New Twist in the Tale of Tres Hermanos Ranch

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported in yesterday's edition that the City of Industry city council voted to issue a rare municipal subpoena for records from the company that oversaw early stage planning for a proposed solar farm at Tres Hermanos Ranch in Tonner Canyon directly north of Carbon Canyon.

The documents were needed, the city stated, to hand over as part of lawsuits filed against it by the cities of Chino Hills and Diamond Bar to halt the sale of the ranch, but San Gabriel Valley Water and Power, LLC had not produced them as requested previously.  The firm was paid the $20 million in loans that the council set as the upper limit for what it could receive as part of the contract and then continued submitting invoices, which were rejected.

The issue is not just over the documents, but a wrinkle arose within the council as Industry Mayor Mark Radecki and Abraham Cruz, whom the paper described as the mayor's ally, did not attend the meeting called to vote on the subpoena and refused to sign it.  Radecki stated that he believed the meeting to be illegal, but the three-person majority continued with the process and voted to issue the subpoena, also passing a resolution giving Mayor pro-tem Cory Moss the authority to sign the document.  Statute requires the signatures of the mayor and city clerk.

For more on the story, here is the article.