State Highway 142 Rehabilitation Project Starts 18 March

A press release issued today by CalTrans states that a rehabilitation project of State Highway 142, including Carbon Canyon Road and Chino Hills Parkway portions from the San Bernardino/Orange counties line to the 71 Freeway will begin on Monday, 18 March and is expected to continue through December.

The nearly $7 million project entails new pavement, guardrails, and drainage systems and will take place:

Westbound:  Monday-Friday from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and Saturday-Sunday from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.
Eastbound:   Everyday from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.

There will always be at least one lane open on the roadway during the entirety of the project and flagging will be utilized to guide traffic.  CHP patrols will also be in place to monitor traffic.

Commuter alerts can be accesed through the District 8 website, while traffic conditions can be sen at the department's QuickMap site.  Lane closures can be accessed through a separate web page.

Ontario Library Talk on Williams Sisters of Chino Rancho Next Tuesday

Next Tuesday, the 5th of March at 6:30, a reprise of the presentation Heirs Apparently: The Tumultuous Lives of Francisca and Merced Williams will be given at the Ovitt Family Community Library in Ontario.

The talk, presented in the past for the Chino Hills Historical Society, centers on Merced and Francisca Williams, the granddaughters of Rancho Santa Ana del Chino grantee Antonio María Lugo and daughters of ranch owner Isaac Williams.

When the latter died in 1856, the teenage siblings married Southerners John Rains and Robert Carlisle, both of whom were strong-willed, domineering, ambitious figures who died violent deaths within a few years of each other in the early to mid 1860s.

The paths of the sisters, already fraught with tragedy, diverged widely after that point, with Merced losing the Rancho Cucamonga that her husband purchased by selling her share of Chino and living a life of economic uncertainty, while Francisca kept Chino, sold it for a handsome sum, and lived the rest of our life in financial comfort.

The story of women, especially Latinas, in our region tends to be little-known and under-documented, so the story of Merced and Francisca Williams is an unusual example to the contrary.

To hear more of these remarkable women and their tumultuous lives, come out to the Ovitt Community Library at 215 E. C St., just east of Euclid Avenue and north of Holt Boulevard next Tuesday the 5th at 6:30 p.m.

Hope to see you there!

Tres Hermanos Ranch Solar Farm Project Details Emerge

Today's San Gabriel Valley Tribune has a remarkably detailed article about the efforts of William Barkett to complete a deal to build a solar farm project at Tres Hermanos Ranch, owned by the City of Industry since 1978 and the subject of an agreement signed last week with Chino Hills and Diamond Bar to share ownership and future uses of the 2,500-acre ranch.

Jason Henry's piece goes into the ins and outs of Barkett's attempts to parlay the project into producing enough revenue for his San Gabriel Valley Water and Power so that he could repay debts to in-laws that reportedly have ballooned to about $3,500,000.

The loans, totaling some $2 million were made between 2005 and 2007, but Barkett and his wife, a former trustee at U.S.C., have only repaid about 25% of that debt and interest has driven the principal to the current amount.  In 2017, Barkett wrote checks totaling $75,000 from SGVWP towards that debt.

Lisa Barkett's sister and her husband have filed suit to recoup their losses and court filings claim that the Barketts "have filed multiple fraudule bankruptcies to avoid creditors" and have created "a false appearance of wealth and success" through manipulation "of universities, charities, and even farm workers."  Shell companies and transfers of ownerships were, allegedly, tools to avoid the taking of assets and the consequences of foreclosures.

A portion of Tres Hermanos Ranch looking southeast from Diamond Bar, March 2018.

The Barketts were said to have promised large donations to Fordham University and a church at U.S.C. so that their names as donors would attract creditors, but it was reported that once donor lists were published, payments to those charitable endeavors were halted.

William Barkett then reputedly approached the City of Commerce to convince it to challenge the sale of Tres Hermanos to Industry so that the solar farm project could have a hope of proceeding, but Commerce, once the news came to light, tabled discussion even as the ranch's sale to Industry was approved.

Industry, which paid $20 million to Barkett and SGVWP, has been seeking an audit on those funds, but the company has refused to provide details, citing that it can do what it wants with its money.  In late 2017, issues came to light with the lack of detail for invoices submitted by the company to the city.  The lease between the two entities, however, only required the firm to pay back funds if the project actually started.

Meanwhile, Barkett has amassed overall debts of some $50 million through an array of failed business deals and the article reports that he has evaded personal responsibility by assigning assets to others so that there was essentially nothing for creditors to obtain even when judgments, including a $43.5 million one in 2012, were obtained by court order.  He has been described, moreover, as "extremely litigious" and has threatened legal action against the three cities for last week's agreement and against the Tribune if it published details of his legal conflict with his in-laws.

