Did I violate Ontario International Airport's rules and regulations on September 21, 2008?

If you read my Empoprise-BI business blog, you may have just read my second post in a series regarding the citation given to Sam Wolanyk for an alleged violation of San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Code 7.14(a). This broadly written clause reads as follows:

(a) No person shall take still, motion or sound motion pictures or voice recordings on the facilities and airports under the jurisdiction of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority (the “Authority”) without written permission from the Authority’s Executive Director or his or her designee.

Upon reading that clause, I observed:

I'll grant that Ontario International Airport does not fall under the jurisdiction of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, but if it did, I have broken clause (a) many, many times. For example, on September 21, 2008 I have irrefutable evidence that I took a picture at an airport. And no, I can't argue that was my evil twin.

That irrefutable evidence can be found in an Empoprise-IE post entitled Self-portrait (#openworld08 DOES make Empoprise-IE). In that post, I (or someone who looks very very much like me and hacked my blog) admits that the picture was taken at the Applebee's at the airport.

Of course, the airport does not fall under the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. It falls under Los Angeles World Airports. So what does the April 2010 code (PDF) for Ontario's airport say?

2.12 Commercial/Non-Commercial Filming, Student Filming and Photography:

LA/Ontario Airport Operations has the responsibility of coordinating and
supervising filming activities as mandated by LAWA Board of Airport
Commissioners Resolution # 18978. All entities, including tenants, must contact
the ONT Film Desk, (909) 975-5345, prior to conducting any filming (feature film, television show, or television news magazine), video (music or training), or photographic project at ONT.

a. Film Production companies, airport tenants, students and others requesting to film, photograph, or videotape projects of a commercial, promotional or training nature at ONT must obtain a Film Permit in advance of the proposed production date. See LAWA - ONT Filming.

b. An ONT Film Permit does not constitute a contract. Film Permits are conditional, subject to ONT security and operational requirements, the needs of its tenants, and the traveling public.

c. Filming activity is permitted only in locations approved by the ONT Film Desk, and requires a production location scout, or technical scout, prior to filming. Filming is not allowed on any lessee's premises or lessee's facilities, unless specifically stated as a permitted use in the lease agreement, or unless individual permission is granted by the Executive Director or her/his duly authorized representative.

Now I could possibly claim that the Empoprise-IE blog is not a "photographic project," but you never know how laws could be enforced.

Of course, these airport rules are just a subset of rules that are alleged to conflict with First Amendment rights of free speech - the argument being that an airport, or a grocery store, or wherever is essentially a public place and not private property.

But if you want to play it safe, the next time you go to Ontario International Airport, bring a sketch artist.

Cal State University San Bernardino Alumni

Any college or university that has been around for a while is bound to have had some famous graduates - or, in the case of my alma mater, a famous non-graduate.

California State University at San Bernardino has an Alumni Spotlight page that features their leading alumni. Here are three of them:

Lee D. Roberts (B.A. biology 1974, B.A. economics 1975) is the former president and CEO of FileNet Corporation, a Costa Mesa-based business process and content management software company. Lee joined FileNet in 1997 and led the company’s transformation to the industry’s top enterprise content management provider. He currently is vice president and general manager of content management at IBM, which acquired FileNet in 2006, and where Lee worked for more than 20 years before joining FileNet.

Lois Carson (B.A. English 1967) is the recipient of the 2007 Lyndon Baines Johnson Human Services Award from the national Community Action Partnership. Lois, who is the executive director of the Community Action Partnership of Riverside County, was honored for her efforts helping low-income families change their lives.

Robert Bouttier (B.A. business administration 1977) is the president and chief operating officer for the Automobile Club of Southern California. Bob, a 32-year veteran of the Auto Club, oversees the daily operations of the largest AAA-affiliated motor club in the country. He was named COO in 2005, and prior to that promotion served as senior vice president of marketing and member services. Bob serves on the board of the Los Angeles Sports Council and also is a director of AAA Life Insurance Company.

More here.

Biometrics at Cal Poly Pomona?

As you may know, I am employed in the biometrics industry, and I therefore have a keen interest in reading about local applications of biometrics.

