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As a member, Mentone receives emails from California (un)Incorporated: “Salida got some coverage – May 28, 2025

Today’s Modesto Bee had an article by Kathleen Quinn entitled “Salida has sought city status for decades but faces challenges.” As an item of journalistic coverage of the plight of unincorporated areas, it’s fairly good. Both California (un)Incorporated and our Salida colleague, Katherine Borges – were accurately presented. What the article got right is that the process of municipal incorporation in California is overly difficult. Changing that is pretty much why we exist as an organization.

Last March the Salida Municipal Advisory Council received a presentation about Modesto’s latest predatory annexation foray into Salida. {photo credit: Kathleen Quinn, “Salida has sought city status for decades but faces challenges”, Modesto Bee, May 28, 2025}

We have a few nit picks with the article. We present them here for clarification:

• Mountain House’s incorporation was the result of thoughtful long-term planning and subseqquent investment by San Joaquin County. It took 30 years to come to fruition and the new city is the ONLY city out of 423 in California that doesn’t derive any revenues from the property tax component of motor vehicle license fees (VLF). While we applaud San Joaquin County for its foresight, we remain unconvinced that it needed to take so long. And we share the City of Mountain House’s concern that it should not be denied VLF-related revenues.
• Initiating the “make a city” process via signature collection is unrealistically expensive.
• While a community does not have to have one or more special districts in place as a precursor to becoming a city, it does help. Still, we are aware of many cities where the special district(s) have not been involved or have been overlooked by the local LAFCO. That said, California (un)Incorporated wants no harm to come to a special district as the result of an incorporation.
• Financial feasibility studies required by Local Agency Formation Commissions (LAFCOs) are usually done by consultants and have often been used as a club to beat up on citizens who wish to form a city. that’s because it is all too easy for a LAFCO to overestimate the costs and underestimate the revenues. While our initial orientation is to view Stanislaus County’s LAFCO as ethical, we cannot say the same about LAFCOs elsewhere. LAFCOs often make cityhood proponents pay for the consultants who write those financial documents, but they do not give the payees any control over the consultant’s work. And in the case of some LAFCOs, outrageous declarations like “they must pay a premium price for a city manager” can thus get baked into the analysis to mislead the public.
• Misleading financial analysis was a core theme of the East Los Angeles report cited in the article. For instance, LA County claimed some of its areawide services as municipal costs East LA would have to undertake. Contact our East LA colleagues for more information.

Overall, though, we are thankful that the Modesto Bee has put a spotlight on our friends in Salida. We hope the Bee will find the courage to follow through by trying to find out why state laws are used to fight proposed new cities in California.”

Mentone needs to become a city to stay out of Redlands but LAFCO makes it impossible by its enforcement of the rule that, if Redlands objects to LAFCO hearing a request to be deleted from Redlands’ sphere of influence – Yucaipa or Highland could have been chosen instead of Redlands – LAFCO has to take the request off calendar, costing Mentone $5,000 for nothing.

B.R.A.V.E
Veterans Resource Luncheon & Job Fair Day

In an effort to keep you informed, I am sharing information about the Arrowhead United Way’s Veterans Resource Luncheon & Job Fair Day. This information and resource event features a wide range of services for veterans, including federal, state, and county support, job opportunities, and more. Please share this email with anyone who may be interested. 
 

Please contact Arrowhead United Way at (909) 884-9441 for further information.
 
Warm regards,

ROSILICIE OCHOA BOGH
Senator, 19^th District

My Legislation       |  Contact Me

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Website:  https://sr19.senate.ca.gov/

Capitol Office 1021 O Street, Suite 7220 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 651-4019

Redlands District Office 1758 Orange Tree Lane, Suite B Redlands, CA 92374 (909) 335-0271

Anthony (“Tony”) Joseph Skrypzak, born November 10, 1937, passed away on March 14, 2025, apparently of a heart attack, at Redlands Community Hospital. From his eulogy, MM received the following information:

Tony Skrypzak was born in Erie, Pennsylvania. While living as a youngster in Cherry Valley, California, with his parents and three brothers he developed a penchant to tinker with technical devices and taught himself electronics, photography, auto mechanics, carpentry.

His father died when Skrypzak was just eighteen, and he came a draftsman at Hughes Aircraft in Los Angeles. In the early 1960s, he joined the US Army and was stationed in Munich, Germany, where he met and married Maria. Skrypzak worked as a psychiatric technician at Patton State Hospital in Highland, moving in 1965 to the corner of Agate and Madeira, Mentone, the present family home.

