With the ten-year legally required update to the County of San Bernardino's General Plan coming due, the Board of Supervisors decided to do a marvelous thing a few years ago.

    Because the county is so big and diverse that one plan would not adequately serve the needs of all areas, the Supervisors decided that the new General Plan would incorporate individual Community Plans as policy extensions to assist and serve long-term local community planning.

    To accomplish that, more than 75 public meetings have been held across the county, two of them in Newberry Springs, where local citizens have spent hours deciding upon the priorities that they want to have incorporated into their Community Plan.

    After all of the workshops that have gone into the Community Plan concept, Land Use Services Director, Terri Rahhal, and her Land Use Services Department (LUSD) have decided to do a flip as was revealed at the October 26, 2017, Countywide Plan EIR Scoping Meeting held in San Bernardino.

    As covered in the video (below) recorded at that meeting, LUSD has taken it upon itself to "revision" all of the Community Plans as Action Plans and have them lumped together into a single consolidated Central Policy Plan whereby the individual needs of communities won't be recognized in the General Plan.

    This way, LUSD maintains a greater control over what development goes into communities, such as utility-scale solar.

    Communities are now being told to do their own Action Plan without General Plan recognition.  That doesn't protect communities from LUSD unwanted meddling.  Without the recognition and County support, most Action Plans are impossible for communities to accomplish alone.  The whole purpose for the Community Plans is being ignored by the crafty LUSD which has flipped the Supervisors off without the Supervisors seeing it.

    The County under the LUSD General Plan preparation is abandoning individual communities' input desires and the LUSD is telling the communities that they are now free to do whatever on their own.  The LUSD's spin is that the communities are requesting "short-term" focus and that the communities don't want to wait for County financial support.  The financial support has never been discussed, but it is obvious that the LUSD doesn't want to follow any obligatory community guidelines.

    More LUSD lies!  The truth is that communities are requesting long-term support by having their individual community needs recognized in the General Plan which is crucial for their economic development.  Local communities have not been able to fulfill "Action Plans" alone in the past, won't be able to do so in the future, and need the County's support to work with them.

    The underlying factor appears to be big-business corruption within the LUSD that works against the county's citizens.  What good is more business activity if the quality of living in the county is depreciated?  This is the reason why some residents are rethinking the need for a county split.  As with the continued delay with Policy 4.10, the LUSD continues to demonstrate that it will go its own direction despite what is ordered by the Board of Supervisors.

    Many big cities have citizen police oversight boards.  It is time that we have one for the LUSD which is out-of-control and shouldn't be tolerated.

    County CEO, Gary McBride, has recently recognized Terri Rahhal's performance by promoting her from LUSD Planning Director to the top spot, LUSD Director.  McBride himself was also promoted from within the County.

    Newberry citizens are encouraged to attend the September 11th meeting, their own 9-11, to voice their outrage.