Both Planet Biometrics and findBiometrics are reporting that Cal Poly Pomona has realized a 300% return on a biometric investment that it had made.

findBiometrics reprinted an M2SYS press release:

California University Campus Reports 300% Return On Investment After First Year Of Using Biometric Technology

Cal Poly Pomona Foundation Implements M2SYS Biometric Technology with Kronos Time and Attendance Software

LAS VEGAS --(November 8, 2010) – Cal Poly Pomona Foundation, Inc. reported today that it has realized a 300% return on investment in biometric technology during the first year of deployment. It has implemented M2SYS Technology’s biometric fingerprint technology with its Kronos time and attendance software, enabling employees to use fingerprint readers to clock in and clock out at the beginning and end of shifts and lunch breaks.

Cal Poly Pomona Foundation identified several time and attendance challenges which led them to implement biometric fingerprint technology. The problems included backlogs during check-in/check-out, decreases in payroll staff productivity to reconcile time stamp errors and buddy punching. It was seeking to incorporate a biometric check-in/check-out interface that eliminated backlogs and sped up the process to decrease lost employee productivity.

After implementing biometric technology, Cal Poly Pomona Foundation estimates at least 10 employment service staff hours saved per pay cycle by eliminating the need for supervisors to authorize hours in the system after processing. This equates to 10 hours per cycle, 20 hours per month and approximately 240 hours per year which they have been able to allocate to other projects and initiatives. They estimate savings of $15,000 per year through a $5,000 investment in biometric technology.

This announcement was made from KronosWorks™, the industry’s largest venue for exchanging ideas on how to effectively manage the workforce. KronosWorks is taking place this week in Las Vegas.

About Cal Poly Pomona Foundation, Inc.
Established in 1966, the Cal Poly Pomona Foundation, Inc. is an integral component for the educational mission of the University. The Foundation exists to provide the highest level of service and financial support while maintaining corporate fiscal integrity.

About Kronos
Kronos is the global leader in workforce management solutions that enable organizations to control labor costs, minimize compliance risk, and improve workforce productivity. Tens of thousands of organizations in 60 countries - including more than half of the Fortune 1000® - use Kronos time and attendance, scheduling, absence management, HR and payroll, hiring, and labor analytics applications. To learn how Kronos uniquely delivers complete automation and high-quality information in an easy-to-use solution, visit www.kronos.com.

About M2SYS Technology
M2SYS Technology, www.m2sys.com, provides technology that makes biometric software affordable, simple to integrate and inexpensive to support enabling customers to easily utilize the right form of biometric technology for their needs.

CONTACT: John Trader
Communications Specialist
M2SYS Technology
john@m2sys.com
770-393-0986 x34

DISCLAIMER: I am an employee of a different biometric company, MorphoTrak.

Is Chevron blithe about solar?

Perhaps it's the recent election, but somehow the idea has entered my brain that oil companies are evil. I mean, if the TV says that they're evil, it must be true. A lot of time was spent on TV talking about evil Texas oil companies such as Valero, and evil English oil companies such as British Petroleum.

But somehow the opponents to California's Proposition 23 (which lost, by the way) never got around to talking about the fact that there's a California oil company, San Ramon-based Chevron Corporation, which employs Californians, and which would have benefited from Proposition 23. The opponents kinda sorta left that out of their negative campaign ads.

Of course, companies such as Chevron could be harmed by market conditions. There are other energy sources, and those of us who live in the Inland Empire know about them. Just drive out toward Palm Springs, and you'll see more windmills than you can shake an oil rag at. And if you keep on driving, you'll find another energy source in the future:

A 250-megawatt solar power plant planned for Riverside County received final regulatory approval Thursday from the Secretary of Interior.

To be developed by NextEra Energy Resources, the Genesis Solar Project will be located on nearly 1,950 acres of public land 25 miles west of Blythe.

But NextEra, please don't refer to your project as the "Genesis" project. When you put something out in the middle of the desert and call it "Genesis," next thing you know aliens will start showing up and attacking Blythe and Yuma. And we can't let that happen.

This call center is slightly smaller than the Hilton's call center

I talk about call centers a lot in my Empoprise-BI business blog, but not so much on this Inland Empire-focused blog. One major center was an August 19 post which talked about the closure of a Hilton call center in Hemet, and the transfer of the employees' duties to the Philippines.

