is there anything going on except for the usual voter education process and the get-out-the-vote drives for the upcoming elections.
Barstow, party affiliations aside, appears to suffer from less than full and honest disclosure of what government is doing or thinks it’s doing in the public interest, of insider dealing that dead-ends the city with nothing to show for it except busted tribal (and or Chinese business) deals and or financing agreements (and a fat bill for attorney fees, costs, spent staff time), a sewage spill that could have been avoided (along with the fat fines the city had to pay) ... and well I could go on.
I do respect the work and dedication of Barstow’s city employees and elected leaders. I only wish Larry Halstead’s first amendment right to criticize was similarly respected, not because he is a Democrat, but because he is a fellow American.
Bob Conaway Hinkley
"Bob Conaway's letter to the editor here is really good and to the point. The establishment never likes a whistle blower and Larry Halstead is a whistle blower when it comes to the iniquities of the Barstow establishment. Of course there will be name callers who lack substance and couldn't argue their way out of a brown paper bag, but Larry will still be there doing his patriotic duty by blowing the whistle on this crooked city establishment. Dissent is the highest form of patriotism and Larry certainly is dissenting from our current political situation in Barstow. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that and all of Larry's critics can just sit and meditate on what it means to exercise one's constitutional freedoms in this country.
Jeffrey Quillinan
In response to someone hiding behind the pseudo name of Splixx, who left a stupid comment left on the Desert Dispatch website in regard to the above letter, Jeffrey Quillinan left the following comment:
"Larry is no joke and Larry is not just "out for himself" as Splixx alleges here. I vouch for Larry's honesty in his attempts to warn Barstow of the underhanded dealings of our present City Council with regards to Barwest. Larry is a good citizens and true patriot. Splixx doesn't know what he is talking about when he posts negative things about Larry Halstead. That much is truly evident by his vitriolic nonsense here."
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.
Shackford Apologies for not Recognizing Brown Act Violation
The Editor of the Desert Dispatch was dismissive when the violation was first brought to his attention, after some consideration he realized that the law was violated and that there are even more serious ramifications of the Council’s Transgressions.
Apparently former Barstow Mayor and City Councilman Gil Gurule had contacted Shackford to give him a heads up that while the four members of the Council were supposed to be attending the League of CA Cities Conference in Sacramento, they were actually playing hooky and spending their time lobbying on behalf of Barwest.
The fact that all four members of the Council were meeting behind closed doors in the Governor’s office, lobbying, setting policy, and negotiating upon their special interests was something that Shackford wasn’t interested in when Gurule first brought it to his attention. But after the matter exploded into view at the Council meeting on Sept 17, Shackford had an awakening and to his credit was man enough to offer up an apology. Here is what the paper’s editor had to say on his "Editor's Blog" at DesertDispatch.com:
It looks like I owe Manuel “Gil” Gurule an apology.
He called me at the end of last week about the casino happenings (and lack thereof) in Sacramento. His intention was to point out to me that the meetings between the governor’s staff and four City Council members may have been a Brown Act violation. The Brown Act is California’s public meeting law, which is intended to make sure that local governmental meetings and decisions (with some exceptions) happen in a public forum, with the community appropriately notified.
I blame casino outrage fatigue for not listening, though it’s really a lousy excuse. City Council members aren’t supposed to gather in large enough numbers to define a quorum — three or more in this case — without public notification of the meeting. Their meeting in Sacramento is most likely a Brown Act violation, though they amended the situation by reporting out the content of the meeting at the subsequent City Council meeting Monday.
I was dismissive of Mr. Gurule’s call, because I’ve grown tired of folks on both sides finding ways to pick pick pick at their opponents and trying to get the newspaper involved. I’ve also been made increasingly aware by our readership that most folks out there don’t care about the squabbling, just the results.
But while this particular Brown Act violation was fairly mild — they were just there to receive information, it appears, not to plan anything — there are potential serious repercussions when this happens. What other meetings could have taken place in Sacramento without our knowledge? Could there have been strategy sessions to deal with opposition to one project? Could they have discussed dumping the city’s agreement with one tribe or the other? These are all potential discussion subjects that are obligated to happen in public.
So I apologize for letting my frustration with the nature of this debate cloud my perception about what is happening in Sacramento. Gurule was absolutely right to be concerned and I appreciate his call, in retrospect.
As is often the case, The Verifiable Truth had it first. What, you were thinking you would hear about it first from the Desert Dispatch? Yeah right! Snap out of it.
You didn’t have to be psychic to predict this outcome. The only place that you could find anyone that believed in the ratification of these compacts was in the fantasy land of Barstow, home to the BarWest Kool-aid Club. Only there can you find people that ignore conventional political wisdom and buy into the lying spin being generated by BarWest Liar-in-Chief, Tom Shields.
