San Bernardino Press_12/23/2024

How a decades-old loophole lets billionaires avoid Medicare taxes

By Paul Kiel, ProPublica

Series: The secret IRS files: Inside the tax records of the .001%

Reporting highlights

-Tax Dodge: Most working Americans have to pay Medicare taxes, but some of the richest figures on Wall Street have found a way to opt out, a ProPublica investigation found.

- Accidental Loophole: Nearly 50 years ago, Congress tried to fix one financial abuse but unwittingly created an obscure loophole that these billionaires exploit to avoid Medicare taxes.

- Battling Abuse: The IRS only recently got tough on people it viewed as abusing the loophole, but it is unclear if the agency will be able to end the practice.

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

For most working Americans, paying their share of the taxes that fund Medicare is an unavoidable fact of life. It’s so automatic for many workers that they may not even realize it takes a bite out of every paycheck. In theory, everyone is required to contribute to the country’s health insurance program for seniors, no matter how poor or rich, from cashiers to CEOs.

Not on Wall Street. There, some of the most powerful people in finance found a way to opt out.

The trove of tax records behind ProPublica’s “Secret IRS Files” series contains plenty of examples of billionaire financiers who avoided Medicare tax despite earning huge amounts from their companies. In 2016, Steve Cohen, the owner of the New York Mets, paid $0. So did Stephen Schwarzman, head of the investment behemoth Blackstone. Bill Ackman, the

headline-grabbing hedge fund manager, was able to shield almost all his income from the tax.

How do they do it?

Business owners, like any selfemployed person, whether they’re a freelance Uber driver or a hedge fund manager, have the responsibility to declare their self-employment earnings on their tax returns. Indeed, the vast majority of small-business owners have no choice but to do so and pay the same taxes that wage earners pay, including Medicare.

But high-priced tax advisers, wielding a onceobscure bit of the tax code, found a way to make that obligation vanish. By carefully channeling profits through a company in a way that invokes that obscure provision, even a Steve Cohen, with a tax return showing he received hundreds of millions in profits from his hedge fund, can exempt that income from Medicare tax.

The three billionaires contacted for this article said they followed the law as written. They also pointed to the fact that they paid substantial income tax, which for them carries a much

higher rate. Medicare tax is 2.9% for most people and 3.8% for high earners.

But these maneuvers by the rich hasten Medicare’s future crisis. Sometime in the 2030s, the program’s trust fund is due to run dry. Closing the loophole, along with eliminating other ways around the tax for wealthy business owners, could raise more than $250 billion over 10 years for Medicare, according to recent government estimates.

Over the past three years, ProPublica has mined the tax records of the rich to detail the many ways they avoid taxes. We’ve focused on basic structural features of the U.S. system that advantage them. We’ve uncovered maneuvers of questionable legality that seem to have escaped the notice of the IRS. The Medicare tax loophole occupies a gray area. The IRS definitely knows about it, but it’s unclear if the agency will be able to stop it.

The potential of the loophole first surfaced in the 1990s, and the IRS soon expressed the view that active business owners shouldn’t be allowed to exploit it. It was only in recent years, however,

that the agency got tough. Today, the IRS continues to battle what it considers a serious abuse, waging a rare, long-shot campaign to prevent some of the nation’s wealthiest citizens from using the loophole.

The story of how America’s richest financiers avoid paying Medicare tax gives unique insight into the peculiar, messy way taxes work in the U.S. No one set out to create the loophole when it first entered the tax code in 1977. But a series of seemingly unrelated policy changes, together with a revolution in how American businesses are structured, conspired to deliver a major tax advantage to the wealthy. On Capitol Hill, interest groups have successfully defended that advantage, branding any effort to close the loophole as a tax hike on Main Street businesses.

Approaching its 50th birthday, the loophole, for now, lives on.

Fixing one problem, creating another

Over the 2010s, years of budget cuts sliced deep

Supervisors amend process of filling vacancies on Riverside County committees

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved an amendment to a Riverside County policy pertaining to terms of service for members of committees and commissions overseen by the board, limiting how long members can continue to serve after their terms have expired.

Supervisor Karen Spiegel raised the issue of language in Policy A-21 when it was brought before the board by the Executive Office for what were supposed to be routine changes.

“I think we need to be responsible and use the words ‘good faith effort’ and (set) a reasonable time limit (for appointing new members),” Spiegel said. “That puts a (few) more screws to it.”

The supervisor’s main concern was what she viewed as the weakness in A-21’s current provisions, stemming from the fact that supervisors and their staff members currently face no time requirement, or deadline, for the appointment of new members of committees, advisory groups or commissions in each supervisorial district to replace panelists whose terms have expired.

Report: IE’s jobless rate drops in November

Payroll gains topped losses throughout the regional economy last month, pushing Riverside County’s unemployment lower, according to figures released Friday by the state Employment Development Department.

The countywide jobless rate in November, based on preliminary EDD estimates, was 5.4%, compared to 5.7% in October.

According to data, the November rate was only twotenths of a percentage point above the year-ago level, when countywide unemployment stood at 5.2%.

Mecca had the highest unemployment rate within the county in November at 13%, followed by Coachella at 11.6%, Cherry Valley at 9.6%, Desert Hot Springs at 7.7% and Rancho Mirage at 7.6%.

The combined unemployment rate for Riverside and San Bernardino counties — the Inland Empire — was 5.3%, down from 5.5% in October, the EDD said.

Bi-county data indicated payrolls expanded by the widest margin in the trade and transportation sector, mainly in retailing and warehousing, which added 11,500 positions ahead of the holiday season shopping period.

The agricultural, health services, professional business

of kids receive Christmas gifts; visits from Santa, The Grinch

This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

Damaged “Medicare For All” sticker. | Photo by David Seibold/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Riverside programs aim to help local youth gain work experience

By Staff

Two workforce development programs in Riverside aim to help young city residents get on early career paths and develop the next generation of workers, officials said Tuesday.

The RISE and GROW programs represent investments in local youth who will become the city and local business’ future employees, officials said. The programs feature internships, mentoring and life skills training.

“We know from our existing workforce that many of our best employees are right here in Riverside,” Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said in a statement. “These programs help us develop our future workforce and ensure we will continue to benefit from the local talent here in town.”

GROW, or Guiding Riverside’s youth towards Opportunities in the Workforce, provides high school juniors and seniors with job readiness skills as well as knowledge and experiences related to the workforce. The program combines classroom learning, hands-on training, job-shadowing and mentorship with the goal of preparing students for success in a variety of industries, officials said.

“The ultimate goal of GROW is to help Riverside

businesses by creating a pipeline of entry level candidates that are ready to work,” according to a city statement.

The first GROW cohort included 15 students in the 20-week paid program that totaled 120 hours of training, guest speakers, site tours and on-the-job work experience, officials said. Program participants explored city departments, applied for part-time positions and received a certificate of completion “to help meet standards required for employment, pre-apprenticeships and/or (career and technical education) programs,” according to the city.

While employment is not guaranteed, the program offers participants an “‘advantage’ in their employment journey,” officials said. The city connects with area school districts, colleges and universities that provide a pool of young people seeking to build their resumes while learning jobreadiness skills, including: professionalism, problem-solving, and workplace etiquette;

-- how to dress appropriately for an interview;

-- the importance of developing a personal brand;

-- how to create

a dynamic profile on LinkedIn;

-- how to create an email address that is appropriate for interacting with a potential employer;

-- the importance of firm handshakes and maintaining eye contact during interviews; and

-- CPR/frst-aid certification.

“Employers who are eager to fill positions may not have the time to explain to applicants how they may have fallen short of an employer’s expectations,” Mayor Pro Tem Jim Perry said in a statement. “This program helps young people be ‘ready to hire’ by eliminating some of those potential barriers on the front end.”

The GROW program features a “career exploration tour” in which participants visit various city departments and locations of possible future work. Stops on the tour include City Hall, the Riverside TV studio, Traffic Management Center, One-Stop Shop and the Bourns Family Youth Innovation Center.

“The Riverside TV studio, for example, could spur interest in careers in video production, engineering, editing, and management,” according to the city. “Future GROW cohorts will

also have exposure to local Riverside jobs and businesses.”

The GROW program is part of a larger initiative known as RISE, or Riverside Intern Skills Engagement, officials said. RISE is an umbrella-like effort that has a range of age groups for anyone interested in internships. About 60 people have

been placed as interns in city departments, such as Public Works, General Services, Human Resources and other agencies.

A component of the RISE program is a team of paid fellows who work 1,000 hours through the state’s #CaliforniansForAll Youth Job Corps program, as well as students who receive

school credit for their work. City officials noted that RISE students’ schedules are tailored to what they can feasibly balance with school work and other commitments.

The next GROW cohort will assemble this summer with participant recruitment starting in early spring.

Drone sightings over Temecula spark speculation, questions

By City News Service

Followingincreasing reports from residents in New Jersey and other East Coast cities about mysterious large drones in the skies at night, reports have circulated recently from residents in Temecula who say they’re seeing similar unexplained flying objects hovering over the desert city.

There’s no word on who is flying them or why, and there is no indication of any illegal activity. But given the attention generated by the East Coast drone sightings, the reports have some residents on edge.

One person in Temecula posted a video on TikTok, showing several illuminated drones hovering over the area.

“There’s so many. There’s like 10. And they’re all over the city,” the person can be heard saying on the video.

Officials at Camp Pendleton, which is in northern San Diego County, issued a statement saying it is aware of residents reporting drone flights, but none of the drones are associated with the military base.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco suggested on a local radio show earlier this month that Southern California Edison could be flying drones in the area. The utility, however, while acknowledging that it does use drones to inspect its infrastructure, insisted it does not fly them at night.

Responding to increased numbers of reports of drone activity, the Federal Aviation Administration even issued a statement Dec. 13 offering guidelines for people who fly the devices.

“More and more people

ment.

The agency noted that it investigates “all reports of unsafe operations” of drones. “However, you don’t need specific authorization from the FAA to fly drones in most locations.”

Any drone that weighs more than about a halfpound must be registered with the FAA, and it must have a registration number displayed on the device.

People who fly drones at night must have a drone pilot certificate, and it must be equipped with lights.

But in general, flying a drone at altitudes less than 400 feet is generally permitted as long as it is not within controlled airspace around an airport, or over military bases or national security facilities.

“You can land a drone anywhere provided the

landing area is safe and is not prohibited by local, state or federal laws,” according to the FAA. The information provides little comfort to the people spotting the drones in Temecula who just want answers about who is responsible for them. I don’t think it’s regular off-the-shelf drones that (are being) flown around here,” resident Bryan Dirkes told Fox11. “Based on what we saw it was a pretty good size, almost the size of a small vehicle or car.”

Federal officials issued a statement Dec. 12 in response to the drone activity reported in the New Jersey area, saying there is “no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus.”

RISE interns tour a fire station in May. | Photo courtesy of cityofriversidefiredepartment/Instagram

are using drones, which means more people are noticing them in the sky,” according to the FAA state-

This orb of light was one of several possible drone sightings over Temecula on Dec. 11. | Photo courtesy of itsnomadmusic/ Instagram

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TFreeman World Series home run ball fetches $1.56M at auction

he baseball that Freddie Freeman clobbered for a walk-off home run in Game 1 of the Dodgers’ 2024 World Series victory over the New York Yankees sold for $1.56 million at auction the night of Dec. 14 — the third highest total ever for an auctioned baseball, it was announced Dec. 15.

“We are so honored to have handled one of the most important artifacts in World Series history, dating back to 1903,” SCP Auctions President David Kohler said Dec. 15.

Freeman’s home run came in the bottom of the 10th inning at Dodger Stadium, with the bases loaded and Los Angeles trailing 3-2. The 35-year-old first baseman hit the first pitch he saw from Nestor Cortes 413 feet for the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history.

The home run ball was corralled by 10-yearold Dodgers fan Zachary Ruderman. His parents told him he was leaving school early on the day of Game 1 to get his braces removed

By

but to Zachary’s surprise, they headed directly to Dodger Stadium instead. When the ball rolled from the seat in front of Zachary to the ground at his feet, he batted it to his dad, Nico, who jumped on it ahead of several other scrambling fans.

“Our family hopes the baseball will be displayed in Dodger Stadium so all Dodgers and baseball fans can view a very special piece of history for the city of Los Angeles,” according to a statement from the Ruderman family.

Freeman would go on to be named World Series MVP after the Dodgers won the series in five games.

The highest price ever paid for a baseball is the $4.392 million shelled out in October for Shohei Ohtani’s 50th home run ball, which made him the first player in baseball history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a season. The previous record was $3.05 million for Mark McGwire’s then-record 70th

home run ball of 1998.

The price paid for Freeman’s ball tops the $1.5 million paid in 2022 for

Auto Club: 9.9 million SoCal residents expected to travel for winter holidays

By

Thewinterholiday travel period officially began Dec. 14, with the Automobile Club of Southern California projecting that 9.9 million Southern California residents will take end-ofthe-year trips.

The projected travel number is 3.5% higher than last year, and 6.8% higher than the pre-pandemic 2019 holiday season.

“This is the time of year when lifelong memories are made with loved ones, and travel plays a big role in that,”

Jena Miller, the Auto Club’s vice president for travel products and services, said in a statement.

“This year, with Christmas Day falling on a Wednesday, we will see many families not only take road trips but also fly to international destinations and set sail for warm destinations in the Caribbean.”

Nationwide, 119.3 million people are expected to travel for the holiday, narrowly surpassing the record set in 2019, according to the Auto

Club.

The vast majority of travelers are expected to reach their destinations by car.