That closure affected nearly 300 employees. But not all call centers are that large. In fact, the Riverside Press-Enterprise recently interviewed the heads of a much smaller call center, the nearly 50 employee Professional Communications Network. And in a world in which we commonly talk about call centers in the Philippines or India, it's interesting to hear the views of a company which concentrates on a much smaller geographic area.

There's less mom-and-pop answering services ... Technology has really allowed for that, because when we started it was very expensive for us to handle calls in Malibu, Los Angeles, Long Beach from Riverside or from Los Angeles just because of mileage. You used to have to pay a lot of mileage just to get the calls here. And now with technology we can cover all of Southern California ... and it's next to nothing.

But wouldn't it be cheaper to have staff in Manila or Omaha?

With a lot of our medical especially, I think they feel comfortable being in Southern California having somebody in Southern California answer it. I don't think they're excited about having their patients answered by somebody in New York ... Our clients want us to be able to answer questions and understand a little bit about what they do.

Read the entire interview here. Or visit the company's website at http://www.pcnanswers.com/.

Taco organizations - the Veterans of Foreign Wars?

I guess I should explain the title of this post. Years ago, there was an indie musician named Doctor Orange who released a song called "Taco Taco Taco." In the middle of the song, out of the blue, Doctor Orange sang the line "Taco organizations."

Well, if you believe Liset Marquez, the Ontario post (Post 2085) of the Veterans of Foreign Wars qualifies as a "taco organization."

Marquez reports that the post hosts a taco night every Friday evening from 5 to 7. See Marquez's blog post for the VFW post's phone number. They're at 1341 East D Street.


View Larger Map

Ontario INTERNATIONAL Airport

At least in our country, some airports are designated as "international" airport. The criteria appears to be "if a flight from another country has ever landed at your airport, it's international."

The international airport is not CURRENTLY required to provide international service. If it were, then Ontario's airport would have to go through a dizzying round of name changes, as service between the airport and Mexico starts, stops, then starts again.

Ontario is currently NOT receiving any international flights, but it will definitely be international beginning on November 20:

Aeromexico will resume international flights at Ontario International Airport starting in late November.

According to the airline's website, the first flight from Guadalajara, Mexico, should arrive Nov. 20 at 11:45 p.m. and depart from the Inland airport the next day at 1:15 a.m. Fares for the flights linking Ontario and Guadalajara range from $138 to $253 each way, according to the site.

The Press-Enterprise article notes that Aeromexico had stopped its service in February, expected to start it again in July, but won't actually start until late November.

A lesson for non-incumbent candidates in local elections

I was just checking the analytic data for this blog, the Empoprise-IE blog, to see if my election posts had resulted in a surge of interest in the blog. It turns out that they have, since at least some people were getting here while searching for information on Paul Vincent Avila. But the most popular search terms for this blog include variations on Frederick J. Minook's name.

This just goes to prove something that I said back in August.

[A]s of this evening (August 24, 2010), if someone were to search Google to find out who the heck Frederick Minook is, my previous blog post on Frederick Minook would be the first search result that they would encounter.

As of this evening, that blog post is STILL the top search result for Minook.

It's fairly obvious that Minook did not conduct any type of online campaign. As far as I know, the only campaigning that Minook did was to send a postcard-sized mailer to voters - and if you search the web for "minook mailer," you'll find that a post on this blog was the top search result there, also.

Yes, this scares me. And it even scared Paul Leon, and Leon was Minook's opponent in the election. Leon offered the following comment:

Well stated. The internet should also be thoroughly researched for truth in content. Not only can somebody shape your identity, they can put a very negative spin on it. Cross referencing all research is very important. Good point here. Even "trusted" sites like Wikipedia can be suspect because the nature of Wikipedia is for "users" to add content. Now that is a bit scary!

Now I have never met Leon or Minook, and I don't know how well they know each other, but during their campaign I never heard them taking swipes at each other.

But if there's any lesson that non-incumbent candidates should learn, it is that any candidate, especially a non-incumbent, HAS to establish an online presence. If the candidate doesn't do this, it's possible for their opponent, or someone else, to do it for them.

