Desert Town Can’t Shake Its Wild West Reputation

When he took over as mayor, Tristan Pelayes thought shutting down the Charlie’s Girls strip club on the edge of this desert town would be his biggest headache.

Half an hour after being appointed, he knew better.

Pelayes was handed a set of recall petitions that accused him and two other City Council members of everything from corruption and racketeering to poor hygiene and problem marriages.

“It’s totally groundless. This is what happens when someone new comes in and tries to clean things up,” said Pelayes, an attorney in the county counsel’s office for San Bernardino County and a former sheriff’s deputy. “This is making the city look like a joke.”

Even with the local casino boarded up and tumbleweeds lying against empty saloons, this parched Mojave Desert hamlet and old Air Force outpost can’t seem to shake its reputation as a scandal-plagued, Wild West town.

Within the last year, Adelanto’s police chief has been fired, two city managers have quit, a mayor was unseated and recall campaigns have been launched against all five City Council members.

In this one post office town of 18,000, known for its packed welfare rolls and 100-degree days, the political free-for-all has grown as twisted as the desert’s gnarled Joshua trees. The campaign to recall one councilman is being led, in part, by his next-door neighbor.

Even people who have lived here for years--long enough to see another former police chief sent to federal prison and three previous council members recalled in 1996--say they can’t remember a more venomous atmosphere inside Adelanto City Hall.

“Who needs ‘em,” said resident Diana Torres, 39, an employee at Yvonne’s Beauty Salon. “All I can hope for is something better to come in. I mean, it can’t get any worse.”

Adelanto is tucked up against the former George Air Force Base, about 65 miles northeast of Los Angeles in the high desert area known as Victor Valley. The Pentagon abandoned the air base in 1992, taking away an estimated 5,000 area jobs and drying up the local economy, and that’s when the trouble really began in Adelanto.

The city fathers dreamed--some say foolishly--of converting the base into an international airport. Adelanto spent about $11 million--twice its annual budget--suing neighboring cities for complete control of the facility and wound up with nothing.

“That started our downfall, and we’re not close to recouping,” said Charlotte Foster, a former mayor and local real estate agent. “Just take a look. If you drive down the highway and you see boarded-up businesses on main intersections, what does that tell you?”

The city’s older neighborhoods remain pocked by abandoned homes with plywood covering the windows and weed-filled front yards. Adelanto has a strip club but no supermarket. It has a bingo hall but no drug store.

“If I want a pair of shoes, I have to drive to Victorville,” Foster said. “You know, in Spanish, Adelanto means ‘to go forward.’ That’s exactly what we’re not doing.”

Adelanto’s only decent restaurant was at the Hi Desert Casino, a card club that closed about four years ago. The casino still stands, fenced off and boarded up, across the street from City Hall.

The casino’s demise was prompted by a City Council vote to increase taxes on the club, and was among the top grievances listed in the current recall campaign against Councilman William Hartz. Hartz served as mayor, a ceremonial post selected by council members, for more than five years before he was voted out two weeks ago.

The most damning, and bizarre, allegation against Hartz was unearthed last year. When a vacancy opened up on the council and it was looking for candidates to appoint as a replacement, Hartz lobbied for Jerry Steffanus--without revealing that Steffanus was his half brother.

Council members Pelayes and Richard Althouse said they were shocked when the truth was disclosed.

“No one ever told me they were blood brothers,” Althouse said. “I never would have voted for the guy.”

Adelanto real estate agent F.J. Ambercrombie, whose partner sold Steffanus his new house, launched recall campaigns against Hartz and Steffanus in August. Neither can be trusted, Ambercrombie says, and both were way too cozy with the Adelanto Police Department.

“I hate to see this city destroyed, and that’s what’s happening,” Ambercrombie said. “A lot of stuff was going on under the sheets.”

Hartz calls the criticism hogwash, and said everyone knew Steffanus was his brother.

“It’s a lie,” Hartz said. “They just wanted something to [complain] about.”

Hartz blames the recall campaigns on a group of disgruntled council candidates who got trounced in the last election--a list that includes Ambercrombie.

“I’ve lived in big cities, little cities, towns all over this country. I’ve never seen a city like this in my entire life,” said Hartz, 72, a retired insurance executive. “There are people in this town who would cut your throat and stab you in the back and not think twice.”

The second round of recall campaigns is mostly tied to a debate over whether to scrap the city Police Department, which is still trying to recover from a scandalous past, and instead contract with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

In early October, Mayor Pelayes and council members Althouse and James Nehmens voted not to renew the contract of Police Chief James Kuntz. A week later, the recall campaigns to remove them began.

“The chief was doing a good job,” said recall leader Davis Vest, a member of the Police Department’s volunteer citizens patrol. “What we have here is three power-hungry people trying to take over the town.”

Kuntz’s dismissal stemmed, in part, from the behavior of his second-in-command, Lt. Scott Burnell, who has been placed on paid administrative leave after the Adelanto Police Officers Assn. complained that he created a “hostile work environment.”

Burnell is among those leading the recall effort against Pelayes, Althouse and Nehmens. Burnell lives next door to Althouse. Burnell’s receptionist is Pelayes’ sister-in-law. Burnell also was the campaign manager of the trio’s biggest political nemesis, Councilman Hartz.

“This is one twisted town,” Burnell said.

Recall petitions against all five council members are filled with unsubstantiated allegations of criminal wrongdoing and political ineptitude. The accusations range from receiving kickbacks to urinating in public.

So far, the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office has kept clear of the political firefight, as has the state attorney general’s office.

“We’re not involved at this point,” said Susan Mickey, the district attorney’s spokeswoman.

The current upheaval adds to Adelanto’s history of scandal, political missteps and questionable policies in recent years:

* Former Mayor Tom Thornburg, a criminal defense attorney who joined the council in 1994, was elected despite being a convicted felon. He had served one year in prison on federal drug-smuggling charges stemming from a plot to ship marijuana by speedboat from St. Martin Island to Puerto Rico in 1973.

* Former Police Chief Philip Genaway was sentenced to four years in state prison for embezzling nearly $10,000.

* In 1994, two city police officers beat a confession out of one man and forced another to lick the blood off a booking room floor. They later pleaded guilty to federal civil rights violations and were sent to prison.

* In 1996, the mayor and two other council members were kicked out of office in a recall election after voting to allow a gold mine operation in the city--a mine that was going to use cyanide in the leeching process. Residents were outraged.

* In 1999, to bring in much-needed revenue, the city leased Maverick Stadium--home of the high desert’s minor league baseball team--for an all-night rave party. Two partygoers leaving the rave were seriously injured when they rammed their car into a police van on the highway.

* Last year, Police Officer Walter Petti was convicted of child molestation and sentenced to three years in prison.

* In December, City Manager Michael A. Sakamoto left to take a job in the city of Hercules. His replacement, Ken Hubler, quit after just two months.

Newcomers to Adelanto have heard only faint rumors about the events. But some say it’s not hard to figure out that things have been amiss.

“Something is obviously wrong,” said Jeff Andries, who moved from San Bernardino three months ago and runs a small janitorial service. “Look around--there’s nothing around here.”