Among Southern California residents, 8.7 million are expected to travel by car, with

City News Service

City News Service

the ball Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge hit for his American League-record 62nd home run.

Freddie Freeman rounds third base after his World Series grand slam. | Photo courtesy of MLB

New Year’s

Club considers

The 110 Freeway through downtown LA. | Photo by chones/Envato

Illuminating Tradition: Upper Hastings Ranch’s Annual Light Extravaganza

The Upper Hastings Ranch in Pasadena, California, is a testament to a community’s ability to blend nostalgia with modernity. An annual tradition, now in its 73rd year, transforms the neighborhood into a dazzling showcase of holiday lights, creating an ethereal atmosphere that captivates both residents and tourists alike. Originally a simple display of paper bag luminarias guiding Santa in 1951, this event has transformed into a competitive spectacle recognized nationally, notably in contests like ‘The Great Christmas Light Fight.’

What makes this tradition particularly unique is its dedication to sustainability and innovation. Andy Harbeck, a 2022 competition winner, emphasizes a modern twist on classic decorations, “We love to help out and mentor others in our neighborhood,” he remarks, demonstrating a commitment to community spirit and sustainable practices. This blend of mentorship and innovation encourages even the younger residents to experiment with technology, such as pixel controllers and power injection. Incorporating advanced technology while maintaining the celebration’s traditional essence is no small feat. Residents employ LED lights, smart plugs, and even QR codes to captivate audiences while remembering the importance of neighborly warmth and interaction. As noted by board member Tiffany Gardner, “We bring smiles to thousands of people,” confirming the event’s significant place in Pasadena’s holiday repertoire. Special events, such as live performances and the charming Snoopy Parade, further enrich this festive season.

As the lights twinkle through the nights until December 31, the residents of Upper Hastings Ranch remind us that the spirit of the holidays resides not just in vibrant displays but in the shared joy and community ties that light our lives.

Photo courtesy of Canva

HOLIDAY GUIDE

Unwrapping the Ultimate DC Gift Guide

For enthusiasts who have cultivated a passion for DC Comics, finding the perfect addition to their collection can be as thrilling as unmasking a supervillain’s identity. With an impressive lineup including Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman: Legacy set for release in 2025, DC fans are in for quite the cinematic feast. This holiday season, numerous collectibles provide an ideal opportunity to enhance any superhero shrine.

From the vibrant panels of Aquaman to the battles of The Flash, the DC Universe offers merchandise that resonates across generations, promising to satisfy the diverse tastes of fanatics worldwide. Amazon, a colossal marketplace known for its swift delivery services via Prime, caters to those seeking supplementary items ranging from quirky coffee mugs to chic bathrobes. Whether for diehard film buffs or accessories aficionados, the merchandise selection promises excitement far beyond that seen on the silver screen.

These DC-themed gifts are perfect for any fan of the DC Universe, offering a wide range of options for every type of enthusiast.

Thoughtful Gifting Ideas to Cherish Moms This Holiday Season

The festive season is upon us, and with it comes the annual tradition of finding the perfect gift to show appreciation for our loved ones, especially moms. The ideal gifts that go beyond the usual are those that blend innovation with usefulness, thanks to an amazing variety of options.

Moms, often cherished for their unwavering support and understanding, deserve gifts that reflect their unique tastes and bring them joy. For those seeking to express gratitude in a heartfelt manner, gifts like the Godiva Advent Calendar offer a sweet indulgence, while the PatPat Christmas Pajamas add a touch of cozy festivity, capturing the spirit of the season.

Moms who enjoy self-care and luxury may cherish the Josie Maran Supersize Whipped Argan Oil Body Butter Duo, which promises a pampering experience. For the mom who is always on the move, the Dagne Dover Medium Landon Carryall Duffle Bag is a choice that blends functionality with style, making travel more convenient.

In an era where meaningful keepsakes matter, innovative products like digital photo frames stand out, offering a unique way to savor memories without clutter. Embracing aesthetic and utility, the minimalist Phlur Currant Crush Candle is an elegant choice for creating an atmosphere of warmth and relaxation.

Photos courtesy of Canva

into the IRS’ enforcement muscle. Audits, especially those of the wealthy and corporations, plummeted. In response, agency leaders decided to conduct a kind of triage and focus the IRS’ dwindling might on the most pressing and addressable problems. Among the agency’s early priorities was to curb the widespread use of the Medicare tax loophole.

Beginning in 2018, the agency began hunting for business owners who, in its view, were abusing the law. It launched over 80 audits aimed at hedge funds, private equity firms, consultancies and similar businesses. Cohen’s firm was just the sort of thing the agency was looking for.

Before Cohen became popular as the approachable, gap-toothed, sweaterwearing Mets-fan-in-chief, he was a controversial figure on Wall Street, the inspiration for the legal-risk-taking hedge fund lead character in the Showtime series “Billions.” Cohen made his fortune through his original hedge fund, SAC Capital, known for rapid-fire trades with a remarkable track record. In 2013, SAC pleaded guilty to five criminal counts of securities and wire fraud, agreeing to pay $1.8 billion in penalties and effectively shut itself down. Cohen was not personally charged. Turning the page, he soon formed a new hedge fund, Point72.

The IRS’ audit of Point72 focused on one thing: how the profits had flowed to Cohen. In 2015, his firm earned $125 million from clients, and the money was routed to him through Point72 Asset Management LP.

Those last two letters, which stand for limited partnership, were Cohen’s key to accessing the loophole.

For most of the last century, before hedge funds and private equity firms dominated Wall Street, limited partnerships played a very specific role. They allowed investors, as limited partners, to buy into a business — often oil drilling or real estate development — without the usual risks of ownership like being pursued for the business’s debts.

But by the 1970s, creative uses of limited partnerships proliferated. One variety caught Congress’ attention. Government employees were covered by public pensions and thus were not eligible for Social Security, but brokerages were pitching these employees on limited partnerships as a way around that.

The government workers could buy a small share of a business and receive selfemployment income that qualified them for future Social Security benefits.

The scheme was condemned by both parties. After all, Social Security was meant to reward people’s labor, not their investments. Only income earned by someone actively running a business should count toward Social Security.

The solution, Congress decided, was to exclude most income earned by limited partners. It wouldn’t count toward self-employment income and, as a result, wouldn’t be subject to selfemployment tax, which goes to Social Security and Medicare. As part of a major 1977 Social Security reform bill, this soon became the law.

It seemed like an easy fix. At the time, limited partners were, as a rule, passive investors. The line between the two types of partners that made up a limited partnership was real: General partners ran the business, and limited partners didn’t.

“Limited partners were historically forbidden under state law from getting too involved in the business,” said Susan Hamill, professor of law at the University of Alabama. “If they got involved at all, they would simply be treated as general partners, and the liability shield would be stripped away from them.”

Lawmakers assumed things would continue as they’d always been. They didn’t. The 1977 law, it turned out, had passed at the dawn of a new age, one where limited liability became standard for business owners, not a special condition with strings attached.

A new business structure, the limited liability company, exploded in popularity in the ’90s. LLCs limited the legal liability of all owners regardless of their role. Limited partnerships morphed into something that functioned similarly. After the change, the fact that someone was a limited partner said nothing about what they did for the business. They could be the CEO or a passive investor. It became common for owners to serve as both limited and general partners. In this new world, the 1977 law was no longer a narrow exclusion. It was a broad grant of tax avoidance to anyone with a canny tax adviser.

Point72 Asset Management LP was part of the trend.

To take advantage of the

Medicare

loophole, Cohen needed to channel his firm’s profits through a limited partner before the money reached him.

One obstacle, it might seem, was that Cohen was one person. How could he partner with himself? That part was simple. A partnership requires at least two partners, but they can be companies or people. Cohen created two business entities, each wholly owned by him. One became the limited partner, the other the general partner.

Over 2015 and 2016, Point72 Asset Management earned $344 million in profits; 99.98% of that went to the limited partner and was declared exempt from Medicare tax. While those profits were subject to the 40% income tax rate (as much as $136 million in tax), Cohen’s returns showed $0 in self-employment income both years, helping him avoid up to $11 million in Medicare tax.

The IRS audited those returns and determined that the full $344 million was self-employment income. Last year, Point72 challenged that finding in court in a case that continues to this day. A spokesperson for Cohen declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.

“A nasty little Tax increase”

Almost as soon as LLCs began their rapid spread, IRS officials recognized the possibility of widespread avoidance of self-employment tax. The problem became more urgent after 1993. Since its beginning, Medicare tax had, like Social Security, been capped. But Congress, in need of more revenues to support Medicare, eliminated the cap. Suddenly, avoiding Medicare tax might save a business owner millions of dollars instead of, in 1993, under $4,000.

In 1997, the IRS proposed a rule that would dictate how the 1977 law should be interpreted. A limited partner would mean essentially what it had meant back in 1977, when the term described passive investors. People who worked more than 500 hours (about three months) annually for the business could not be a limited partner under Section 1402(a)(13), the loophole’s place in the tax code.

IRS rule proposals are usually soporific affairs closely watched only by tax practitioners. But in early April 1997, fax machines in Republican congressional offices spat out a message that ended this rule’s obscu-

rity.

The IRS was about “to slip through a nasty little tax increase on America’s partnerships,” the memo read. It was from Steve Forbes, the millionaire magazine publisher and 1996 Republican presidential candidate. He’d centered his selffunded campaign around the idea of a “flat tax,” under which he promised “the IRS would be RIP.” Now he was rallying his party against what he called a “stealth tax increase.”

His message reached Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host, who was then at the height of his influence. Soon after Limbaugh mentioned Forbes’ faxed memo on his nationally syndicated show, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, a Georgia Republican, called in.

Congress would “intervene directly,” Gingrich promised. “And as you yourself pointed out earlier, we didn’t get elected to raise taxes. We got elected to lower taxes and simplify them and to end the IRS as we know it,” he said.

“Now, folks, that is fast action,” Limbaugh boasted.

A coalition of powerful trade groups hurriedly formed to pressure Congress to follow through on Gingrich’s vow. The rule change would raise taxes by more than $1 billion over the following decade, they estimated, and must be stopped.

The coalition represented businesses that were both small and decidedly not small (among the members were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Securities Industry Association). But their message emphasized the rule’s impact on the “small business community.”

In fact, most smallbusiness owners already paid Medicare and Social Security taxes. Then, as now, the most common form of small business was the simple sole proprietorship, taxspeak for a business with a single, human owner.

By July, the coalition had prevailed. A short provision of a major bill, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, forbade the IRS from issuing any new rule “with respect to the definition of a limited partner” in the next year.

The IRS had been roundly rebuffed. It would be almost two decades before the agency would seriously consider trying again.

In the meantime, the options for business owners to skirt Medicare tax multiplied. New forms of partnerships arose, and the subchapter S corpora-

tion, which offered its own loophole around Medicare tax, emerged as an even more popular vehicle. The breadth of the tax avoidance meant that opposition to closing those loopholes would be even fiercer the next time there was a major threat.

“100% political fear”

In early 2010, President Barack Obama’s administration and a Democratic Congress were struggling to pass the Affordable Care Act when they hit on a way to help fund it. The proposal boiled down to an expansion of Medicare tax. Whereas before it had only applied to income from work, now, for high earners, it would extend to investment income like dividends and capital gains. The rate would also go from 2.9% to 3.8%.

But, while new forms of income would now be subject to the tax, the proposal intentionally left huge gaps. It wouldn’t touch the ability of business owners to use loopholes to avoid Medicare tax and would even limit their exposure to the new tax on investment income.

Why create a new, complicated tax that favored some forms of income over others, asked Jason Furman, then a member of Obama’s National Economic Council. In a meeting with Obama and his advisers, Furman advocated for a simple, uniform version of the tax that would also close the loophole, he said. The president agreed on the merits, Furman said. But arousing the opposition of the business lobby could endanger the whole bill. It wasn’t worth the risk. “It was 100% political fear,” Furman said.

A monumental health care reform effort like the ACA was already controversial, and members of Congress were looking to get it passed, said Robert Andrews, a former New Jersey Democratic representative and lead negotiator on the bill. They chose the funding option “with the least political risk,” he said.

“This was an ugly compromise, and I think we knew it was an ugly compromise and worth it for the greater good,” Furman said.

Pushing around the edges

As the years passed and no legislative fix came, the IRS vacillated on what to do about the limited partner loophole. The Treasury Department decides which tax regulations to pursue, and under the Bush and then the Obama administration, there wasn’t appetite for another bruising fight over a

new rule. At the same time, IRS officials decided they couldn’t ignore what they viewed as widespread abuse of Section 1402(a)(13).

They decided on a middle path, said Curt Wilson, who in 2008 became the senior IRS attorney overseeing partnership issues. “We looked for places where we could push around the edges, so to speak,” he said.

This wasn’t a crusade. But in audits, when the opportunity presented itself, the agency cracked down on what it saw as abuse of the loophole. Agents focused on some of the newer forms of partnerships that had sprouted since 1977. LLCs were the prime target.

“We were looking at hedge funds, private equity firms, things like that where there were big dollars,” Wilson said. The goal was to make a splash with a precedent-setting case.

Landing that big case proved elusive. Instead of fighting it out in court, taxpayers were content to privately settle the audits with the IRS’ appeals division, Wilson said. The IRS did its best to send a message, releasing an advisory letter in 2014 to a hedge fund that said the fund’s LLC members didn’t qualify as limited partners. But that wasn’t a binding rule, and it fell short of a headline-grabbing court decision.