Initial OMSD and Ontario mayor results

Initial results in San Bernardino County are coming in faster to http://www.sbcounty.gov/rov/current_elections/110210/ElectionResults/default.htm than I thought.

The Empoprise-IE Inland Empire blog has discussed two local elections, so I thought I'd check in on them. Here are initial results for the Ontario-Montclair School District:

Ontario-Montclair School Dist - Gov Brd Mbr
10/70 14.29%
Vote Count Percent
ELVIA M. RIVAS 1,741 13.92%
DAVID CAMPIO 1,353 10.82%
J. STEVE GARCIA 1,804 14.43%
KRIS BRAKE 2,454 19.62%
SANDRA ESCAMILLA 1,241 9.92%
BENJAMIN LOPEZ 1,111 8.88%
CHRISTOPHER AGRELLA 672 5.37%
PAUL VINCENT AVILA 2,130 17.03%
Total 12,506 100.00%


So the three leaders are Avila and two of the three teacher-supported candidates.

The mayor race is no surprise - in fact, I might even call it. Frankly, Minook probably could have called it a few months ago.

Mayor ONTARIO
7/69 10.14%
Vote Count Percent
PAUL S. LEON 4,986 75.01%
FREDERICK J. MINOOK 1,661 24.99%
Total 6,647 100.00%

Election coverage from Sacramento

The Sacramento Bee's blog just ran a post regarding the demographics of voter turnout and how they affect Proposition 19.

You can follow the Bee's "Capitol Alerts" here. Obviously no specific IE coverage, but they will have coverage of the statewide races.

This could be the last time...

Matt Munson (who, as I previously mentioned), is live-blogging today's election, brought up an important point in his initial Election Day posting:

This is our last election where you can vote for a third party like Green or Libertarian. I hope Proposition 14 gets repealed....

Come 2012 we will only have the dog and pony show.

If you're not sure why Munson is making such an argument - didn't Proposition 14 promise open primaries? - then be sure to read what Kurt Hyde wrote in advance of Proposition 14's passage earlier this year. Here's an excerpt from Hyde's post:

The candidates who would be adversely affected the most by this are third-party candidates, independent candidates, and write-in candidates. In effect, they would find themselves unable to be on the ballot in the general election. While third party, independent, and write-in candidates are rarely elected to office, their influence has helped immeasurably in keeping many a so-called conservative at least reasonably on track during the campaign season by offering disenfranchised voters the opportunity to voice their disgust by casting a protest vote. Sometimes they are successful in being elected. Don’t forget Strom Thurmond was first elected to the U.S. Senate as a write-in candidate in 1954.

Frankly, the only way that a third-party candidate will become one of the top two vote-getters would be if the candidate has huge star power, exceeding that of, say, Ross Perot (although Theodore Roosevelt admittedly did well as a third-party candidate in 1912). Hmm...Rob Reiner? Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Anyway, as I write this you have less than 8 hours to go out and vote Peace and Freedom or whatever...

Another option for local election coverage

OK, if you're not from the IE, you're going to have to put up with our sob story for a minute.

One of my favorite spectator sports is election night results. And not just the top of the ballot - I want to hear about my entire ballot. I went ahead and votoed for (or against) all of the stuff - why not find out how the rest of the area voted?

So I tune into our local television stations and hear all of the election results - for Los Angeles County.

Thanks a lot.

Well, one year I had another option - our local public television station, channel 24, offered local coverage. This consisted of a guy in a monotone reading election results, coupled with a woman at one of the party headquarters asking inconsequential questions.

However, there's always the Internet. You can visit http://www.sbcounty.gov/rov/current_elections/110210/ElectionResults/default.htm for San Bernardino County results, or http://www.voteinfo.net/currentElection.asp for Riverside County results. And there are all sorts of bloggers everywhere who will voice opinions on...every election except the one that I'm interested in. No, I don't really care about the witch in Delaware; what about the warlocks and witches in my own back yard?

Which is why I was happy to read this news from Matt Munson:

I am planning a live blog on the election and provide coverage throughout the day, even when I head to the voting booth. All thanks to the blackberry I can provide remote coverage.