And I am not sure that even they really believe it but when your under the influence of the greed-tainted Kool-aid, it is too traumatic to recognize reality even when you are being challenged with it from a big mouth like mine. A couple months ago, I challenged the Barstow City Council and the Kool-aid Club to find one single objective person who believed that the compacts stood a snow ball chance in hell of passing.
Watch the video
More recently, even the city’s own lobbyist, Nick Medeiros, was reporting that the compacts would die and was blaming the Governor’s total “lack of enthusiasm” as the principal target for the failure of the compacts. And this despite that the Governor’s signature on the compacts was touted as the number one reason that local redneck hillbillies and sell out politicians were using as their best reason for wanting to violate the Ancestral Rights of legitimate local tribes like the Chemehuevi.
Of course the ONLY real news here is that in an act of euthanasia, one of the two authors of the bill, Senator Wiggins, pulled the plug on the bill a full ten days prior to the compacts natural death when they were scheduled to expire on September 17.
One can only speculate as to why she held the pillow over this terminal patient and choked the last breath out prematurely. Since we are unlikely to ever get the real story out of Senator Wiggins, and we know we will never get the truth out of the BarWest politicians in Barstow, let us take a moment to speculate shall we?
1. Could it be that the Senator has suddenly come to her senses about her role in the assault on the Ancestral Rights of the legitimate local tribes of Barstow and is now embarrassed that as a Democrat she has abandoned the core Democrat values of standing up for Indian Sovereignty? 2. Could it be that she could no longer justify her involvement in the BarWest schemes after Big Lagoon Chairman Virgil Moorehead announced a couple of months ago that he was pulling out of the BarWest con game in pursuit of a legitimate casino project in Big Lagoon country? 3. Could it be that she no longer wants to be associated with sell out politicians like Mayor Dale, Council Member Hackbarth-Silva, and Councilman Silva or sleazy, lying, political hacks like Tom Shields? 4. Or is it possible that with the on-going investigations into the multiple campaign violations of BarWest partner Michael Malik by the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) which could easily implicate her as the top out-of-state donor to Wiggins 2006 campaign just prior to her signing on as one of the two authors of SB 157 the BarWest Compact legislation?
Fresh after paying a $6,500 fine for failing to report a $26,600 contribution to then Congressman Richard Pombo's County GOP Committee, Malik was desperate to find a last minute stooge to author his Reservation Shopping Bill. Now, amongst other issues, the FPPC is also investigating the fact that Malik made two contributions to Sen. Wiggins campaign in the Fall of 2006 which he again failed to report to the FPPC and which exceeded the aggregate amount he could contribute to Wiggins in the last election cycle. Malik was the top out of state donor to Wiggins 2006 campaign.
All of this has left Barstow officials scampering for cover since any comprehensive investigations will inevitably lead to the City of Barstow. And we have already documented inconsistencies, under reporting and other wrong doing in the BarWest meddling in our election process and the death of local democracy.
But by now, nobody expects that we have seen the last of Tom Shields and the BarWest thirst for Reservation Shopping schemes. As the saying goes: “you break it, you own it”. With hundreds of thousands of dollars that BarWest has spent buying politicians and influence in Barstow, we know that the billionaire Detroit developer doesn’t plan on pulling up stakes this soon.
Many of us have been speculating as to what the ‘Plan B’ will be for the local chapter of the BarWest Kool-aid Club that they have in motion, once it was uncovered that Big Lagoon would no longer be part of their schemes. But even before that, we knew that they were leaving the door open for other possibilities. BarWest was never in any hurry to turn the land over to the tribes and the sign announcing the project never bore the names of the two tribes.
"Barwest Gaming" sign in Barstow but no tribe names Now Big Lagoon is gone and Los Coyotes don't qaulify for a 'stand-along' project
Now they have an eleventh hour media blitz that they are running in selective districts where key legislators reside.
Watch the Video
However, even as the Barstow politicians were embarrassing themselves and the city by acting like paid lobbyist and pawns in Sacramento, BarWest and Los Coyotes were working on a stand-alone project for the Los Coyotes tribe. This despite the fact that the Governor is tired of this whole albatross that has dragged him through the BarWest Reservation Shopping mud and has already ruled that the Los Coyotes do not qualify for a stand-alone project in Barstow.
On September 5, while Barstow’s sell out politicians were knocking on doors in Sacramento, John Myers of KQED reported on his “Capitol Notes” that the Los Coyotes has reopened negotiations with Governor Schwarzenegger’s office for a stand-alone project. He also reports confirms what we have been saying for awhile now. The Governor was stuck with this albatross insider deal.