What’s more, the IRS risked playing Whac-AMole. Even if the agency succeeded in dissuading taxpayers from using the loophole with LLCs, business owners could simply register their business as a limited partnership instead. As the granddaddy of partnerships with limited liability, the LP, the original limited partnership, offered taxpayers the strongest claim for invoking the loophole.

ProPublica’s database of IRS data includes the tax returns of thousands of wealthy business owners through 2018. These titans of capitalism, despite huge flows of ordinary income, often reported remarkably little self-employment income in the 2010s. The LP appears to have been their favored variety of partnership.

In 2017, Bill Ackman earned $413 million in income through an LP operated by the hedge fund he manages, Pershing Square, famous for taking activist stances in companies. As was typical in other years, Ackman reported self-employment income of

$4.7 million, a small fraction of his total business earnings. The difference meant he paid $142,000 in self-employment tax instead of more than $13 million.

In a statement, a spokesperson said: “Mr. Ackman has followed the advice of his tax advisors whose interpretation of the law has been the industry standard since 1977. Should the law change, Mr. Ackman will of course adjust his tax payments accordingly.”

In 2018, at least $143 million flowed via a Blackstone LP to Stephen Schwarzman, the firm’s CEO. As in years past, he exempted the income from Medicare tax. Schwarzman, who sits atop an investment firm with over $1 trillion in assets, reported no self-employment income at all in five of the seven years between 2012 and 2018.

“Mr. Schwarzman is one of the largest individual taxpayers in the country and fully complies with all tax rules,” a spokesperson said.

Attacking head-on

The IRS’ announcement of its audit campaign in 2018 meant the agency would stop pushing around the edges and unleash a frontal assault: Its audits would target not just the newer form of partnerships but also LPs.

This time, after years of audits and appeals within the IRS, the agency finally got its splashy court case. Many taxpayers chose to settle, but Cohen’s partnership and at least five others took their cases to tax court, the first in 2022. All argued they were following the law.

Soroban Capital, a hedge fund, was audited after converting to an LP from an LLC. Demonstrating the gulf between owners and employees, Soroban’s three partners collected $142 million in income over the two years of the audit, while paying a total of $74 million in salaries and wages (subject to Medicare tax) to the fund’s staff.

Soroban’s founder, Eric Mandelblatt, was once an employee. His compensation from Goldman Sachs cost him $128,000 in Medicare tax one year, according to ProPublica’s IRS database. After he started his own hedge fund and began earning tens of millions more, his Medicare tax bill never exceeded a third of that, the records show. Soroban did not respond to requests for comment.

In 2023, the IRS won a major tax court decision against Soroban. The “limited partner exception of I.R.C. § 1402(a)(13) does not apply to a partner who is limited in name only,” the court said, because Congress had only intended to “exclude earnings from a mere investment.” A “functional analysis,” the court said, was needed to determine whether a partner was really “limited.”

With the Soroban decision, the loophole entered a new stage in its history. It’s the most serious challenge since 1997 when, protected by Congress, the loophole emerged not only unscathed but stronger. This time, it’s up to the federal judges who will be reviewing appeals of the tax court’s rulings in the IRS’ cases.

One of the audit targets, Sirius Solutions, a consultancy, has already sought a more sympathetic venue than the U.S. Tax Court. Last summer, it turned to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, known for its conservative bent. Industry groups representing the hedge fund and real estate industry have filed amicus briefs. Tax law experts told ProPublica they are skeptical the IRS’ position will ultimately prevail.

Still, amid this uncertainty, the Treasury Department and IRS last year announced plans to start work on a regulation for Section 1402(a)(13). It’s a process that could take years if it isn’t halted by the incoming administration. If a new rule is finally released, it might again face a hostile Congress. It would also be subject to challenge in the courts.

As has always been the case, the simplest solution is for Congress to change the law. Democrats will keep trying, said a former senior congressional aide, especially when they propose some new expensive initiative and need ways to pay for it. Including a fix for the Medicare tax loopholes is “a beautiful pay-for,” he said. “It’s real money, and there are not a lot of options sitting around that are this obvious and relatively straightforward technically.”

The last attempt came a couple years ago, when Democrats needed to cover the cost of their $2.4 trillion climate bill. Build Back Better, as it was initially called, passed the House with a provision similar to Furman’s gap-plugging tax. The proposal was estimated to raise $252 billion over 10 years.

But the bill stalled in the Senate, where Democrats needed every vote. In the summer of 2022, negotiations suddenly approached consensus on a new, slimmer bill, soon dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act. The gap-plugging tax was part of the mix.

As they had 25 years before, business groups quickly rallied. Several dozen trade groups co-signed a letter to congressional leaders. The National Federation of Independent Business launched radio ads. “Now Congress is considering a brand-new tax on West Virginia small businesses, an additional tax wrongly characterized as the closing of a loophole,” ran one ad targeting Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the two key swing votes.

When a deal was finally announced on the bill, the proposal was gone. There had been other, less politically dangerous options to raise revenue.

Republished with Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Series: America’s Mental Barrier: How Insurers Interfere With Mental Health Care

Reporting Highlights

- Secret Playbook: Leaked documents show that UnitedHealth is aggressively targeting the treatment of thousands of children with autism across the country in an effort to cut costs.

- Critical Therapy: Applied behavior analysis has been shown to help kids with autism; many are covered by Medicaid, federal insurance for poor and vulnerable patients.

- Legal Questions: Advocates told ProPublica the insurer’s strategy may be violating federal law.

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

There was a time when Sharelle Menard thought her son would never be able to speak. She couldn’t soothe Benji when he cried, couldn’t read him books he could follow, couldn’t take him out in public. “The screaming, and screaming, and screaming,” she said. “He would get so frustrated because he couldn’t communicate.”

Benji was nearly 3 when he was diagnosed with severe autism and soon after started a specialized therapy to help him develop basic skills. After two years in treatment, his murmuring gave way to small words, with “bubbles” among the first. To celebrate, Menard powered up a bubble machine she found at the dollar store, and for hours, they watched the iridescent orbs drift over their porch.

Menard, who is raising Benji alone in south-central Louisiana, began to picture a future for her son that diverged from the stories she’d heard about some kids with similar diagnoses, who grew up still unable to manage their frustrations and had to live in nursing homes or institutions.

But now, she’s worried again.

The insurer that has been paying for her son’s therapy, UnitedHealthcare, has begun — to the befuddlement of his clinical team — denying him the hours they say he requires to maintain his progress. Inside the insurance conglomerate, the nation’s largest and most profitable, the slashing of care to children like Benji does have a reason, though it has little to do with their needs.

UnitedHealth is strategically limiting access to critical treatment for kids with autism

By Annie Waldman, ProPublica

It is part of a secret internal cost-cutting campaign that targets a growing financial burden for the company: the treatment of thousands of children with autism across the country.

ProPublica has obtained what is effectively the company’s strategic playbook, developed by Optum, the division that manages mental health benefits for United. In internal reports, the company acknowledges that the therapy, called applied behavior analysis, is the “evidence-based gold standard treatment for those with medically necessary needs.” But the company’s costs have climbed as the number of children diagnosed with autism has ballooned; experts say greater awareness and improved screening have contributed to a fourfold increase in the past two decades — from 1 in 150 to 1 in 36.

So Optum is “pursuing market-specific action plans” to limit children’s access to the treatment, the reports said.

“Key opportunities” are outlined in bullets in the documents. While acknowledging some areas have “very long waitlists” for the therapy, the company said it aims to “prevent new providers from joining the network” and “terminate” existing ones, including “cost outliers.” If an insurer drops a provider from its network, patients may have to find a new clinician that accepts their insurance or pay up to tens of thousands of dollars a year out of pocket for the therapy. The company has calculated that, in some states, this reduction could impact more than two-fifths of its ABA therapy provider groups in network and up to 19% of its patients in therapy.

The strategy targets kids covered through the company’s state-contracted Medicaid plans, funded by the government for the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable patients. To manage Medicaid benefits, states often pay private insurers a fixed amount of funds per patient, regardless of the frequency or intensity of services used. When companies spend less than the allotted payment, they are typically allowed to keep some or all of what remains,

which federal investigators and experts acknowledge may be incentivizing insurers to limit care.

United administers Medicaid plans or benefits in about two dozen states and for more than 6 million people, including nearly 10,000 children with autism spectrum disorder. Optum expects to spend about $290 million for ABA therapy within its Medicaid plans this year, and it anticipates the need increasing, documents show. The number of its Medicaid patients accessing the specialized therapy has increased by about 20% over the past year, with expenses rising about $75 million year-on-year.

So Optum — whose parent company, UnitedHealth Group, earned $22 billion in net profits last year — is “heavily investing” in its plan to save millions by limiting access to such care.

In addition to culling providers from its network, the company is scrutinizing the medical necessity of the therapy for individual patients with “rigorous” clinical reviews, which can lead to denials of covered treatment. Optum has developed an “approach to authorizing less units than requested,” the records state.

Mental health and autism experts and advocates reviewed ProPublica’s findings and expressed outrage over the company’s strategy. Karen Fessel, whose Mental Health and Autism Insurance Project helps families access care, called the tactics “unconscionable and immoral.”

“They’re denying access to treatment and shrinking a network at a time when they clearly know that there is an urgent need,” she said.

United and Optum declined a request ProPublica made more than a month ago for an on-the-record interview about their coverage of behavioral health care. They have not answered questions emailed 11 days ago, citing the Dec. 4 killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO as the reason. In an email, a spokesperson said “we are in mourning” and could not engage with a “non-urgent story during this incredibly difficult moment in time.” Offered an additional day or two, the

company would not agree to a deadline for comment.

Benji, who is now 10, requires 33 hours of weekly therapy to be able to progress, his therapists have concluded. They have documented the consequences of having even a few hours less: toppled furniture, scratchedup classroom aides, a kid in unremitting tears, unable to learn. But in a letter to Menard, Optum said it was refusing to pay for the full hours, stating that her son had been in therapy for too long and was not showing enough progress to ultimately graduate from it.

“Your child still has a lot of difficulty with all autismrelated needs,” Optum wrote. “Your child still needs help, but it does not appear that your child will improve enough to end ABA.”

The response confounded experts who spoke with ProPublica, who said such an approach misunderstands the long-term nature of his condition. “Challenges that often come with autism shouldn’t be looked at like an injury that you’re going to get better from quickly and then the treatment can stop,” said Christa Stevens, who directs state government affairs for the advocacy group Autism Speaks. “Treatment may still be medically necessary even if it’s for skill maintenance or the prevention of regression.”

The company’s denial also appears to contrast with recent professional guidelines for the therapy — which are cited as a

reference in Optum’s own clinical criteria — that state “there is no specific limit on the duration of a course of treatment.”

The appropriate duration of treatment, according to those standards and experts interviewed by ProPublica, should be based on the patients’ needs, as evaluated by the clinicians working directly with the patients.

“This is a very blunt instrument to chase after excessive costs,” said Tim Clement, the vice president of federal government affairs at the nonprofit group Mental Health America.

Several advocates told ProPublica the company’s strategy is legally questionable.

The federal mental health parity law requires insurers to provide the same access to mental health and physical care. As ProPublica recently reported, United has gotten in trouble in the past for targeting therapy coverage in a way that violates the law; while denying the allegations, it agreed to a multimilliondollar settlement. It continues to use arbitrary and one-size-fits-all thresholds to scrutinize its therapy claims, ProPublica previously found.

It would raise legal questions if the company restricted ABA more stringently than comparable physical care, the advocates said.

“Medicaid managed care organizations are subject to the parity act,” said Deborah Steinberg, a senior health

policy attorney with the nonprofit advocacy group Legal Action Center. The company may be violating Medicaid regulations, she said, which require managed care organizations to maintain networks sufficient to provide covered services to all enrollees.

Last year, the federal government formally affirmed that ABA therapy is a protected benefit, and it recently investigated health plans for entirely excluding its coverage; legislators have passed laws in every state requiring insurance companies to pay for it.

“Yes, this therapy can be expensive,” said Dan Unumb, an attorney and president of the Autism Legal Resource Center. “But solving the problem by denying kids access to medically necessary care is a terrible solution.”

“What Happens if We Withdraw the Care?”

Benji was making progress about three years ago.

For more than 33 hours a week in the specialized therapy, his clinicians broke down the learning process into basic steps, using repetition and positive reinforcement to affirm behaviors. The state’s Medicaid contractor, UnitedHealthcare, covered the bill. Researchers have found that about a quarter of kids diagnosed with autism are severely affected; these children are often mini-

This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

UnitedHealth app. | Photo by Focal Foto CC BY-NC 2.0

mally or non-speaking or require extensive assistance for basic daily needs.

“Things a lot of people take for granted,” said Menard. While experts continue to debate which therapies are most effective and appropriate for these kids, ABA is one of the most widely recommended.

By 7, Benji had accumulated a few dozen words, and his aggressive, prolonged tantrums had grown less frequent, allowing his mother to take him grocery shopping and to mass on Sundays. It was time for him to go to school, she thought.

Menard enrolled him in their public school district, St. Martin Parish. He attended Breaux Bridge Primary twice a week in a special education classroom and continued therapy the other days. Menard urged the district to allow a therapeutic technician to shadow him in school, but it refused. (The district declined to respond to ProPublica’s questions, citing privacy restrictions.)

With the diminished hours of treatment, Benji grew increasingly disruptive. “It was a disaster,” said Menard. He snapped a swing in gym class and struggled to sit still during lessons. When teachers tried to give him instructions, he hit them. His speech plateaued and eventually regressed.