Tres Hermanos Ranch Joint Partnership Agreement Reached

As reported in today's San Gabriel Valley Tribune, an agreement has been reached between the cities of Chino Hills, Diamond Bar and Industry in which the former two cities, by jointly paying a little above $4 million (Chino Hills kicking in almost $3 million and Diamond Bar the remainder) with Industry providing $37.5 million, will share ownership of the 2,500-acre Tres Hermanos Ranch, situated in Tonner Canyon just north of Carbon Canyon.

The arrangement brings to an end a protracted legal battle between the Tres Ciudades over the fate and future of one of the last remaining large tracts of undeveloped land in the region.  The ranch, created by William Benjamin Scott, an oilman; William R. Rowland, son of the original grantee of nearby Rancho La Puente and a Los Angeles County Sheriff and oilman; and Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler, was sold to the City of Industry in 1978 by a Chandler family company.

Ideas for a massive reservoir and a huge solar farm, the latter more recently proposed, have been discussed over the years, but, after signing a deal with a firm to work on the solar farm, which brought litigation from Chino Hills and Diamond Bar, Industry terminated the agreement.  The solar farm proponents are not giving up, however, and have now threatened all three municipalities with lawsuits.

The Tres Hermanos Conservation Authority, which existed for years but met irregularly, will be revived, wll be granted ownership of the ranch, and there will be seven seats on the administrative body.  Three will be appointed by Industry and two each by the other cities.  After Industry formally approves the sale tomorrow, the Authority is scheduled to hold its first meeting on Thursday.  Any approved uses of the ranch will need at least one vote from a member whose city is in the area where the project would be built and two votes from Industry.  If the latter was to leave the Authority, the other two cities would have the option of acquiring their portions of the land—about 700 acres is in Diamond Bar and the rest in Chino Hills.

Much of Tres Hermanos Ranch looking southwest from Diamond Bar, March 2018.

Mayor Carol Herrera of Diamond Bar heralded the agreement as "an incredible opportunity . . . to ensure it remains a valuable open space resource in our cities and region for decades to come."  This refers to a provision in a deed restriction that the ranch is to be dedicated only towards "open space, public use or preservation" and the agreement now stipulates that there are "no proposed new uses, new improvements, or major alterations contemplated on Tres Hermanos for the foreseeable future."  It was also agreed that the three cities would share the cost of maintaining the property.

Industry City Manager Troy Helling called the deal a "reset," observing that "this is one way of showing that we're here to be good neighbors" because Chino Hills and Diamond Bar "have a right to say what happens to" Tres Hermanos because the ranch is in their domains.  The City's mayor Mark Radecki stated that

the value is in what the land means to the people of this region, to the wildlife that use it as a corridor, and in what our communities can accomplish together to protect the special environment that has been preserved.

Notably, the kickstart to the reset came from outgoing Chino Hills City Manager Rad Bartlam's suggestion that he and Helling have lunch so that a partnership, not the continuation of adversarial relationships, could be pursued.  Bartlam added that the intent is to maintain as much of the existing open space as possible and that "there is a possibility of opening the land to the public."  There would have to be some mitigation done, including what to do with Arnold Reservoir, a body of water visible just south of Grand Avenue, which bisects the ranch.  Bartlam was quoted as saying that "all the focus is, for the most part, on protecting Tres Hermanos."

Despite the fact that Industy's lease with the solar farm's developer, San Gabriel Valley Water and Power, ended at the end of 2018, that company has pursued a deal that would have the City of Commerce try to buy Tres Hermanos from the successor agency of the former City of Industry redevelopment agency, the Urban Development Agency.

William Barkett, a lead figure at the solar farm firm, indicated that the company would "seek relief for all money amounts and other benefits that would have flowed to" his company if Industry had followed through with the previous arrangement and that all three cities would be targeted.  Bartlam responded that this was expected, but did not deter the municipalities from following through to make the deal and establish the newly constituted Authority.

Stay tuned for future developments!

Carbon Canyon History Talk Tomorrow Night in Yorba Linda

Tomorrow night, I'll be giving a PowerPoint-illustrated presentation on the history of Carbon Canyon at the Yorba Linda Public Library.

The free talk is at 7 p.m. and covers a number of historical elements of the Canyon from oil at Olinda to tourism at La Vida Mineral Springs to the little-known Camp Kinder Ring, a Jewish youth camp, to the St. Joseph's Hill of Hope religious retreat and more.

Artifacts having to do with these aspects, including photographs, maps and others will also be brought and displayed.

So, if you have about an hour and don't mind braving whatever rain will be dropping (and which is much appreciated these days), come down to the Yorba Linda Public Library and hear about some of the fascinating history of Carbon Canyon.

Hope to see you there!