His lack of enthusiasm stems from his strong stance that the Governor took against the evil of Reservation Shopping prior to getting suckered into signing the compacts. Even the Big Lagoon Chairman came to understand that the Governor didn't really want it and neither did the local tribes and that it was a bad idea all along. I feel that by moving ahead on his own Ancestral lands Chairman Moorehead takes the honorable path and restores any integrity that the tribe might have loss due to their mere association with this greedy Detroit developer.
"Meantime, the vice-chairman of San Diego's Los Coyotes, Shane Chapparosa, told reporters that his tribe has now begun separate negotiations with the governor's office for a solo Barstow casino. The governor's office won't confirm whether that's the case."
At a news conference this morning at the state Capitol, the tribes announced an 11th hour media campaign, with a TV ad that they say will be broadcast in Sacramento, the Bay Area, and Los Angeles over the next few days.
But there's no indication that the casino deals will be ratified before legislators adjourn for the year early next week. While the two tribes signed formal casino compacts with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005, those compacts have been in limbo in the Legislature ever since. Critics say the projects might set a precedent for tribal casinos on non-tribal land. And several politically powerful tribes in southern California say that's why they oppose the casino deal -- even though Los Coyotes and Big Lagoon accuse those tribes of being more concerned about casino competition in the region.
So what's happened since late May?
"A lot's happened," said Big Lagoon chairman Virgil Moorehead, alluding to the ratification of amended casino deals for some of the tribes opposing his project.
"Our [compact] got pushed down, kind of to the bottom of the barrel. Why did it get pushed down to the bottom of the barrel? Because these tribes don't want us down there.
Moorehead also said he thinks Schwarzenegger hasn't done enough to cajole legislators into ratifying the deal, an accusation the governor's office disputes.
Meantime, the vice-chairman of San Diego's Los Coyotes,Shane Chapparosa, told reporters that his tribe has now begun separate negotiations with the governor's office for a solo Barstow casino. The governor's office won't confirm whether that's the case."
All of this is going to be great fodder for major fireworks at the up-coming September 17 Barstow City Council which just happens to be the date that the compacts were scheduled to expire on their own. Ah, only in Barstow!
Be careful of what you do in the dark, as it WILL be revealed in the light!
Mayor Dale held a hastily called 'Special Meeting' on Tuesday, August 28 at 3pm. The word went out through the community that Dale was going to use the power of his three vote coalition to shit-can City Manager Hector Rodriguez. Dale never liked him and voted against his confirmation. He has been working overtime to undermine him ever since. More on this in another post but leave it to say here that the Council Chambers were packed with Rodriguez supporter representing a wide spectrum of the community. Included in the audience was former Council Members Gloria Darling, Helen Runyon, and Gil Gurule. After blasting the Mayor for trying to get rid of our much beloved City Manager the audience went to the lobby to await the outcome of the closed session.
When the Council resumed the open session, it was announced that the matter of the City Manager’s job status would be continued. The Mayor then skipped ahead to another highly contentious issue, the MicroMedia contract which was the real story behind his attempted firing of the City Manager. Between the two of these agenda items the Mayor was well on his way to having the worst meeting of his life if not the worst day of his life.
But then came the big bomb shell of the night during Council Reports. (see 51:45 in the "Following Closed Session" video). Joe Gomez took the mayor to task on his unauthorized letter of August 21 that he unilaterally sent to the U. S. Dept of the Interior. The letter written on City stationary, was referenced as "Re: The Chemehuevi Tribe's Recent Assault on Barstow" The three page letter is a vicious attack on the Chemehuevi and their claims of Ancestral Rights in the Barstow area.
Councilman Gomez reported that he had confronted the Mayor on August 20 when the Mayor had showed him the letter and before it was mailed. He had put the Mayor on notice that he could not send a letter out like that on his own and that he must get approval from the Council at large. This goes way beyond a breach of ethics and may well be a violation of government codes.
Joe continued to chastise the mayor for sending the letter on city stationary for over five minutes. He told him that he had warned him not to send it and that the mayor was getting in the way of Barstow ever getting a casino. Since the BarWest Compacts are DEAD by ALL accounts except within the BarWest Kool-Aid Club, the Chemehuevi casino project is the only hope left for Barstow to ever see a resort casino project in this city. Furthermore, Joe told the mayor that he was inviting a lawsuit from the Chemehuevi. Joe had copies of the letter along with a memo from the Nick Mederios (the city's lobbyist), a letter from Tribal Alliance of Sovereign Indian Nations (TASIN), and a letter from Chairman Wood, which he made available for circulation.