In the 1970s Skrypzak attended nursing school at San Bernardino Valley College, where he received his R.N., continuing to work at Patton until he retired in the late 1980s. During his retirement he gardened, built a garage and renovated parts of the family home, also making his own wine and beer.

He is survived by Maria, son Tony Jr., and his son, Daniel, as well as daughter JoAnn and her family. Skrypzak’s memorial service and reception following were held at Weaver Mortuary and Crematorium in Beaumont on Wednesday, April 2, attended by close friends and family. The family will scatter his ashes in Joshua Tree National Park in a private ceremony. MM

California Unincorporated invited Mentone’s organizations to join and post their information and news articles on its website www.caunincorporated.com. The Chamber of Commerce favorably discussed membership and attendees at the Chamber meeting on Tuesday, March 25 learned of the membership, said attorney Joyce Caraway, who presented the opportunity.

According to California (Un)incorporated’s page “Who We Are,” approximately five million people live in unincorporated areas, like Mentone, and, not having mayors or city councils, are subject to the whims of nearby cities. California (Un)incorporated’s chair, Michael Seaman, says that the organization is interested in seeing the law changed to accommodate such communities, such its immediate goals to obtain reform of the property tax portion of vehicle license fees. Caraway provided other laws that need to be reformed, including Government Code Section 56751(a)-(d), which says that if a community applies to LAFCO to be detached from a city’s SOI [Ed.’s note: ‘sphere of influence’], and the city objects, LAFCO must terminate the detachment proceedings. This means that an unincorporated area has no choice but to continue in that SOI even if they don’t want to be, and the city has sole control over the detachment; that pits a small, unincorporated area against a city with probably much more money to spend and more clout. And the application fee is something like $5,000!”   

Seaman stated that legislators are becoming interested in the website and have indicated how helpful the information posted on it has been to them. For Mentone’s part of the website he posted information from Wikipedia, and added a generic photo. The text has been updated and an actual photo of Mentone’s downtown will be substituted as soon as possible; Other information to be posted about will include details about Redlands’ takeovers of Mentone territory, “most of them in violation of applicable law,” said Caraway. The website also has a section titled “Predatory Annexations page (https://www.caunincorporated.com/predatory-annexations) where we go into detail about [also unincorporated communities] Salida and Rio Linda,” added Seaman.

California (Un)incorporated recently changed to a 501c4; it started in 2015 with five communities and now has 25 in 14 counties. Some communities with problems similar to Mentone’s include Ashland and Castro Valley (Alameda County); El Dorado Hills (El Dorado County); McKinleyville (Humboldt County); Lamont (Kern County); Stratford (Kings County); Altadena, East LA, Willowbrook, West Athens, Westmont (L.A. County); Ladera Ranch (Orange County); North Lake Tahoe (Placer County); Winchester, Homeland (Riverside County); Antelope, Arden Arcade, Rio Linda, Elverta, Orangevale and Vineyard (Sacramento County); Isla Vista, Orcutt (Santa Barbara County); Guerneville/Lower Russian River (Sonoma County) and Salida (Stanislaus County). Some of those communities are not in the SOI of nearby cities but still have similar problems to Mentone’s, stated Seaman. Experienced representatives of some of those communities have offered to assist Mentone.

Organizations who guide and support California Unincorporated are the League of California Cities, California Association of Recreation and Park Districts, California Special Districts Association, and the California Association of Local Agency Formation Commissions [Ed.’s note: aka CALAFCO].

To learn what information has been posted about Mentone, click on the word “Mentone” on the “Who We Are” page of the website, which also contains a link to Mentone Matters: click on the green tab on the right side of the Mentone page. To read old news articles click on “NEWS” on the left side. Readers may always read Mentone Matters through this website; Mentone Matters may eventually phase out its own website for cost considerations. MM

According to its website – www.redlandsclassic.com – some of the Redlands races will include the following: “Thursday, April 10 Start at Hangar 24 on Sessums Drive, Finish on Hwy 38 at Onyx Summit. 9:30 am. Stage 2 – Trek Onyx Summit Road Race for Men    (75.5 miles). 10:45 am    Stage 2 – Trek Onyx Summit Road Race for Women  (56.1 miles).” No detail is given for the route that racers will follow after they leave the airport, in order to access Highway 38.

“Friday, April 11
Start/Finish Line on Sand Canyon Road, north of Crafton Hills Drive.” No map is given for this one, either.