I look forward to reading Munson's coverage. Check his Inland Utopia blog for updates.

Rick McClure responds

Last Monday, I posted an item entitled Dipping into the local election junk mail which included the following regarding the Ontario-Montclair School District election:

One of the teachers' union mailings was very teamwork-oriented, speaking of teacher-principal-parent teams as well as the "Teachers' Education Team" of Steve Garcia, Elvia Rivas, and Kris Brake. Garcia is the only incumbent who was mentioned in this mailer. The union says that the three will respond to Sacramento's budget cuts by keeping "budget cuts as far away from the classroom as possible." Brake, in her separate mailer, says that she "will work to ensure that taxpayer funds are utilized to directly benefit students."

But the teachers' union sent out a separate mailer - one that lives up to the high "standards" set by the state governor's race....

What follows is a hard-hitting attack on Paul Vincent Avila's stances on the issues affecting the board...well, except for the issues part. The hard-hitting attack is still there....

Perhaps I'm going out on a limb here, but I highly suspect that the teachers' union has objections to Avila other than his language or his electioneering.

My post prompted a reply from Rick McClure, President of the Ontario-Montclair Teachers Association, which I am reproducing here in full:

Well, as the President of the union responsible for that piece I think I'm qualified to speak to this. I suggest you go to www.voteoutavila.com and see and read for yourself about Mr. Avila. If after reading just his emails to me and the other candidates for the school board you think I've got ulterior motives, well OK. But I'm willing to bet my next paycheck that instead you'll be saying, "OMG, this nut's an elected official!"

If you go to the www.voteoutavila.com website, you can see electronic copies of BOTH mailings - the one regarding Avila is at the top of the page, while the one regarding "the education team" of Garcia, Rivas, and Brake is at the bottom of the page. (Since this is the "vote out Avila" website, the order of the ads is reasonable - there is another page in which "the education team" is at the top.) There are also links (some of which have expired) to some of the correspondence from and to Avila.

To my knowledge, Avila does not have a campaign website, but his official school board biography, as well as the biographies of J. Steve Garcia and the other incumbent school board members, can be found here.

Alan Wapner's LAX-ONT conflict of interest claims

As noted previously, Ontario City Councilman Alan Wapner has been a vocal proponent of purchasing Ontario International Airport from its current owner, the city of Los Angeles. In a recent letter in the Los Angeles Times, Wapner argued that the city of Los Angeles has a conflict of interest in running ONT:

Los Angeles has an inherent conflict of interest in controlling both airports. As Los Angeles struggles to regain lost traffic at LAX and to pay for a multibillion-dollar expansion, it views ONT as something of a competitor deserving scant attention.

I don't know if Wapner's claim is true or not, and considering the moves by LAX's neighbors to limit traffic, you'd think that the opposite would be the case. However, Wapner has evidence from Los Angeles World Airports' own Executive Director:

To avoid this conflict, Los Angeles World Airports, the agency that operates both facilities, must relinquish control of ONT and concentrate on LAX. The need for this was highlighted by LAWA Executive Director Gina Marie Lindsey's comments at the July 14 meeting of the L.A. Board of Airport Commissioners:

"Now continuing to pursue a strategy that actively pushes traffic away from the city of Los Angeles and into other jurisdictions could be viewed as a little self-destructive."

Wapner also claims that one reason for ONT's high fees is the 15% administrative fee tacked on by LAWA.

Unfortunately - and Wapner should realize this - he is dealing with bureaucrats. And the last thing that a bureaucrat would want to do is to reduce his/her power.

A little more Mills at Ontario...but more approachable

It's a truism that malls are always expanding and adding new stores. They are never contracting and losing stores. Basically, all this means is that some tenant moved out (not discussed) and some other tenant moved in (discussed ad nauseum).

But sometimes malls do expand. A few years after I moved to California, the Montclair Plaza added a second floor. And now, the Ontario Mills center is expanding...a bit:

Areas that used to serve as loading docks will make way for additional exterior storefront entrances as well as extra parking.

Actually, although the increase square footage apparently isn't that significant, the configuration is. Exterior storefront entrances are vitally important to some retailers.

