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Civic
Land use, public finance, housing, public safety, elections — the governance of California's Inland corridor.
From the Long Read
What happened at the meeting you skipped.
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Civic Archives
Riverside moves to interviews for its first inspector general
The Raincross Gazette: The watchdog post pays $161,000 to $217,000 and reports to the mayor and council — the structure critics say undercuts its independence.
Chino trash carts get camera checks starting July 1
Champion Newspapers: WM trucks will photograph contaminated and overfilled carts; fines of $17.89 and $29.81 follow a two-month warning period.
Dicus wins outright, Binks and Vara head to runoff in San Bernardino County races
Community Forward Redlands: One countywide incumbent cruised, one lost outright: Sheriff Dicus took 65.6% while Auditor-Controller Ensen Mason fell to challenger Ryan Hutchison.
Chino Hills weighs a one-cent sales tax for the November ballot
Champion Newspapers: The city projects a $4.3 million General Fund deficit for 2026-27, covered by reserves. Council takes up the tax question Tuesday, June 9.
All three Riverside council races head toward November runoffs
The Riverside Record: No candidate in Wards 2, 4 or 6 cleared 50% in early returns; an estimated 270,000 county ballots remain uncounted.
Riverside County supervisors file De Luz election canvass over citizen group's objections
Riverside Record: The group's own audit reconciled after a missing ballot log surfaced; county counsel said the board had no discretion to delay or order a recount.
Ontario launches "Ask Ontario," a 24/7 service chatbot
City of Ontario: New digital assistant fields common questions and takes service requests online, any hour.
Riverside voters reject Measure Z fire tax; three council seats head to runoffs
The Raincross Gazette: Voters turned down the fire-funding sales tax 59-41 in early returns — a no on the same revenue the city's own budget says it needs to cover a $27M general-fund gap.
The IE's warehouse-emissions rule is mostly working — and the IE is paying most of the freight
Citrus Belt Review: Four years into the nation's first warehouse-emissions rule, the surprise isn't the $55 million in fees — it's that fees are only 5% of it. Operators are mostly buying electric yard trucks and chargers, not writing checks. And the two IE counties carry most of the bill.
A Colton senator is legislating against AI layoffs while the IE loses warehouse jobs the ordinary way
Citrus Belt Review: State Sen. Eloise Reyes wants 90 days' notice before AI-driven layoffs. The catch worth noticing: the warehouse cuts hitting the IE right now aren't about AI at all — they're the old cyclical kind, in the one sector the region bet its economy on.
San Bernardino's Tran wins a second term outright; Valdivia comeback fails
Community Forward Redlands: Mayor Helen Tran cleared 54.6% against five challengers, avoiding a runoff — and former mayor John Valdivia finished last at 7.1%.
Binks and Vara head to November for San Bernardino County schools chief
Community Forward Redlands: Two educators advanced for county superintendent; Sheriff Dicus and the new auditor-controller won outright, and AD-50's Garcia drew a November challenger.
San Bernardino supervisor moves to censure elected auditor Ensen Mason
IE Community News: Rowe wants a censure or removal vote days before Mason faces the ballot — and the board has already denied him county funds to defend himself in an open investigation.
Newsom signs Cervantes ballot-security bill last week
The Riverside Record: SB 73 lands days after Sheriff Chad Bianco seized more than 600,000 Riverside County ballots — and both Newsom and its author say it would have made that harder.
The work rule lands hardest where the work is least steady
Citrus Belt Review: New CalFresh work requirements took effect June 1, and the corridor carries more exposure than anywhere in Southern California — about 723,000 recipients across the two counties, in a region whose signature jobs don't reliably clear the threshold the rule sets.
Murrieta Valley voters fill a trustee seat Tuesday after a fight over how
The Riverside Record: A community petition forced the June 2 special election after the board appointed someone last October instead. The winner serves through 2028.
Riverside launches a business-attraction website
City of Riverside: New site riversidebusiness.org, announced at the May 21 Economic Development Committee meeting, is pitched as a tool to attract investment and support local business.
Both IE counties open early voting ahead of June 2 primary
Riverside County Registrar of Voters: 152 vote centers open across Riverside County starting May 30, plus 107 ballot drop-off sites; San Bernardino County has opened its own countywide early-voting locations through June 1.
Riverside council candidates raised nearly $500K for three seats — and one race ran on $5,000
The Riverside Record: Ten candidates for three Ward seats pulled in almost half a million combined, but the spread runs from Gracie Torres' near-$100K to Jessica Qattawi's roughly $5K — a gap that tests whether money buys a council seat in a city with no contribution limits.
Mission Inn's missing artifacts hinge on a question nobody settled in 1992
The Raincross Gazette: Two paintings came off the wall May 20, and the fight over who owns them rests on a good-faith handshake from the Christmas Eve closing that the city never put in writing.