Prop. 50 Water Funds Could Aid Huge Upland Development

A massive residential and commercial project in Upland could benefit from a $10-million amendment added to the state budget by state Sen. Jim Brulte at the request of a San Bernardino County supervisor who has close ties to the project’s developer.

Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga) added the amendment during July’s fractious budget negotiations at the request of Supervisor Paul Biane, whose district includes Upland and who had been a business partner with one of the developers of the Colonies Crossroads project, according to Biane and Brulte.

The budget amendment steers $10 million from Proposition 50 -- the $3.4-billion water quality act approved by voters last year -- to the site of the 110-acre commercial development and residential venture near the 210 Freeway. Developers and local government agencies have been locked in a legal feud over who should pay for a flood-control project that is needed before the development can be completed.

In an interview this week, Biane said he asked Brulte to add the amendment because no other money was immediately available for the flood control project and because the development is expected to create jobs and sales taxes for the entire region.

Brulte said he obliged Biane’s request for the budget amendment because he believes the Inland Empire is often overlooked when state funding is distributed.

Biane, who was a real estate agent before he was elected last year, said he had worked on several real estate deals with Dan Richards, one of the Colonies Crossroads developers. Campaign finance statements also show that Colonies Crossroads donated $10,000 to Biane’s election campaign last year.

But Biane said he sees nothing wrong with helping to direct state funds to a project being built in his district by a former business partner.

“The process has been political and always will be political,” Biane said.

Proposition 50 was designed to provide money to protect water supplies from terrorists and boost the reliability of waterworks while preserving watershed areas and protecting rivers from pollution. Government agencies that want to tap the proposition funding must apply for grants.

A Sierra Club spokesman said the environmentalist group had endorsed Proposition 50, hoping the bond money would help purchase and protect wetlands and coastal areas and clean contaminated groundwater.

Jim Metropolus, a Sierra Club legislative representative, said the group did not envision the money being spent to promote commercial projects.

“We don’t think it should be used to juice development,” he said.

The Brulte budget amendment, added anonymously during the last days of the budget negotiations, made no specific reference to the Upland flood control project or the development that will benefit from it.

Instead, the amendment set aside $10 million from the bond act for Southern California. The amendment also restricted the $10 million to an area outside of the massive Metropolitan Water District, within a mile of an established residential and commercial development and to an area where the county population increased at least 2.4% in 2002.

The Colonies Crossroads development is one of the few, if not the only, project that fits the amendment language, according to local water officials.

The Colonies Crossroads will eventually include a 110-acre retail project -- with such stores as Target, Kohl’s and Chick’s Sporting Goods -- 800 single-family homes and 300 apartments. About 300 single-family homes have been built south of the freeway.

Richards declined to comment on the budget amendment, except to say that the proposed flood control project would benefit the entire region.

The issue of who should pay for the flood control project has been the subject of significant litigation that has yet to be resolved. The project developers have sued, arguing that the county’s flood control district is responsible for the water project.

County officials say a large retention basin and an outlet channel would be needed to divert flood waters from nearby hills and runoff from the recently extended 210 Freeway into the Cucamonga Creek.

San Bernardino County or Upland could apply to the state Department of Water Resources for the $10 million to build the project, according to officials.