Menard, who cleans pools for a living, grew to fear the moment her phone rang. School employees, unable to soothe Benji’s tantrums, frequently called her to take him home. One morning last spring, they told her Benji had lashed out when an aide tried to persuade him to work, aggressively poking their hand with a pencil. He hadn’t broken the skin, but after a dozen incidents, the situation was becoming unsalvageable. The district made her sign a behavioral contract, his second in two years: If Benji didn’t behave, he could be suspended or expelled.

Menard felt she had no choice but to withdraw Benji. She enrolled him full time in a home-study

program run by his therapy group, Aspire Behavioral Health Center in Lafayette, which costs about $10,000 a year in tuition, a substantial portion of her paycheck. That was in addition to the therapy cost, which his insurance still covered.

Benji’s clinicians determined he needed direct support for most of the day and told Optum they wanted him to scale up his therapy from 24 hours a week to 33. They expected the insurer would approve the request; after all, it was less than what was previously covered and only nine hours more than it was currently paying for.

But Optum denied the increase in a letter to Menard this past May. “Your child has been in ABA for six years,” the insurer wrote. “After six years, more progress would be expected.”

The response disturbed Whitney Newton, Benji’s behavior analyst and a clinical director at Aspire; it didn’t seem rooted in the established medical standards for the treatment. She’d seen firsthand how critical the therapy had been to his growth. “We know what he needs. It’s in our scope of practice and it’s our right as the provider to determine that,” she said. “They’re cutting and denying an unethical amount.”

The center’s founder, psychologist Joslyn McCoy, has grown accustomed to battling insurers. Her practice serves about 160 patients between the ages of 2 and 19 across five centers, and many have Medicaid coverage. In 2022, Louisiana expanded its Medicaid parameters, allowing parents with higher incomes to access coverage for children with complex medical needs.

“What I’m seeing is that children now have this ticket to access this care, but then once they go to try to access it, it’s being denied,” she said.

Nearly two years ago, Optum selected her center for a payment integrity audit, demanding to inspect its clinical and billing

Health care

records. After her team turned over thousands of pages of documentation, Optum conducted a separate in-person quality review.

Internal company records show Optum is targeting ABA providers for scrutiny based on how much they invoice and how many services they provide. Groups like McCoy’s can be flagged for patterns that providers told ProPublica are typical in the delivery of ABA therapy: billing on weekends or holidays, serving multiple family members in one practice, having long clinician or patient days, providing an “above average delivery” of services, or abruptly increasing or decreasing the number of patients or claims.

McCoy said that a company executive who visited her office for the quality review told her that she approved of the center’s work and thought Aspire should expand across the state.

But Optum has continued to challenge her patients’ individual therapy claims.

When her team received the denial for Benji’s care, McCoy set out to gather hard evidence to demonstrate the necessity of his treatment. “It’s what we call a reversal to baseline, where we will withdraw the treatment for a short period of time,” McCoy said. “The reason is to demonstrate what happens because we’re curious, too: What happens if we withdraw the care?”

Much of the therapy is driven by positive reinforcement; for example, if Benji pays attention and engages in his academic exercises, he can take a break to play on his iPad. But the reward is contingent on him not hitting anyone for at least 10 minutes at a time. During the experiment, the clinicians took away the possibility of his reward, and without an incentive, they had limited leverage to manage his behavior.

At first, Benji lightly hit the staff, they said, as though testing the limits. But when there was no response to his behavior, it

began to escalate. He tossed chairs and flipped tables. He pushed Newton into a bookshelf, which collapsed to the ground. He hit walls and windows, eventually turning his fists on his aide. They stopped the experiment early, both for his safety and theirs.

Once they resumed the interventions, Benji was able to calm down.

Newton drafted a report, including line charts that quantified his behavior with and without the interventions and photographs of her team’s injuries. She faxed it to Optum, asking the company to reconsider the denial.

The insurer did not change its decision.

“The Need Is Not Going Away”

Last month, inside a cubicle decorated with posters of Minions and Mario Brothers, a behavior technician placed a laminated card with an image of a sneaker in front of Benji.

“What is this?” she asked him.

Benji paused, rubbing the edge of his baseball cap and pursing his lips. “Sh,” he said, stuck on the consonant.

“Shoes, that’s right,” the technician responded. She pulled out another card, showing a slice topped with white frosting. “Is this cake?”

“No,” Benji said.

“Is this cake?” she repeated, before adding, “yes.”

“Yes,” echoed Benji, but her correction appeared to frustrate him. He hit the technician on the leg, softly but with determination.

“We’ll let it go,” she warned with a sugared voice, “but hands to self, OK?”

After 10 minutes, a timer beeped. It was time for Benji’s reward, getting to hear a reggaeton hit by Daddy Yankee. “It’s a big reinforcer here,” Newton said.

Even though Optum denied the additional hours of treatment, Benji has continued to receive them. “We’re giving the hours even if they were not approved,” McCoy said. “We don’t think it would be safe for him to

do what the insurance is saying.”

Next month, a state administrative law judge will hear an appeal for the additional hours. If the request is approved, Benji’s clinicians will be paid for the six months of services that they’ve provided without reimbursement.

Even if that happens, their battle with the insurer will go back to square one. Each insurance authorization typically lasts for only six months, and soon after the hearing date, the clinicians will have to request coverage for his treatment again.

They will be doing so at a time when internal records show Optum has deployed more than 90 “care advocates” to question clinicians about the medical necessity of their patients’ ABA treatment, using “quality initiatives to decrease overutilization and cost.”

Optum is focusing on states whose Medicaid plans yield the highest costs for ABA therapy, including Arizona, Nebraska, Tennessee, Virginia, New Jersey, Indiana and Louisiana, where Menard and her son live. ProPublica reached out to the state Medicaid programs with questions about their oversight of United’s practices. Arizona’s Medicaid agency told ProPublica that all managed care organizations, including United, are required to provide timely services within their networks, and that the agency has been closely monitoring ABA networks. (Read its full response.) No other state Medicaid agencies responded to ProPublica’s questions.

Autism experts said such a strategy may not only be harmful to children, it could also ultimately be more expensive for states, as children age and require more intensive services, like residential or nursing care.

“If these kids get the intervention they need as children, then there will be tremendous cost savings over the course of their lives,” said Lorri Unumb, an attorney and CEO of the

Council of Autism Service Providers.

Menard worries about what will happen to her son’s hard-fought gains if he can’t get the level of therapy he needs. And even if the additional nine hours are approved, she fears that with the next authorization, they could face a more drastic denial that could be challenging to overturn.

“This motivation and momentum — when you lose that,” she said, “it’s so hard to get it back.” She doesn’t believe that Benji needs to be fixed or cured or changed from who he is. She just hopes the therapy helps him to be better able to advocate for himself and, ultimately, be safe. “There’s nothing else that I’ve known to work,” she said.

McCoy resents being put in the position of scaling back care that her patient needs because an insurer is refusing to pay.

“It puts us in a tough place, because we don’t want to discontinue therapy of our client who’s not ready,” she said. When such denials become common, it disincentivizes clinicians from working with insurance companies, she said, and can ultimately drive clinics into the ground. “The patients can’t afford it,” she said, “so eventually the private provider goes out of business.”

But even if children like Benji get pushed out of treatment, there is no shortage of children seeking care. McCoy’s center currently has a waitlist of about 260 children. That list may likely expand. Internal documents show Optum is aiming to exclude from its network about 40% of Louisiana groups that offer ABA therapy. About 1 in 5 children whose treatment is covered by the company’s Medicaid plan in the state could lose access to care.

“If the insurance company wants to deny all of our clients, we’re going to replace them,” she said. “The need is not going away.”

Republished with Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Regardlessofhow youcelebrateendof-year holidays, food is probably central to your winter festivities. And a trio of spices — cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger — feature in many dishes and drinks and are an unmistakable part of the scent profile many associate with the holiday season.

How did these spices, grown in the tropics, became so closely associated with the Northern Hemisphere's winter holidays? Just as cranberries' fall harvest makes them a natural choice for Thanksgiving, it's natural to think that perhaps the seasonality of spice harvest had something to do with their use during the winter months.

However, this doesn't appear to be the case. When it comes to growing spices, producers are playing the long game, Serina DeSalvio, a doctoral candidate in genetics and genomics at Texas A&M University, explains for The Conversation.

Growing holiday spices

Take ginger, which features in both sweet and savory recipes in many cuisines worldwide. Ginger roots take between eight and 10 months to fully mature. The plants can be harvested at any time of year if they are mature and haven't been exposed to cold or wind.

That timing is important because harvesting ginger means uprooting the whole plant to get to the rhizomes growing underground. Rhizomes function like underground stems, storing nutrients for the plant to help it survive the winter. Once cold weather signals the plant to dip into its underground supply of nutrients, the quality of the harvested ginger will decline significantly.

Nutmeg comes from

How cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger became scents of winter holidays, far from tropical origins

By Serina DeSalvio, Stacker

grinding seeds of the Myristica fragrans tree, an evergreen that's native to Indonesia. The trees start flowering in their sixth year, but peak production comes when they are closer to 20 years old.

Workers harvest fruit from the trees, which typically grow to heights of 10 to 30 feet, using long poles to knock the fruits down. For spice production, the fruits are then dried in the sun.

Nutmeg comes from grinding the inner seed kernels; its sister spice, mace, comes from grinding the tissue that envelopes the seeds. Since this plant yields two spices, the long wait for the trees to mature is worthwhile for producers.

Cinnamon is made from the bark of two trees: Cinnamomum verum for cinnamon sticks and Cinnamomum cassia for ground cinnamon.

The two types have different textures and flavor profiles, but both are made from the outermost layer of the trees' bark. Production typically starts after a tree is two years old.

Peeling bark from cinnamon tree branches is easiest after heavy rainfalls, which soften the bark, so harvests typically happen after monsoon seasons. The same effect can be achieved outside of monsoon season by soaking branches in buckets of water.

What makes a spice 'warm'?

Cinnamon,ginger and nutmeg all are widely described as "warm" spices, which probably has less to do with where they come from and more with how they affect our bodies.

In the same way that mint can "taste" cold due to its

menthol content, cinnamon's warm taste is attributed to a compound called cinnamaldehyde, which gives the spice its distinctive taste and smell. When eaten, this chemical tricks the nervous system by triggering the same pathway that perceives warmth, much as capsaicin in peppers triggers feelings of pain.

Cinnamaldehyde also helps decrease blood glucose levels, so enjoying some cinnamon tea after a big Christmas dinner can help stop blood sugar from spiking.

Cinnamon has been used for thousands of years in traditional medicine across Asia for its antibacterial properties and as a digestive aid.

Christopher Columbus' first voyage west across the Atlantic sought to find a direct route to Asia to purchase cinnamon and other spices directly where they were

grown.

Indeed, the spice trade can be seen as a microcosm for the story of globalization, with all of its associated benefits and harms.

Spicing up health and digestive systems

Ginger and nutmeg don't trick nervous systems into feeling warm, but they both contain a myriad of compounds that aid in digestion and can fend off viral and bacterial infections. Ginger is an excellent anti-nausea agent because of a compound called gingerol, which increases gut mobility. This means food doesn't linger in the gut as long, which cuts down on gas production and keeps people from feeling bloated and sick.

Ginger was first used for food purposes in the Middle Ages as a way of masking the taste of preserved meats,

which were mainly consumed in the winter months surrounding holidays. Unlike most spices, it can be used for cooking in many forms — fresh, dried and ground, candied or pickled. Each version offers a different level of ginger's signature bite.

Like cinnamon, nutmeg is another anti-diabetic. It has been shown to both decrease blood glucose levels and increase serum insulin. Insulin helps regulate how sugars are stored in the body by moving glucose out of our bloodstream and into cells, where it can be accessed later for an energy boost. So cinnamon can help ensure that all those holiday baked goods are put to use energetically, whether that's right now or later.

Nutmeg seeds produce many natural compounds, some of which have the potential to fight pathogenic bacteria. During the 1600s, doctors believed nutmeg could be effective at warding off the bubonic plague, and many people wore it tied around their necks. This belief likely came from nutmeg's insecticidal qualities, which would have helped keep fleas carrying the plague off people sporting a nutmeg necklace.

The sights and sounds of the winter holidays are distinctive, but nothing is as all-encompassing and nostalgic as the smells and tastes. Understanding how traditions have evolved surrounding food, and the science behind those foods, can help to further appreciate their role in the season of celebrations. This story was produced by The Conversation and reviewed and distributed by Stacker. The article was copy edited and retitled from its original version. Republished with CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

A Sri Lankan farmer peels freshly harvested cinnamon sticks. | Photo courtesy of Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images/Stacker

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EL Monte City Notices

URGENCY ORDINANCE NO. 3044

AN URGENCY ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUN CIL OF THE CITY OF EL MONTE AMENDING SECTION 2.04.010(A)(1) OF THE EL MONTE MUNICIPAL CODE TO CHANGE THE DATE AND TIME OF REGULAR MEETINGS TO THE SEC OND AND FOURTH TUESDAY OF EACH MONTH STARTING AT 5:00 PM

WHEREAS, the City of El Monte (“City”) is a municipal corpo ration and general law City; and

WHEREAS, the El Monte City Council (“City Council”), by ordi nance, set the official date and time for regular meetings of the City Council; and

WHEREAS, City Council meetings are currently set for the first and third Tuesday of each calendar month starting at 6:00 pm; and

WHEREAS, with the expansion in the size of the City Council in recent years and change in membership with recent elections, a new date and time for meetings is warranted to ensure maximum participation by City Council members; and

WHEREAS, Government Code Section 36937(b) authorizes the adoption of ordinances that take effect immediately for the pur pose of preserving the public peace, health or safety, provided such ordinances are approved by four-fifths (4/5) vote of the City Coun cil.