No routes are given for the remainder of the races, as to whether they also include Mentone territory. MM

On Tuesday evening, February 11, at 7 p.m., freelance journalist Ken Alan presented a talk to M.A.C.A., titled “How Railroads Shape Mentone Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.” Alan described the 1800s “kite-shaped” track through Mentone, which he described as a figure eight on its side. Alan stated that the trains left Los Angeles’ Union Station, went to San Bernardino’s depot, then came to Redlands and Mentone, which he described as the apex of the larger of the two loops, then to East Highland, Highland, Patton and then back to Union Station [Ed,’s note: from maps others have provided, it appears that the track crossed itself at some point]. The train riders riders came to purchase citrus, he said. He went on to say that the old Patton station was just torn down about five years ago and the Serrano tribe has some of the artifacts from it.

The Arrow train to the University of Redlands utilizes part of the kite-shaped track, he continued. The Arrow is a light rail, not like Metrolink or Amtrak. The Pullman cars come to the downtown Redlands station early in the morning and late at night, he added.

Alan then continued by saying that trains should be more utilized, that more people are riding Metrolink – twice as many from San Bernardino to LA as other Metrolink routes; however, he postulated that the Arrow trains to the University of Redlands are underutilized because there are large gaps in time between the Arrow train and Metrolink at the San Bernardino depot and the City’s website doesn’t mention the Arrow train. He continued by saying that it is his opinion that the Arrow could be utilized by patrons wanting to attend artistic events such as the University theater by simply walking from the University’s station.

He also gave his opinion that, from looking at maps, the Arrow could be extended from the University to Mentone, possibly by utilizing the historical avenues the kite train had used, and encouraged the audience to lobby for that, in order to bring people from LA to Mentone for its events like the Film Festival. However, he was reminded that the area behind the Senior Center – previously the railroad’s right of way – now contains Mentone’s water supply; both it and the vacant lot by Hovey’s tile factory – where Mentone’s historic depot stood on Opal – cannot hold permanent structures anymore.

Alan mentioned taking the train to Olvera Street, walking distance from the historic Union Station in LA, and that there are several stops on the Metrolink routes to LA and Orange County where the cities have street fairs, market nights and other attractions. He added that there is supposed to be a shuttle from the Upland station to the Ontario airport but that often the trains and buses are not coordinated in the times they arrive at the various stations, resulting in a long wait.

Alan encouraged train travel, rather than driving, citing difficulties with cars – obtaining driver’s licenses; car companies going out of business; some freeways are going to be toll; gas prices; freeway gridlock near LA, while the train keeps running toward LA. He also mentioned that 16-year-olds ride free on the train and there are three free days each year for adults [Ed.’s note: on February 4 Metrolink honored Rosa Parks by giving free rides; April 22, Earth Day, is the next free day].

J.P. Gutierrez, MACA president, displayed architectural drawings of Mentone’s historic train station.

It was announced that the next MACA program will be in May or June 2025. MM

Be sure to attend the MACA meeting tomorrow night, for more on Mentone’s history. Ken Alan, speaking on the railroad that put Mentone on the map; 7 p.m. at Mill Creek Cattle Company’s Banquet room, 1874 Mentone Boulevard, Mentone. MM

On Tuesday, February 11, at 7 p.m., Ken Alan will speak on “How the Railroad Shaped Mentone: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” according to J.P. Gutierrez, M.A.C.A. President. The Mentone Area Community Association meets in the Banquet room of the iconic Mill Creek Cattle Association, 1874 Mentone Boulevard, Mentone.

The presentation is free to the public. M.A.C.A. attempts to have meetings every quarter on the second Tuesday of the month.

OTHER MENTONE EVENTS: The last Tuesday of each month, except for November and December, C.O.M.E.T. (Community of Mentone Empowered Together) and the Chamber of Commerce meet in the banquet room at 7 p.m. The Chamber’s business memberships are $50 per year and individual memberships are $25; one need not own a business to join, said Jan Orbaker, the Chamber Chairperson and C.O.M.E.T.’s president.

Adopt-A-Highway meets several times a year, cleaning up the Boulevard on Saturday mornings at 7 or 7:30 a.m. Contact the Chamber at 909 362-7860 for the next cleanup date.

The date for Mentone Days and the Chili Cookoff will be announced but probably in May, according to Angie DeLaRosa, Chamber/C.O.M.E.T. secretary.