Sports Authority will occupy more than 50,000 square feet and will be in Neighborhood 3, replacing the Baby Depot.

The sports retailer, Smith said, is actually returning to the Mills.

It used to occupy the space where Forever 21 is located, but one of the reasons it left several years ago was because it didn't have an exterior entrance, Smith said.

And it's not just the Mills. When Barnes & Noble moved down Montclair's Central Avenue to relocate in Montclair Plaza a few years ago, the new Barnes & Noble included an exterior entrance.

Of course, if exterior entrances become more and more important, then you'll end up with...a traditional shopping center, or perhaps something more akin to Victoria Gardens.

Only in California...

TMI - Take the train to Cagle's?

I had to find the phone number for Cagle's Appliances in Ontario, so I went to Google to find it.



Now on the one hand, I appreciate the integration that Google has performed between locations and nearby transportation systems, and I can certainly verify that you can get to Cagle's by walking from the Ontario Amtrak station.

But as much as I admire Cagle's, I don't think that people are going to be taking a long-distance train to get there. However, should you be a Tucson, Arizona resident who is looking for a California appliance store, here's how the Sunset Limited can meet your transportation needs.

• Board the Sunset Limited in Tucson on Tuesday evening. It currently departs at 10:30 pm, but this may change when daylight saving time ends.


• Disembark at Ontario at 6:21 am Wednesday morning.


• Take your time walking east on Holt to Cagle's. Maybe you could stop somewhere for breakfast.


• When Cagle's opens at 8:30, go ahead and head on in. Take your time browsing around. But don't take too much time.


• Be sure you're back at the train station to board the eastbound train on Wednesday at 3:34 pm. (You did stop for lunch on Holt, didn't you?)


• You're back in Tucson at 12:06 am on Thursday, give or take an hour depending upon time changes. But you have some new appliances!

Note, however, that the Sunset Limited only runs three days a week. And since Cagle's is closed on Sundays, which is one of the days that the Sunset Limited is in Ontario, there are only two days a week in which you can take the Sunset Limited for your shopping excursion. So plan carefully.

Or if the train trip doesn't work for you, Cagle's is a short cab ride away from Ontario International Airport.


View Larger Map

Dipping into the local election junk mail

On Saturday morning, I did something that I had been avoiding.

I started looking at the accumulated election-related junk mail.

And it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Of course, there's still a little bit of time before the election, so it can turn really bad really quickly.

For the purposes of the Empoprise-IE Inland Empire blog, I'll ignore the statewide races and just concentrate on the local stuff.

I heard from two incumbents - Congressman Joe "Food on the Table" Baca and Ontario City Council Member "Fire Chief" Jim Bowman. Because of their incumbency, they didn't have to resort to negative campaigning. Both are creating jobs, and both are tough. Baca didn't mention who was supporting him, but Bowman noted union support (the fire fighters' union and the police union endorse him) and also noted that every member of the current City Council endorses him. The phrase "independent voice" was not found either of the two Bowman mailers that were in the pile.

Another incumbent of sorts mailed me - the city of Ontario itself. While the mailing was about Measure V (an increase in the hotel-motel tax), the mailer was careful not to endorse Measure V. The mailer just provided information...along with a lot of pictures of fire trucks, fire fighers, and police officers. (For some reason, a picture of someone filling a pothole wasn't deemed sexy enough for this brochure.)

Oh, and remember Fred J. Minook? He sent me a mailer also, which talked about dreaming big and being "innovative." Without trashing the current council (again, a refreshing break from negative advertising), Minook listed some of the things that he wants to do, including the redevelopment of Holt, Euclid, and Mountain to increase businesses and tax revenue; attracting more museums and cultural institutions "so our residents do not have to travel to Los Angeles"; and other big plans. One might question the specifics and logic of ideas such as this:

Fred would expand the Convention Center to attract major conventions and stem the losses.

(What if the bigger conventions DON'T come?) but Minook certainly gets credit for raising the issue.

Unfortunately, the apparent civility in the Ontario mayoral election doesn't appear to have extended to the Ontario-Montclair School District board election. The police and fire unions aren't the only unions that are participating in the election; of the three mailings that I had concerning the OMSD election, two were from the local teachers' union, and the third was from a teachers' union-endorsed candidate.