NOW, THEREFORE, THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF EL MONTE, CALIFORNIA DOES HEREBY ORDAIN AS FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1. The Recitals, above, are true and correct.

SECTION 2. In accordance with Government Code Section 36937, the El Monte City Council hereby approves this Urgency Or dinance by four-fifths vote. The immediate adoption of this Urgency Ordinance is necessary in light of the expansion of the City Council in recent years and the recent election of new members to ensure that all members of the City Council are able to fully participate in regular meetings and in turn represent the interests of the constituencies they represent. There is also concern that given the current start time of regular meetings, such meetings are more likely to end later in the evening when certain members of the public – especially those who must wake up early to go to work the next day – and as such reduce the ability of the public to fully participate in such meetings. An earlier start time will promote meetings that end earlier, thereby allowing more members of the public to participate.

NOES: None

ABSTAIN: None

ABSENT: None

SECTION 3. Paragraph (A)(1) of Section 2.04.010 (Regular meetings) of Chapter 2.04 (City Council Meetings) of Title 2 (Administration and Personnel of the El Monte Municipal Code is hereby amended in its entirety to now state the following:

“Regular meetings of the City Council shall be held on the second and fourth Tuesday of each calendar month commencing at 5:00 p.m. If the day fixed for holding any such regular meeting falls upon (i) any legal holiday specified by Government Code Sections 6700 or 6701, (ii) upon any of those holidays specified in Section 2.68.010(B) of the El Monte Municipal Code, or (iii) the date of any general or special municipal election of the city, then said regular meeting shall be held on the next business day immediately following and such meeting shall be considered a regular meeting pursuant to subdivision (a) of Government Code Section 54954 for all intents and purposes to the extent permitted by law.”

SECTION 4 Any provision of the El Monte Municipal Code or appendices thereto inconsistent with the provisions of this Urgency Ordinance are hereby repealed or modified to the extent necessary to affect the provisions of this Urgency Ordinance but no further.

SECTION 5 If any section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase of this Urgency Ordinance is for any reason held to be invalid or unconstitutional by a decision of any court of competent jurisdiction, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of this Urgency Ordinance. Council hereby declares that it would have passed this Urgency Ordinance and each and every section, subsection, sentence, clause, or phrase not declared invalid or unconstitutional without regard to whether any portion of this Urgency Ordinance would be subsequently declared invalid or unconstitutional.

SECTION 6. The City Council finds that adoption of this Urgency Ordinance is not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) pursuant to CEQA Guidelines, California Code of Regulations, Title 14, Chapter 3 Section 15060(c)(2) because the

Published December 23, 2024

EL MONTE EXAMINER

Probate Notices

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF WEN-CHIN LI

Case No. 24STPB13196

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be in terested in the will or estate, or both, of WEN-CHIN LI

A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by Wei Hung in the Superior Court of California, County of LOS ANGELES.

Public Notices

NOTICE TO CREDITORS OF BULK SALE (UCC Sec. 6105) Escrow No. 240512-SP

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a bulk sale is about to be made. The name(s), business address(es) to the Seller(s) are: TEAM JEMA, INC, 720 N. HACIENDA BLVD., LA PUENTE, CA 91744

Doing Business as: TROY BURGERS

All other business name(s) and address(es) used by the Seller(s) within three years, as stated by the Seller(s), The name(s) and address of the Buyer(s) is/are: CTG WHITTIER, INC, 720 N. HACIENDA BLVD., LA PU-

The assets to be sold are described in general as: ALL STOCK IN TRADE, FIXTURES, EQUIPMENT, GOODWILL, TRADENAME, LEASE, LEASE

THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that Wei Hung be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held on Feb. 7, 2025 at 8:30 AM in Dept. No. 4 located at 111 N. Hill St., Los Angeles, CA 90012.

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections

with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code.

Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for petitioner: PETER Y HONG ESQ SBN 213620

PETER Y HONG APC 150 N SANTA ANITA AVE STE 300 ARCADIA CA 91006

CN112657 LI Dec 23,26,30, 2024 EL MONTE EXAMINER

Trustee Notices

APN: 8211-009-010 TS No: CA0800087324-1 TO No: 240430347-CA-VOI NOTICE OF TRUSTEE’S SALE (The above statement is made pursuant to CA Civil Code Section 2923.3(d)(1). The Summary will be provided to Trustor(s) and/or vested owner(s) only, pursuant to CA Civil Code Section 2923.3(d)(2).) YOU ARE IN DEFAULT UNDER A DEED OF TRUST DATED April 24, 2001. UNLESS YOU TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT YOUR PROPERTY, IT MAY BE SOLD AT A PUBLIC SALE. IF YOU NEED AN EXPLANATION OF THE NATURE OF THE PROCEEDINGS AGAINST YOU, YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LAWYER. On January 14, 2025 at 10:00 AM, behind the fountain located in the Civic Center Plaza, 400 Civic Center Plaza, Pomona CA 91766, MTC Financial Inc. dba Trustee Corps, as the duly Appointed Trustee, under and pursuant to the power of sale contained in that certain Deed of Trust recorded on May 3, 2001 as Instrument No. 01 0755778, of official records in the Office of the Recorder of Los Angeles County, California, executed by DAVID GOMEZ AND TOMASA GOMEZ, HUSBAND AND WIFE AS JOINT TENANTS, as Trustor(s), in favor of MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS, INC., as Beneficiary, as nominee for ALLIANCE MORTGAGE COMPANY DBA BNY MORTGAGE as Beneficiary, WILL SELL AT PUBLIC AUCTION TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER, in law-

lien. If you are the highest bidder at the auction, you are or may be responsible for paying off all liens senior to the lien being auctioned off, before you can receive clear title to the property. You are encouraged to investigate the existence, priority, and size of outstanding liens that may exist on this property by contacting the county recorder’s office or a title insurance company, either of which may charge you a fee for this information. If you consult either of these resources, you should be aware that the same Lender may hold more than one mortgage or Deed of Trust on the property. Notice to Property Owner The sale date shown on this Notice of Sale may be postponed one or more times by the Mortgagee, Beneficiary, Trustee, or a court, pursuant to Section 2924g of the California Civil Code. The law requires that information about Trustee Sale postponements be made available to you and to the public, as a courtesy to those not present at the sale. If you wish to learn whether your sale date has been postponed, and, if applicable, the rescheduled time and date for the sale of this property, you may visit the Internet Website address www.insourcelogic.com or call In Source Logic at 702-659-7766 for information regarding the Trustee’s Sale for information regarding the sale of this property, using the file number assigned to this case, CA08000873-24-1. Information about postponements that are very short in duration or that occur close in time to the scheduled sale may not immediately be reflected in the telephone information or on the Internet Website. The best way to verify postponement information is to attend the scheduled sale. Notice to Tenant NOTICE TO TENANT FOR FORECLOSURES AFTER JANUARY 1, 2021 You may have a right to purchase this property after the trustee auction pursuant to Section 2924m of the California Civil Code. If you are an “eligible tenant buyer,” you can purchase the property if you match the last and highest bid placed at the trustee auction. If you are an “eligible bidder,” you may be able to purchase the property if you exceed the last and highest bid placed at the trustee auction. There are three steps to exercising this right of

FOR

Glendale City Notices

NOTICE INVITING BIDS

NOTICE is hereby given that the City of Glendale (“City”) will receive sealed bids, before the Bid Deadline established below for the following work of improvement: GWP City-Wide Utility Street Repairs Project

SPECIFICATION NO. 4002

Bid Deadline: Submit before 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 08, 2025 (“the Bid Deadline”)

Original plus one (1) copy of Bid to be submitted to:

Office of City Clerk

613 East Broadway, Room 110 Glendale, CA 91206

Bid Opening: 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 08, 2025 City Council Chambers 633 E. Broadway Glendale, CA 91206

NO LATE BIDS WILL BE ACCEPTED.

Bidding Documents Available: Wednesday, December 18, 2024, at noon, via computer download only. See Item 1. Bidding Documents below, for further information on obtaining Bidding documents.

Mandatory Pre-Bid Conference: Date: [NOT USED] Time: Location:

City of Glendale Contact Person: Kevin Runzer, Project Manager Phone: (818) 551-6910 Fax: (818) 240-4754 Email: krunzer@glendaleca.gov

Mandatory Qualifications for Bidder and Designated Subcontractors:

A Bid may be rejected as non-responsive if the Bid fails to document that Bidder meets the essential requirements for qualification. As part of the Bidder’s Statement of Qualifications, each Bid must provide satisfactory evidence that:

Bidder satisfactorily completed at least Three (3) prevailing wage public contracts in California; each comparable in scope and scale to this Project, within Five (5) years prior to the Bid Deadline and with a dollar value in excess of the Bid submitted for this Project. General Scope of Work:

Contractor shall furnish labor, materials, equipment, services, and specialized skills to perform utility street repair work throughout the City. The Work shall be done in accordance with Specification No. 4002, with all appurtenant work as shown on the Standard Plans for Public Works Construction (SPPC 2024 Edition) and the Standard Specifications for Public Works Construction (2024 Edition), including all supplements thereto issued prior to bid opening date.

The scope of work generally includes the following:

• Selective removal and replacement of Asphalt Concrete (AC) pavement (Base Course);

• Surface grinding and placement of Asphalt Concrete (AC) or Asphalt Concrete Hot Mix (ARHM) surface wearing course;

• elective removal and replacement of Portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements;

• Selective removal and replacement of broken and damaged Portland cement concrete (PCC) sidewalk, curb, integral curb and gutter, driveway aprons, cross gutters, and alley aprons;

• Saw cutting of various thicknesses of asphaltic concrete (AC) or Portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements, gutters, curbs, sidewalks, driveways; Adjustment of existing water valve boxes, manholes, vaults, and water meter boxes to finished grade;

• Adjustment of existing electric pull boxes, manholes, and vaults to finished grade Import and placement of one-sack cement-sand slurry mix in open trenches;

• Selective excavation, removal, and disposal of existing soil; Importation, placement, and compaction of crushed miscellaneous base (CMB) material;

• Application of Type I and Type II Slurry Seal over existing Asphalt Concrete (AC) pavement;

• Surface grinding of pavement for recessing steel traffic plates;

• Removal and replacement of traffic striping, pavement markings, pavement markers and curb markings;

• Placement and removal of steel traffic plates as needed for various paving work;

• Repair and restoration of damaged traffic loop detectors.

Contract: The City intends to award a Construction Contract to the lowest Responsible and Responsive Bidder, based on the requirements set forth in the Contract Documents. Other Bidding Information:

1. Bidding Documents: Bids must be made on the Bid Forms contained herein. Bidding Documents will not be available for examination or purchase at the offices of the City. Bidding Documents (including Specifications and Bidding Forms) are only available as a download, free of charge, by request, by emailing the Project Manager, Kevin Runzer at the email address krunzer@glendaleca.gov, where a download link will then be provided to the requester. Additionally, Bidding Documents are available for download at https://www.bidnetdirect.com website.

2. Engineer’s Estimate: The preliminary cost of construction of this Work per year has been prepared. The estimate per year is in the range of $700,000 to $900,000.

3. Completion: This Work must be completed within One Thousand Ninety-Five (1,095) calendar days (3.0 years) from the Date of Commencement as established by the City’s written Notice to Proceed, unless the City approves the optional two (2) year extension after the completion of the initial three (3) year period.

4. Liquidated Damages: Liquidated damages are to be $500.00 per Calendar Day. See Section 4 of the Contract between City and Contractor for terms and conditions relating to contract time and liquidated damages.

5. Acceptance or Rejection of Bids: The City reserves the right to reject any and all Bids, to award all or any individual part/item of the Bid, and to waive any informalities, irregularities or technical defects in such Bids and determine the lowest responsible Bidder, whichever may be in the best interests of the City. No late Bids will be accepted, nor will any oral, facsimile, or electronic Bids be accepted by the City.

6. Mandatory Pre-Bid Conference and Job Walk [ NOT USED ]

7. Contractor License: At the time of the Bid Deadline and at all times during performance of the Work, including full completion of all corrective work during the Correction Period, the Contractor must possess a California contractor license or licenses, current and active, of the classification required for the Work, in accordance with the provisions of Chapter 9, Division 3, Section 7000 et seq. of the Business and Professions Code. In compliance with Public Contract Code Section 3300, the City has determined that the Bidder must possess

license(s): “Class A – General Engineering Contractor”. The successful Bidder will not receive a Contract award if the successful Bidder is unlicensed, does not have all of the required licenses, or one or more of the licenses are not current and active. If the City discovers after the Contract’s award that the Contractor is unlicensed, does not have all of the required licenses, or one or more of the licenses are not current and active, the City may cancel the award, reject the Bid, declare the Bid Bond as forfeited, keep the Bid Bond’s proceeds, and exercise any one or more of the remedies in the Contract Documents.

8. Subcontractors’ Licenses and Listing: At the time of the Bid Deadline and at all times during performance of the Work, each listed Subcontractor must possess a current and active California Contractor’s license or licenses appropriate for the portion of the Work listed for such Subcontractor and shall hold all specialty certifications required for such Work. When the Bidder submits its Bid to the City, the Bidder must list each Subcontractor whom the Bidder must disclose under Public Contract Code Section 4104 (Subcontractor Listing Law), and the Bidder must provide all of the Subcontractor information that Section 4104 requires (name, the location (address) of the Subcontractor’s place of business, California Contractor license number, and portion of the Work). In addition, the City requires that the Bidder list the dollar value of each Subcontractor’s labor or services. The City’s disqualification of a Subcontractor does not disqualify a Bidder. However, prior to and as a condition to award of the Contract, the successful Bidder shall substitute a properly licensed and qualified Subcontractor— without an adjustment of the Bid Amount.