Mentone hosts its yearly Film Festival in November. According to the Chamber’s website, “The 6th Annual Mentone Film Festival was held November 8th,9th, 10th 2024. It was attended by many film makers, actors, and other celebrities. The award winning films are listed below with many photos from the Red Carpet Gala held on Sunday Evening the 10th.

Best Crime    ROAD TO TERZETTO – Brian Shakti  (Eddie Vincent accepted award as ACTOR in the movie)

Best Drama  LIME AND VINEGAR    Evan Snyder

Best Comedy  BOYS ABOUT TOWN #1   Mike Cuenca

Best Comedy Writer  DEATH PAYS FLORA A VISIT  Sy Rosen

Best Actor   BREAK UP SEASON   Chandler RIggs

Best Feature   BREAK UP SEASON   H. Nelson Tracey

Best Actress   LIME AND VINEGAR   Dalma Daniela

BEST THRILLEER (Short)  BECAUSE I LOVE YOU   Bob Celli

Best Thriller          MONSOON LOVER     Marlin Darrah

Best Animation   CHRISTMAS DANCE    Tiffany Jiang

Best Horror         HALLOWEEN ’63    Lorenzo P Adams

Best Documentary    WHO WE ARE     Noah Berlow and Szilva Vecserdy

Best Comedy (short)    CALLING ANDY    Alex Lang

Best Music Video  MIDNIGHT BLUE   Paul Gervasi 

​There was a 90 min block of student films on SATURDAY EVENING THE 9TH.

Best Student Actor    WHEN LUCK RUNS DRY   Jack Hadley

Best Student Actress   CHANCE IT   Maddie Bunn

Best Student Adventure   DREAMS   Marcel Mikaeli

Best Student Comedy     JOHNNY JR.    Lily Andrews

Best Student Music    ALL I ASK   Shelby Clinkscales

Best Student Romance  SLOW DANCE   Micha Streeter

Best Student Documentary  ORANGE RUSH  Dragon Fly Studios Orangewood School

Best Student Cinematography   TRY N RUN   Jospeh Eskander

BEST SILENT FILM     CHANCE IT    Ariel Lopez.”

2025’s Film Festival will run two days in November, with the dates and location to be announced later, according to DeLaRosa.

On Saturday, January 18, attorney Joyce Caraway received a notice from the California Supreme Court that COMET’s Petition for Review was denied. COMET had petitioned for a reversal of the appellate court’s decision in favor of Redlands and taking away COMET’s “standing,” [Ed.’s Note: right to bring a lawsuit]. “COMET had sought to prevent further forced annexations, but Redlands originally argued that COMET couldn’t prevail at trial and the judge bought the argument.” It was all downhill from there,” she added. It appears the case is over, even though the trial court judge did not rule on several issues, such as Redlands’ ‘development impact fees’ for library, police, fire, parks, etc., that Mentone’s developers and subsequent owners probably will not use,” she continued.

“It was a summary denial, meaning that the Supreme Court didn’t have to explain why it was denying review,” stated Caraway, who has been prosecuting COMET’s lawsuit against Redlands and LAFCO for nearly six years. “Redlands may be out of the lawsuit; all that would remain is for LAFCO, which approves Redlands’ forced annexations, to get out of it, as well.

“It has been a very complicated case, with several issues, including Redlands’ having done several illegal annexations and getting away with them.

“This doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the road for Mentone,” she added. “Every such annexation has to be approved by LAFCO, and if the property owners do not wish to be in Redlands, they may object before LAFCO, which has to abide by their wishes: Government Code Section 57078. Thus, if new property developers in Mentone want to stay in Mentone and don’t want to be absorbed into Redlands, they may appear before LAFCO and object and, by law, LAFCO may not approve the forced annexation. The problem is that most property developers think that “agreeing” to Redlands’ demand is all that they can do and apparently no one is telling them otherwise. That’s one reason why so much of Mentone has been lost in the past few years,” she continued. If anyone knows of someone who is developing property in Mentone, they should talk to them and ask them to stay in Mentone by objecting to LAFCO’s approval of Redlands’ forced annexation. If LAFCO then makes the wrong decision, the developer can sue; the decisions in COMET’s case do not prohibit any developer from suing LAFCO,” she added.

“The other problem for Mentone is that, unfortunately, some developers have not cared about it but instead have agreed with annexation or an unenforceable ‘pre’-annexation for business reasons, and thus have placed Mentone’s future in jeopardy. COMET filed suit to prevent future such annexations; also unfortunately, the courts did not discern Mentone’s dilemma and give us what we believed we deserved,” she concluded. MM