One of the teachers' union mailings was very teamwork-oriented, speaking of teacher-principal-parent teams as well as the "Teachers' Education Team" of Steve Garcia, Elvia Rivas, and Kris Brake. Garcia is the only incumbent who was mentioned in this mailer. The union says that the three will respond to Sacramento's budget cuts by keeping "budget cuts as far away from the classroom as possible." Brake, in her separate mailer, says that she "will work to ensure that taxpayer funds are utilized to directly benefit students."

But the teachers' union sent out a separate mailer - one that lives up to the high "standards" set by the state governor's race. It opens as follows:

It's OK
for Our Children
to Pretend to be Adults...

But It's Not OK
for Our Board Members
to Behave Like Children

What follows is a hard-hitting attack on Paul Vincent Avila's stances on the issues affecting the board...well, except for the issues part. The hard-hitting attack is still there. Examples:

Avila threw a tantrum, using profanity to berate school administrators in front of parents and teachers when his name was left off a middle schools' graduation program....

In his time on the Ontario-Montclair School Board, Avila has lost races for State Assembly 3 times, State Senate 3 times, college board 4 times and city council 6 times.

Perhaps I'm going out on a limb here, but I highly suspect that the teachers' union has objections to Avila other than his language or his electioneering.

Spirit Walk at Bellevue Cemetery on October 30

Bellevue Cemetery in Ontario holds some personal significance for me. Three family members are buried there, a neighbor is buried there, and just recently I heard that a former pastor was going to be buried there.

If I were to name these people, most of you wouldn't know them, but anyone who has studied Ontario history will certainly have heard of some of these people:

George Chaffey, founder of Ontario.
Dr. Orville Ensign, local physician.
E.H. Richardson, inventor of Hotpoint Iron.
Frances Elizabeth Oakley, citrus owner and member of Ontario's Women's Temperance Union.
Kezzie Monroe, one of the early librarians.

The Ontario Heritage Association is holding a "Spirit Walk" at the cemetery on October 30, and actors will portray each of these five people at their gravesites.

Frankly, I was surprised to discover that George Chaffey was buried here. Ontario was just one of the projects in which he was involved during his lifetime. However, I guess that it would be hard to bury him in the town of Salton.

See Liset Marquez's post for more details on the Spirit Walk.

Safariland's corporate history

I haven't really followed the Ontario firm Safariland lately, even though I have a natural interest in the company. Since I've worked in public safety software for the last 15 years, I'm always interested in Inland Empire companies like ESRI and Safariland that also play in that sector.

But when I last checked into Safariland some time ago, they were a stand-alone independent company in Ontario. A September Press-Enterprise story on Safariland's Scott O'Brien updates that history somewhat.

In 1999 O'Brien and Perkins sold their ownership in Safariland and planned on retiring. But the buyer, Armor Holdings, was unable to coordinate the operations of Safariland and 18 other manufacturers of law enforcement products it had acquired, and in 2005 O'Brien agreed to return as president and meld the separate companies into one organization....

Then in 2007 the United States unit of BAE Systems plc, a British global conglomerate, bought Armor Holdings. O'Brien continued as president. Today he is navigating Safariland, which has 1,763 employees and manufacturing plants in Inland Southern California, Florida, Wyoming and Tijuana, through a severe economic downturn.

A word on that downturn - you'd think that public safety would be pretty much recession-proof, but when governments are short on cash, they'll often try to make do with existing equipment and software for just one more year. So I can see O'Brien's challenges.

Be sure to read the interview of O'Brien in the Press-Enterprise.

Oh, and by the way, I can identify with O'Brien in another way, since he sells products that are subject to export controls. O'Brien:

Our biggest market is the Untied States. The international arena has more growth opportunity but the problem now is that BAE is very stringent about how they want business done internationally. You have to do a lot of careful vetting of whom you sell to, to make certain they are not going to take the stuff and sell it to some corrupt government.

And you thought that only auto racers came to the IE

The Citizens Business Bank Arena is bringing new people here who otherwise wouldn't come. Case in point: Elton John and Leon Russell will appear there on November 5. They've also worked on an album together, which will be released in October before their appearance.