9. Permits, Inspections, Plan Checks, Governmental Approvals, Utility Fees, and Similar Authorizations: The City will obtain all permits and pay all related fees required for this project. All other Governmental Approvals and Utility Fees shall be obtained and paid for by Contractor. See Instructions to Bidders Paragraph 14, and General Conditions Paragraph 1.01 for definitions and Paragraph 1.03 for Contractor responsibilities.

10. Bid Forms and Bid Security: Each Bid must be made on the Bid Forms obtainable at the Offices of Glendale Water and Power, Engineering Public Counter. Each Bid shall be accompanied by a cashier’s check or certified check drawn on a solvent bank, payable to “City of Glendale”, for an amount equal to ten percent (10%) of the total maximum amount of the Bid. Alternatively, a satisfactory corporate surety Bid Bond for an amount equal to ten percent (10%) of the total maximum amount of the Bid may accompany the Bid. Said security shall serve as a guarantee that the successful Bidder, within fourteen (14) calendar days after the City’s Notice of Award of the Contract, will execute the Contract and furnish the bonds and insurance to the City for said Work in accordance with the Contract Documents.

11. Bid Irrevocability: Bids shall remain open and valid for ninety (90) calendar days after the Bid Deadline.

12. Substitution of Securities: Pursuant to California Public Contract Code Section 22300, substitution of securities for withheld funds is permitted in accordance therewith.

13. Prevailing Wages: This Project is a “public work” subject to the provisions of California Labor Code Section 1720. The Contractor awarded this Contract, and all Subcontractors of any tier shall not pay less than the minimum prevailing rate of per diem wages for each craft, classification, or type of worker needed to perform the Work. The Director of Industrial Relations of the State of California, pursuant to the California Labor Code, has determined the general prevailing rates of wages in the locality in which the Work is to be performed. The rates determined by the California Director of Industrial Relations are available online at www.dir.ca.gov/ DLSR/PWD/.

14. California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) – Public Works Contractor Registration: Under the Public Works Contractor Registration Law (California Senate Bill No. 854 - See Labor Code Section 1725.5), contractors must register and meet requirements using the online application https://efiling.dir.ca.gov/PWCR/ ActionServlet?action=displayPWCRegistrationForm before bidding on public works contracts in California. The application also provides agencies that administer public works programs with a searchable database of qualified contractors. Application and renewal are completed online with a non-refundable fee of $400. More information is available at the following links: http://www.dir.ca.gov/Public-Works/PublicWorksSB854.html http://www.dir.ca.gov/Public-Works/PublicWorks.html

The City must award public works projects only to contractors and subcontractors who comply with the Public Works Registration Law. Notice to Bidders and Subcontractors:

a. No Contractor or subcontractor may be listed on a Bid proposal for a public works project unless registered with the Department of Industrial Relations pursuant to Labor Code section 1725.5 [with limited exceptions from this requirement for bid purposes only under Labor Code section 1771.1(a)].

b. No contractor or subcontractor may be awarded a contract for public work on a public works project unless registered with the Department of Industrial Relations pursuant to Labor Code section 1725.5.

c. This Project is subject to compliance monitoring and enforcement by the Department of Industrial Relations.

d. The prime contractor must post job site notices prescribed by regulation (See 8 Calif. Code Reg. Section 16451(d) for the notice that previously was required for projects monitored by the DIR Compliance Monitoring Unit.)

Furnishing of Electronic Certified Payroll Records to Labor Commissioner. Contractors and subcontractors must furnish electronic certified payroll records directly to the Labor Commissioner (a.k.a. Division of Labor Standards Enforcement).

Dated this _19_ day of December, 2024, City of Glendale, California.

Suzie Abajian, City Clerk of the City of Glendale

Publiahed Decemeber 19 , 23, 2024

Glendale Independent

NOTICE OF ADOPTION OF ORDINANCE

On December 17, 2024, Ordinance No. 6036 entitled “AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA, AUTHORIZING THE EXECUTION OF THE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS FACILITY LEASE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF GLENDALE AND NEW CINGULAR WIRELESS PCS, LLS AT 1880 LOMA VISTA DRIVE” was adopted by the Council of the City of Glendale. A copy of said ordinance shall be on file and available for public inspection in the office of the City Clerk. In substance, said Ordinance authorizes the City of Glendale to enter into a lease agreement for with New Cingular Wireless PCS, LLS for the lease of an area of the City’s property located at 1880 Loma Vista Drive.

Suzie Abajian PhD City Clerk of the City of Glendale

Publish: December 23, 2024

GLENDALE INDEPENDENT

The Monterey Park City Council introduced Ordinance No. 2256 at the December 4, 2024 regular City Council meeting. Ordinance No. 2256 amends the zoning map, re-zones properties city-wide to make them consistent with the General Plan Land Use Policy Map (Figure – LU-3).

The second reading and adoption of Ordinance No. 2256 took place at the December 18, 2024 regular City Council meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the City of Monterey Park, California.

For a copy of the Ordinance No. 2256, please contact the City Clerk’s office at (626) 307-1359 or via email at mpclerk@montereypark.ca.gov.

Approved as submitted above:

Karl H. Berger, City Attorney

ATTEST:

Maychelle Yee, City Clerk

Publish December 23, 2024 MONTEREY PARK PRESS

ORDINANCE NO. 2257 AN UNCODIFIED URGENCY ORDINANCE ESTABLISHING A BUSINESS LICENSE TAX SCHEDULE BASED ON BUSINESSES GROSS RECEIPTS

The City Council of the city of Monterey Park does ordain as follows:

SECTION 1: The City Council finds as follow:

A. On November 5, 2024, voters adopted Measure BE which updated the structure of the City’s business license tax (“BLT”) to be based on a business’s gross receipts. The measure was adopted based upon a 70.46% voter approval;

B. Section 9 of Measure BE authorizes the City Council to implement the BLT via regulations adopted by ordinance. This Ordinance exercises that authority in accordance with the voter’s intent;

C. The City Council is implementing a scaled BLT schedule for businesses earning over $25,000,000 annually; and

D. The City Council recognizes that California law including, without limitation, Melton v. City of San Pablo (1967) 252 Cal.App.2d 794 and In re Cindy B. v. Eugene B. (1987) 192 Cal.App.3d 771, allows legislation to be retroactively applied when the legislative intent for such retroactivity is clear.

E. To ensure that the voter’s will is implemented expeditiously, the City Council finds it is in the public interest that the BLT schedule become effectively immediately so that it may be implemented beginning January 1, 2025. Failure to implement the BLT schedule would result in disrupting the tax revenue authorized by the voters; create inefficiencies within the City’s finances; and result in inequity as to the application of Measure BE.

F. Based on the foregoing, and, in accordance with Government Code §§ 36934 and 36937(b) and the City’s police powers, the City Council finds that that this Ordinance should be adopted on an urgency basis to preserve public peace, health, safety and welfare.

A. The City Council recognizes that California law including, without limitation, Melton v. City of San Pablo (1967) 252 Cal.App.2d 794 and In re Cindy B. v. Eugene B. (1987) 192 Cal.App.3d 771, allows legislation to be retroactively applied when the legislative intent for such retroactivity is clear. B. To ensure that the voter’s will is implemented expeditiously, the City Council finds it is in the public interest that the BLT schedule become effectively immediately so that it may be implemented beginning January 1, 2025. Failure to implement the BLT schedule would result in disrupting the tax revenue authorized by the voters; create inefficiencies within the City’s finances; and result in inequity as to the application of Measure BE. C. Based on the foregoing, and, in accordance with Government Code §§ 36934 and 36937(b) and the City’s police powers, the City Council finds that that this Ordinance should be adopted on an urgency basis to preserve public peace, health, safety and welfare.

SECTION 2: BLT Schedule Pursuant to Section 9 of Measure BE, the City Council adopts the Business License Tax Schedule as follows:

SECTION 2: BLT Schedule. Pursuant to Section 9 of Measure BE, the City Council adopts the Business License Tax Schedule as follows:

SECTION 3: CPI Adjustment. Unless otherwise revised, the Schedule established by this Ordinance will be automatically adjusted on an annual basis on January 1 of each year by applying the percent change of the Los Angeles Area of Consumer Price Index (CPI) for All Urban Consumers for the prior 12-month period ending on October 31 to the scaled business license tax (BLT) schedule for businesses earning over $25,000,000 annually. The first fee adjustment cannot be made before a minimum of nine months after the effective date of this Ordinance.

SECTION 4: Environmental Assessment. This Ordinance is exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (Cal. Pub. Res. Code §§ 21000, et seq.; “CEQA”) and CEQA Guidelines (14 Cal. Code Regs. §§ 15000, et seq.) because it establishes, modifies, structures, restructures, and approves rates and charges

for meeting operating expenses; purchasing supplies, equipment, and materials; meeting financial requirements; and obtaining funds for capital projects needed to maintain service within existing service areas. This Ordinance, therefore, is categorically exempt from further CEQA review under CEQA Guidelines § 15273.

SECTION 5: Electronic Signatures. This Ordinance may be executed with electronic signatures in accordance with Government Code §16.5. Such electronic signatures will be treated in all respects as having the same effect as an original signature.

SECTION 6: Recordation. The Mayor, or presiding officer, is authorized to sign this Ordinance signifying its adoption by the City Council of the City of Monterey Park and the City Clerk, or her duly appointed deputy, may attest thereto.

SECTION 7: Effective Date. Based on the findings in Section 1, this urgency ordinance is adopted by a four-fifths vote for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety and welfare and becomes effective immediately pursuant to Government Code § 36937(b). It may be implemented beginning January 1, 2025.

PASSED AND ADOPTED this 18th day of December 2024., Vinh Ngo, Mayor

ATTEST: Maychelle Yee, City Clerk, APPROVED AS TO FORM: Karl H. Berger, City Attorney

STATE OF CALIFORNIA )

COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES )§ CITY OF MONTEREY PARK )

I, Maychelle Yee, City Clerk of the City of Monterey Park, California, do hereby certify that the foregoing Urgency Ordinance No. 2257 was duly passed, approved and adopted at its special meeting held on 18th day of December, 2024 by the following vote:

Ayes: Council Members: Wong, Sanchez, Lo, Yang, Ngo Noes: Council Members: None

Absent: Council Members: None

Abstain: Council Members: None

Recusal: Council Members: None

Dated this 18th day of December, 2024. Maychelle Yee, City Clerk, City of Monterey Park, California

Publish December 23, 2024 MONTEREY PARK PRESS

Baldwin Park City Notices

CITY OF BALDWIN PARK NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT a public hearing to consider the following case will be held at 7:00 p.m. by the Planning Commission of the City of Baldwin Park on Wednesday, January 22, 2025. The Council Chamber will be open to the public in accordance with health official’s recommendations. Live audio of the hearing will be available via YouTube by clicking on the YouTube icon located on the upper right-hand corner of the City of Baldwin Park Webpage www.BaldwinPark.com

If you wish to comment on this agenda item, please provide a comment no later than 6:30 PM on January 22, 2025. Comments sent via email can be directed to pc-comments@baldwinpark.com. Comments made by phone can be given to the case planner whose contact information is provided at the end of the notice.

CASE NUMBER: Development Agreement No. DA 24-01

ADDRESS: 3100 Baldwin Park Blvd., Baldwin Park, CA 91706

REQUEST: A request for the Planning Commission to provide a recommendation of approval to the City Council for the adoption of a Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) and Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Plan (MMRP) in conjunction with a request for the construction of a new twosided digital billboard sign.

CEQA:

Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a MITIGATED NEGATIVE DECLARATION has been prepared, indicating the project will not have a significant effect on the environment once the mitigation measures have been incorporated. A copy of the Mitigated Negative Declaration of Environmental Impact is on file in the Planning Division, LA County Baldwin Park Library, and on the Planning page of the City website for examination (Document found at: https://www.baldwinpark.com/DocumentCenter/View/2755/ISMND-with-Appendices-for-AllVision-Metro-Billboard). Members of the public have the opportunity to make written statements regarding said report prior to the public hearing and during the hearing by emailing nbaldwin@baldwinpark.com.

If in the future anyone wishes to challenge a decision of the Planning Commission in court, you may be limited to raising only those issues you or someone else raise at the public hearing described above or in written correspondence delivered to the Planning Commission at, or prior to, the Public Hearing. Decisions on this matter will be final unless appealed within 10 days of the decision by any interested party.

LEGALS

If further information is desired on the above case, please contact City Planner Nick Baldwin of the Planning Division at (626) 9604011 Ext.475 or nbaldwin@baldwinpark.com and refer to the case number. If you are aware of someone who would be interested in becoming informed of the contemplated action, please pass this notice along as a community service. Para información en Español referente a este caso, favor de llamar al (626) 960-4011 Ext. 489

Nick Baldwin City Planner

Publish December 23, 2024 BALDWIN PARK PRESS

Probate Notices

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: ANGELA JACQUELINE RADALJ

CASE NO. 24STPB13567

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the WILL or estate, or both of ANGELA JACQUELINE RADALJ.

A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by JOHN RADALJ in the Superior Court of California, County of LOS ANGELES.

THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that JOHN RADALJ be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests the decedent’s WILL and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The WILL and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held in this court as follows: 01/03/25 at 8:30AM in Dept. 99 located at 111 N. HILL ST., LOS ANGELES, CA 90012

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for Petitioner

DEBORAH L. BABB, ESQ. - SBN 174091

DEBBIE BABB LAW 11693 SAN VICENTE BLVD., #562 LOS ANGELES CA 90049

Telephone (424) 248-0283 12/16, 12/19, 12/23/24 CNS-3878923# GLENDALE INDEPENDENT

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF:

CYNTHIA ALICE ESQUIVEL

CASE NO. 24STPB13227

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in

the lost WILL or estate, or both of CYNTHIA ALICE ESQUIVEL.

A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by ALEXANDRIA T. DECELLES in the Superior Court of California, County of LOS ANGELES.

THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that ALEXANDRIA T. DECELLES be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests the decedent’s lost WILL and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The lost WILL and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held in this court as follows: 02/03/25 at 8:30AM in Dept. 9 located at 111 N. HILL ST., LOS ANGELES, CA 90012

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for Petitioner CLAYTON D. WILSON - SBN 40339 WILSON & WILSON 414 S FIRST AVE ARCADIA CA 91006

Telephone (626) 547-1890 12/16, 12/19, 12/23/24 CNS-3878929# WEST COVINA PRESS

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF Cynthia Marie Midget

Case No. PROVA2401039

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of Cynthia Marie Midget

A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by Jennifer R. Midget in the Superior Court of California, County of SAN BERNARDINO. THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that Jennifer R. Midget be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the dece-dent.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Es-tates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administra-tion authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objec-tion to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held on January 28, 2025 at 9:00 AM in Dept. F1. located at 17780 Arrow Boulevard, Fontana, Ca 92335.

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mail-ing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code.

Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for petitioner:

Kristine M. Borgia SB#27677

Kristine M. Borgia Law Corporation 3963 11th Street Suite 202 Riverside, Ca 92501 951.823.5138

December 19, 23, 26, 2024 SAN BERNARDINO PRESS

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: RICHARD ODIN JOHNSON AKA RICHARD O. JOHNSON CASE NO. 24STPB13769

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the WILL or estate, or both of RICHARD ODIN JOHNSON AKA RICHARD O. JOHNSON.

A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by MARTIN ALLEN JOHNSON in the Superior Court of California, County of LOS ANGELES.

THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that MARTIN ALLEN JOHNSON be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held in this court as follows: 01/10/25 at 8:30AM in Dept. 99 located at 111 N. HILL ST., LOS ANGELES, CA 90012

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court

and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Attorney for Petitioner

DAVID F. CALKINS - SBN 314924

500 N. BRAND BLVD., 20TH FLR GLENDALE CA 91203

Telephone (818) 392-8222

12/19, 12/23,

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF: MARIA NDUATI AKA MARIA KALONDU NDUATI AKA MARIA KALONDU MASAI CASE NO. 24STPB14029

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the WILL or estate, or both of MARIA NDUATI AKA MARIA KALONDU NDUATI AKA MARIA KALONDU MASAI.

A PETITION FOR PROBATE has been filed by HENRY MASAI in the Superior Court of California, County of LOS ANGELES.

THE PETITION FOR PROBATE requests that HENRY MASAI be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.

THE PETITION requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.

A HEARING on the petition will be held in this court as follows: 01/16/25 at 8:30AM in Dept. 4 located at 111 N. HILL ST., LOS ANGELES, CA 90012

IF YOU OBJECT to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR or a contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

YOU MAY EXAMINE the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.

Trustor: MARIA ILDA R AMAYA, A SINGLE WOMAN Duly Appointed Trustee: Western Progressive, LLC Deed of Trust Recorded 02/27/2006 as Instrument No. 2006000130221 in book ---, page--- and of Official Records in the office of the Recorder of Orange County, California, Date of Sale: 01/29/2025 at 03:00 PM Place of Sale: ON THE FRONT STEPS TO THE ENTRANCE OF THE ORANGE CIVIC CENTER, 300 E. CHAPMAN AVENUE, ORANGE, CA 92866

Estimated amount of unpaid balance, reasonably estimated costs and other charges: $ 116,439.72 NOTICE OF TRUSTEE’S SALE THE TRUSTEE WILL SELL AT PUBLIC AUCTION TO HIGHEST BIDDER FOR CASH, CASHIER’S CHECK DRAWN ON A STATE OR NATIONAL BANK, A CHECK DRAWN BY A STATE OR FEDERAL CREDIT UNION, OR A CHECK DRAWN BY A STATE OR FEDERAL SAVINGS AND LOAN ASSOCIATION, A SAVINGS ASSOCIATION OR SAVINGS BANK SPECIFIED IN SECTION 5102 OF THE FINANCIAL CODE AND AUTHORIZED TO DO BUSINESS IN THIS STATE: All right, title, and interest conveyed to and now held by the trustee in the hereinafter described property under and pursuant to a Deed of Trust described as: More fully described in said Deed of Trust. Street Address or other common designation of real property: 5413 BISHOP STREET, CYPRESS, CA 90630

A.P.N.: 244-462-13

The undersigned Trustee disclaims any liability for any incorrectness of the street address or other common designation, if any, shown above. The sale will be made, but without covenant or warranty, expressed or implied, regarding title, possession, or encumbrances, to pay the remaining principal sum of the note(s) secured by the Deed of Trust with interest thereon, as provided in said note(s), advances, under the terms of said Deed of Trust, fees, charges and expenses of the Trustee and of the trusts created by said Deed of Trust. The total amount of the unpaid balance of the obligation secured by the property to be sold and reasonable estimated costs, expenses and advances at the time of the initial publication of the Notice of Sale is: $ 116,439.72.

Note: Because the Beneficiary reserves the right to bid less than the total debt owed, it is possible that at the time of the sale the opening bid may be less than the total debt. If the Trustee is unable to convey title for any reason, the successful bidder’s sole and exclusive remedy shall be the return of monies paid to the Trustee, and the successful bidder shall have no further recourse.

The beneficiary of the Deed of Trust has executed and delivered to the undersigned a written request to commence foreclosure, and the undersigned caused a Notice of Default and Election to Sell to be recorded in the county where the real property is located.

NOTICE OF TRUSTEE’S SALE NOTICE TO POTENTIAL BIDDERS: If you are considering bidding on this property lien, you should understand that there are risks involved in bidding at a trustee auction. You will be bidding on a lien, not on the property itself. Placing the highest bid at a trustee auction does not automatically entitle you to free and clear ownership of the property. You should also be aware that the lien being auctioned off may be a junior lien. If you are the highest bidder at the auction, you are or may be responsible for paying off all liens senior to the lien being auctioned off, before you can receive clear title to the property. You are encouraged to investigate the existence, priority, and size of outstanding liens that may exist on this property by contacting the county recorder’s office or a title insurance company, either of which may charge you a fee for this information. If you consult either of these resources, you should be aware that the same lender may hold more than one mortgage or deed of trust on this property.

NOTICE TO PROPERTY OWNER: The sale date shown on this notice of sale may be postponed one or more times by the mortgagee, beneficiary, trustee, or a court, pursuant to Section 2924g of the California Civil Code. The law requires that information about trustee sale postponements be made available to you and to the public, as a courtesy to those not present at the sale. If you wish to learn whether your sale date has been postponed, and, if applicable, the rescheduled time and date for the sale of this property, you may call (866)-960-8299 or visit this Internet Web site https://www.altisource. com/loginpage.aspx using the file number assigned to this case 2024-01140-CA. Information about postponements that are very short in duration or that occur close in time to the scheduled sale may not immediately be reflected in the telephone information or on the Internet Web site. The best way to verify postponement information is to attend the scheduled sale.

NOTICE OF TRUSTEE’S SALE

NOTICE TO TENANT: You may have a right to purchase this property after the trustee auction, if conducted after January

1, 2021, pursuant to Section 2924m of the California Civil Code. If you are an “eligible tenant buyer,” you can purchase the property if you match the last and highest bid placed at the trustee auction. If you are an “eligible bidder,” you may be able to purchase the property if you exceed the last and highest bid placed at the trustee auction. There are three steps to exercising this right of purchase. First, 48 hours after the date of the trustee sale, you can call (866)-960-8299, or visit this internet website https://www.altisource.com/loginpage.aspx, using the file number assigned to this case 2024-01140-CA to find the date on which the trustee’s sale was held, the amount of the last and highest bid, and the address of the trustee. Second, you must send a written notice of intent to place a bid so that the trustee receives it no more than 15 days after the trustee’s sale. Third, you must submit a bid, by remitting the funds and affidavit described in Section 2924m(c) of the Civil Code, so that the trustee receives it no more than 45 days after the trustee’s sale. If you think you may qualify as an “eligible tenant buyer” or “eligible bidder,” you should consider contacting an attorney or appropriate real estate professional immediately for advice regarding this potential right to purchase. Date: December 13, 2024 Western Progressive, LLC, as Trustee for beneficiary C/o 1500 Palma Drive, Suite 238 Ventura, CA 93003 Sale Information Line: (866) 960-8299 https://www.altisource.com/loginpage. aspx ______________ Trustee Sale Assistant. BCNS # 243793/Reference # 2024-01140-CA, Run Dates: 12/23/2024, 12/30/2024, 01/06/2025 ANAHEIM PRESS

T.S. No. 24-69713 APN: 5345-020-017 NOTICE OF TRUSTEE’S SALEYOU ARE IN DEFAULT UNDER A DEED OF TRUST DATED 1/4/2010. UNLESS YOU TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT YOUR PROPERTY, IT MAY BE SOLD AT A PUBLIC SALE. IF YOU NEED AN EXPLANATION OF THE NATURE OF THE PROCEEDING AGAINST YOU, YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LAWYER.A public auction sale to the highest bidder for cash, cashier’s check drawn on a state or national bank, check drawn by a state or federal credit union, or a check drawn by a state or federal savings and loan association, or savings association, or savings bank specified in Section 5102 of the Financial Code and authorized to do business in this state will be held by the duly appointed trustee as shown below, of all right, title, and interest conveyed to and now held by the trustee in the hereinafter described property under and pursuant to a Deed of Trust described below. The sale will be made, but without covenant or warranty, expressed or implied, regarding title, possession, or encumbrances, to pay the remaining principal sum of the note(s) secured by the Deed of Trust, with interest and late charges thereon, as provided in the note(s), advances, under the terms of the Deed of Trust, interest thereon, fees, charges and expenses of the Trustee for the total amount (at the time of the initial publication of the Notice of Sale) reasonably estimated to be set forth below. The amount may be greater on the day of sale. Trustor: LINDA L PASCALE, A MARRIED WOMAN AS HER SOLE AND SEPARATE PROPERTY Duly Appointed Trustee: ZBS LAW, LLP Deed of Trust recorded 1/11/2010, as Instrument No. 20100032490, of Official Records in the office of the Recorder of Los Angeles County, California, Date of Sale:1/16/2025 at 11:00 AM Place of Sale: By the fountain located at 400 Civic Center Plaza, Pomona, CA 91766 Estimated amount of unpaid balance and other charges: $666,941.79Note: Because the Beneficiary reserves the right to bid less than the total debt owed, it is possible that at the time of the sale the opening bid may be less than the total debt owed. Street Address or other common designation of real property401 S HIDALGO AVENUE ALHAMBRA, CALIFORNIA 91801-4045Described as follows: As more fully described on said Deed of Trust. A.P.N #.: 5345-020-017The undersigned Trustee disclaims any liability for any incorrectness of the street address or other common designation, if any, shown above. If no street address or other common designation is shown, directions to the location of the property may be obtained by sending a written request to the beneficiary within 10 days of the date of first publication of this Notice of Sale. NOTICE TO POTENTIAL BIDDERS: If you are considering bidding on this property lien, you should understand that there are risks involved in bidding at a trustee auction. You will be bidding on a lien, not on the property itself. Placing the highest bid at a trustee auction does not automatically entitle you to free and clear ownership of the property. You should also be aware that the lien being auctioned off may be a junior lien. If you are the highest bidder at the auction, you are or may be responsible for paying off all liens senior to the lien being auctioned off, before you can receive clear title to the property. You are encouraged to investigate the existence, priority, and size of outstanding liens that may exist on this property by contacting the county recorder’s office or a title insurance company, either of which may charge you a fee for this information. If you consult either of these resources, you should be aware that the same lender may hold more than one mortgage or deed of trust on the property. NOTICE TO PROPERTY OWNER: The sale date shown on this notice of sale may be postponed one or more times by the mortgagee, beneficiary, trustee, or a court, pursuant to Section 2924g of the California Civil Code. The law requires that information about trustee sale postponements be made available to you and to the public, as a courtesy to those not present at the sale.