A red-faced, pissed off Dale sat and listened while Councilman Gomez leveled charges that could well be the death blow to Dale’s sorry, and in my opinion, corrupt career. At the conclusion of this explosive revelation, Dale asks: “Are you done with your comments? I intend to respond, I just want to make sure you are done with your comments.” Dale then turns to Councilman Curran for him to give his comments under Council Reports. While Steve had yet had a chance to read the letter, he chimed in that as the head of ethics for the council, he had issues with the mayor sending out the letter and agreed with everything that Gomez had said about it.
When the mayor finally responded (see 1:1:35 in the "Following Closed Session" video).He stood by his decision to send the letter and during the comments he was looking straight at me. I was on the front row and I started laughing at the ridiculous hypocrisy of his comments. The mayor noticed and remarked about my laughing and I can be heard to shout hypocrite at him. He said it wasn't hypocritical and said that he does not regret sending the letter.
The audience was in shock by this whole revelation and everyone sat with their jaw dropped. I believe that this was the beginning of the end for this mayor. It was easily his worse night ever. It was a beautiful thing to witness. There is consensus that it is a total impossibility that the mayor wrote this letter. I have been told that Dale only has a sixth grade education, He simply doesn't have the talent that Tom shields does and the letter reflects Tom's style. If you listen to the mayor, he sounds like a damn hillbilly as he totally slaughters the English languages with poor verb use and sentence structure like: "he done gone and..…”
Led by Shields and his accusations of me extorting him and the tribe, the BarWest Kool-Aid Club has been on a all out attack of me with allegations that I am a paid hack for “the other side” which he also refers to as “those wealthy greedy tribes.” But from the beginning, Dale has been working overtime to violate the Ancestral Rights of the rightful legitimate local tribes. BarWest has been flying him around in a Lear Jet on lobbying junkets. He has totally transformed the Council into a public relations firm for the truly greedy outside Detroit developer that specializes in the vile practice of Reservation Shopping that is the curse of all tribes that respect the concept of Indian Sovereignty.
In the process, Mayor Dale has been complicit with Shields in helping BarWest to buy influence, corrupt local leaders and compromise the institutions they represent. The good people of Barstow have been lied to and deceived at every turn as the mayor has divided the town and put at risk the chances that we may ever have a casino project in this town. As I told Larry that afternoon, he should not be lulled into a false sense of security. Even as we speak, plans are underway to file complaints with the District Attorney, the Grand Jury, the U. S. Attorney, and with the Attorney General of both CA and the U.S. I have ever reason to believe that this will all end with indictments, recalls, or both.
When it comes to protecting our democracy, the drum I beat the most is Public Oversight. That means you simply pay attention to what your elected officials are up to and that way you know when it is time to take action when things go awry. In Barstow, before the internet and before Councilman Joe Gomez made a push to get our meetings on the internet, the only way to conduct this Public Oversight was to get your butt off the couch, turn off the TV and spend hours at a time watching meetings that can often get boring on many of the agenda items. But after fighting Joe Gomez kept pushing the idea, we now have the luxury of watching the meeting in the comfort of your home or office. Best of all, if you miss them when they are live, you can see them whenever you want. To the technically challenged like myself, I have broken down the steps necessary to do just that.
How to View City Council Meetings
If you live in the City of Barstow and have cable TV, then you can watch the Meetings of the Barstow City Council, Planning Commission, and Fire District, live on Chanel 6 and later as reruns. Otherwise, you can view them on the internet along with the agenda for the next meeting as follows:
1. Go to the Barstow City Website - http://www.barstowca.org/ or Click Here.
2. On the horizontal directional bar, click on “City Government” and then on the drop down menu click on “City Council”
3. On the new window there is a menu at the left of the screen, click on “Agendas and Minutes”.
You will notice that the video for the Special Meeting of August 28, 2007 is broken into two different videos:
Special Meeting - Open Meeting Prior To Closed Session, Special Meeting - Continued Meeting Following Closed Session
Skipping ahead when watching the video - Underneath the video screen is a time bar that will allow you to move ahead to any point in the meeting. Just below that time bar on the right is a time counter which tells you how many hours, minutes, and seconds into the meeting. Between now and the time that am able to become technically able enough to record and edit relative portions of the video, I will direct you there by giving the exact time at which the comments occur. For example if I mention something that happened and I cite the time as: [2:43:26] In that example, the comments I am directing you to watch would be two hours, forty-three minutes, and twenty-six seconds into the meeting.
For your convenience, there is a drop down window under the video that will allow you to “Skip Ahead” to another agenda item in the meeting. The complete Agenda and other relative documents are on the right of your screen.