LEGALS

If you wish to learn whether your sale date has been postponed, and, if applicable, the rescheduled time and date for the sale of this property, you may call (866) 266-7512 or visit this internet website www.elitepostandpub.com, using the file number assigned to this case 24-69713. Information about postponements that are very short in duration or that occur close in time to the scheduled sale may not immediately be reflected in the telephone information or on the Internet Web site. The best way to verify postponement information is to attend the scheduled sale. NOTICE TO TENANT: You may have a right to purchase this property after the trustee auction pursuant to Section 2924m of the California Civil Code. If you are an “eligible tenant buyer,” you can purchase the property if you match the last and highest bid placed at the trustee auction. If you are an “eligible bidder,” you may be able to purchase the property if you exceed the last and highest bid placed at the trustee auction. There are three steps to exercising this right of purchase. First, 48 hours after the date of the trustee sale, you can call (866) 266-7512, or visit this internet website www.elitepostandpub.com, using the file number assigned to this case 24-69713 to find the date on which the trustee’s sale was held, the amount of the last and highest bid, and the address of the trustee. Second, you must send a written notice of intent to place a bid so that the trustee receives it no more than 15 days after the trustee’s sale. Third, you must submit a bid so that the trustee receives it no more than 45 days after the trustee’s sale. If you think you may qualify as an “eligible tenant buyer” or “eligible bidder,” you should consider contacting an attorney or appropriate real estate professional immediately for advice regarding this potential right to purchase. Dated: 12/18/2024 ZBS LAW, LLP, as Trustee 30 Corporate Park, Suite 450Irvine, CA 92606For Non-Automated Sale Information, call: (714) 848-7920For Sale Information: (866) 266-7512 www.elitepostandpub.com Michael Busby, Trustee Sale Officer This office is enforcing a security interest of your creditor. To the extent that your obligation has been discharged by a bankruptcy court or is subject to an automatic stay of bankruptcy, this notice is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a demand for payment or any attempt to collect such obligation. EPP 42076 Pub Dates 12/23, 12/30, 01/06/2025 ALHAMBRA PRESS

Fictitious Business Name Filings

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No. FBN20240007104

The following persons are doing business as: M4 Ontario. INC DBA Cheba Hut Ontario, 1900 East Inland Empire Blvd, Ste. A, Ontario, CA 91764. Mailing Address, 12223 Highland Avenue. Ste. 525, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91739. # of Employees 30.. M4 Ontario, Inc. (CA-202252419299, 12223 Highland Avenue. Ste. 525, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91739; Tyrone Myles, President. County of Principal Place of Business: San Bernardino This business is conducted by: a corporation. Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein. By signing below, I declare that I have read and understand the reverse side of this form and that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true any material matter pursuant to Section 17913 of the Business and Professions Code that the registrant knows to be false is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Government Code Sections 6250- 6277). /s/ Tyrone Myles, President. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on August 7, 2024 Notice- In accordance with subdivision (a) of Section 17920.

A Fictitious Name Statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the County Clerk, except, as provided in subdivision (b) of Section 17920, where it expires 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to Section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

A new Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 et seq., Business and Professions Code) File#: FBN20240007104

Pub: 09/16/2024, 09/23/2024, 09/30/2024, 10/07/2024, 10/14/2024, 10/21/2024,

10/28/2024, 11/04/2024

San Bernardino Press

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS

NAME STATEMENT

File No. FBN20240010335

The following persons are doing business as: Keyard Modular, 15800 El Prado Rd. Suite A3, Chino, CA 91708. Mailing Address, 15800 El Prado Rd. Suite A3, Chino, CA 91708. # of Employee 4. Key Yard Inc. (CA4109510, 15800 El Prado Rd. Suite A3, Chino, CA 91708; David Deukkwon Kim, CFO. County of Principal Place of Business: San Bernardino This business is conducted by: a corporation. Registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein on October 28, 2024. By signing below, I declare that I have read and understand the reverse side of this form and that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true any material matter pursuant to Section 17913 of the Business and Professions Code that the registrant knows to be false is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Government Code Sections 6250- 6277). /s/ David Deukkwon Kim, CFO. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on November 7, 2024 Notice- In accordance with subdivision (a) of Section 17920.

A Fictitious Name Statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the County Clerk, except, as provided in subdivision (b) of Section 17920, where it expires 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to Section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

A new Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 et seq., Business and Professions Code) File#: FBN20240010335 Pub: 11/21/2024, 11/28/2024, 12/05/2024, 12/12/2024 San Bernardino Press

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS

NAME STATEMENT

File No. FBN20240010609

The following persons are doing business as: Noodle St Chino LLC, 3926 Grand Ave Ste E, Chino, CA 91710. Mailing Address, 147 E Foothill Blvd, Monrovia, CA 91016. # of Employees 15. Noodle St Chino LLC (CA, 147 E Foothill blvd, Monrovia, CA 91016; Guang Zhao, CEO. County of Principal Place of Business: San Bernardino This business is conducted by: a limited liability company (llc). Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein. By signing below, I declare that I have read and understand the reverse side of this form and that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true any material matter pursuant to Section 17913 of the Business and Professions Code that the registrant knows to be false is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Government Code Sections 6250- 6277). /s/ Guang Zhao, CEO. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on November 18, 2024 Notice- In accordance with subdivision (a) of Section 17920. A Fictitious Name Statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the County Clerk, except, as provided in subdivision (b) of Section 17920, where it expires 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to Section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

A new Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 et seq., Business and Professions Code) File#: FBN20240010609 Pub: 11/21/2024, 11/28/2024, 12/05/2024, 12/12/2024 San Bernardino Press

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No. FBN20240010002

The following persons are doing business as: Santa fe dental group, 228 W Baseline Rd, Rialto, CA 92376. Mailing Address, 228 W Baseline Rd, Rialto, CA 92376. # of Employees 5. A.M. ARTEAGA, DDS, INC. (CA-3842998, 228 W Baseline Rd, Rialto, CA 92376; ELOISA GONZALEZ SOTELO, SECRETARY. County of Principal Place of Business: San Bernardino This business is conducted by: a corporation. Registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein on January 1, 2015. By signing below, I declare that I have read and understand the reverse side of this form and that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true any material matter pursuant to Section 17913 of the Business and Professions Code that the registrant knows to be false is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Government Code Sections 6250- 6277). /s/ ELOISA GONZALEZ SOTELO, SECRETARY. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on October 30, 2024 Notice- In accordance with subdivision (a) of Section 17920. A Fictitious Name Statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the County Clerk, except, as provided in subdivision (b) of Section 17920, where it expires 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to Section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

A new Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 et seq., Business and Professions Code) File#: FBN20240010002 Pub: 11/21/2024, 11/28/2024, 12/05/2024, 12/12/2024 San Bernardino Press

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No. FBN20240010753

The following persons are doing business as: Avalos Equestrian Center, 4014 Philadelphia St, Chino, CA 91710. Mailing Address, 14762 Cherry Cir, Chino Hills, CA 91709. Kassandra Avalos, 14762 Cherry Cir, Chino Hills, CA 91709. County of Principal Place of Business: San Bernardino This business is conducted by: a individual. Registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein on November 1, 2024. By signing below, I declare that I have read and understand the reverse side of this form and that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true any material matter pursuant to Section 17913 of the Business and Professions Code that the registrant knows to be false is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Government Code Sections 6250- 6277). /s/ Kassandra Avalos, Owner. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on November 25,

2024 Notice- In accordance with subdivision (a) of Section 17920. A Fictitious Name Statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the County Clerk, except, as provided in subdivision (b) of Section 17920, where it expires 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to Section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner. A new Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 et seq., Business and Professions Code) File#: FBN20240010753 Pub: 12/02/2024, 12/09/2024, 12/16/2024, 12/23/2024 San Bernardino Press

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No. FBN20240010157

The following persons are doing business as: Great Spines Chiropractic, 337 N Vineyard Ave Suite 400, Ontario, CA 91764. Mailing Address, 337 N Vineyard Ave Suite 400, Ontario, CA 91764. Enrique Guerena Villegas, 337 N Vineyard Ave Suite 400, Ontario, CA 91764. County of Principal Place of Business: San Bernardino This business is conducted by: a individual. Registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein on October 24, 2024. By signing below, I declare that I have read and understand the reverse side of this form and that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true any material matter pursuant to Section 17913 of the Business and Professions Code that the registrant knows to be false is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Government Code Sections 6250- 6277). /s/ Enrique Guerena Villegas. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on November 4, 2024 Notice- In accordance with subdivision (a) of Section 17920. A Fictitious Name Statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the County Clerk, except, as provided in subdivision (b) of Section 17920, where it expires 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to Section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner. A new Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 et seq., Business and Professions Code) File#: FBN20240010157 Pub: 12/02/2024, 12/09/2024, 12/16/2024, 12/23/2024 San Bernardino Press

The following person(s) is (are) doing business as Daniel and Son Plumbing 22956 Joy Ct Wildomar, CA 92595 Riverside County Koch Plumbing LLC (CA, 22956 Joy Ct, Wildomar, CA 92595 Riverside County This business is conducted by: a limited liability company (llc). Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein. I declare that all the information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true

NOTICE: In accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920, a fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of the five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except, as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920, where it expires 40 days after any changes in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

A new Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 Et Seq., business and professions code).

I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office. Peter Aldana, County, Clerk File# R-202414710 Pub. 12/02/2024, 12/09/2024, 12/16/2024, 12/23/2024 Riverside Independent

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT 20246703956. The following person(s) is (are) doing business as: JJ Fire Protection, 2295 N Tustin St Unit 80, Orange, CA 92865. Full Name of Registrant(s) Jimmy Desbiens, 2295 N Tustin St Unit 80, Orange, CA 92865. This business is conducted by a individual. Registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein on January 1, 2024. /S/ Jimmy Desbiens. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Orange County on December 2, 2024. Publish: Anaheim Press 12/09/2024, 12/16/2024, 12/23/2024, 12/30/2024 ANAHEIM PRESS

The following person(s) is (are) doing business as VISISTA COLLECTIONS 6770 Belynn Ct EASTVALE, CA 92880 Riverside County SRIANA INVESTMENTS LLC (CA, 6770 Belynn Ct, Eastvale, CA 92880 Riverside County

This business is conducted by: a limited liability company (llc). Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein. I declare that all the information in this

statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true any material matter pursuant to Section 17913 of the Business and Professions Code, that the registrant knows to be false, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousands dollars ($1000).)

s. SUDHIR POTTURI, MANAGING MEMEBER Statement filed with the County of Riverside on December 4, 2024

NOTICE: In accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920, a fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of the five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except, as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920, where it expires 40 days after any changes in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner. A new Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 Et Seq., business and professions code).

I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.

Peter Aldana, County, Clerk File# R-202414992 Pub. 12/09/2024, 12/16/2024, 12/23/2024, 12/30/2024 RIVERSIDE INDEPENDENT

The following person(s) is (are) doing business as MBI Welding & Fabrication 1229 Columbia Avenue Unit C1 Riverside, CA 92507 Riverside County Juiced Rite, LLC (CA, 1229 Columbia Avenue Unit C1, Riverside, CA 92507 Riverside County This business is conducted by: a limited liability company (llc). Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein. I declare that all the information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true any material matter pursuant to Section 17913 of the Business and Professions Code, that the registrant knows to be false, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousands dollars ($1000).)

s. Stephanie Bryan, CEO Statement filed with the County

LEGALS

of Riverside on December 4, 2024 NOTICE: In accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920, a fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of the five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except, as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920, where it expires 40 days after any changes in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner. A new Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 Et Seq., business and professions code). I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.

Peter Aldana, County, Clerk File# R-202414993 Pub. 12/09/2024, 12/16/2024, 12/23/2024, 12/30/2024

Riverside Independent

The following person(s) is (are) doing business as (1). California Realty and Mortgage Group (2). California Realty Group (3). California Mortgage Group (4). Calrmgroup 37948 Sawleaf Place Murrieta, CA 92562

Riverside County California Mortgage Group, Inc. (CA, 37948 Sawleaf Place, Murrieta, CA 92562

Riverside County

This business is conducted by: a corporation. Registrant commenced to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein on October 1, 2024. I declare that all the information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true any material matter pursuant to Section 17913 of the Business and Professions Code, that the registrant knows to be false, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousands dollars ($1000).)

s. Joakim L Torehov, President Statement filed with the County of Riverside on November 20, 2024 NOTICE: In accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920, a fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of the five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except, as provided in subdivision (b) of

section 17920, where it expires

40 days after any changes in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

A new Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 Et Seq., business and professions code). I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.

Peter Aldana, County, Clerk File# R-202414429

Pub. 12/09/2024, 12/16/2024, 12/23/2024, 12/30/2024

Riverside Independent

The following person(s) is (are) doing business as 19K Security Solutions 7091 Deer Canyon Eastvale, CA 92880

Riverside County Gustavo Jimenez Jr, 7091 Deer Canyon, Eastvale, CA 92880

Riverside County

This business is conducted by: a individual. Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein. I declare that all the information in this statement is true and correct. (A registrant who declares as true any material matter pursuant to Section 17913 of the Business and Professions Code, that the registrant knows to be false, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousands dollars ($1000).)

s. Gustavo Jimenez Jr Statement filed with the County of Riverside on December 11, 2024

NOTICE: In accordance with subdivision (a) of section 17920, a fictitious name statement generally expires at the end of the five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the county clerk, except, as provided in subdivision (b) of section 17920, where it expires 40 days after any changes in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

A new Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use this state of a fictitious business name in

violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 Et Seq., business and professions code). I hereby certify that this copy is a correct copy of the original statement on file in my office.

Peter Aldana, County, Clerk File# R-202415258

Pub. 12/16/2024, 12/23/2024, 12/30/2024, 01/06/2025 Riverside Independent

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No. FBN20240011359

The following persons are doing business as: Nice Jump, 2908 S Whispering Lakes Ln Apt 10, Ontario, CA 91761. Mailing Address, 2908 S Whispering Lakes Ln Apt 10, Ontario, CA 91761. Ashley E Pioquinto, 2908 S Whispering Lakes Ln Apt 10, Ontario, CA 91761. County of Principal Place of Business: San Bernardino This business is conducted by: a individual. Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein. By signing below, I declare that I have read and understand the reverse side of this form and that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true any material matter pursuant to Section 17913 of the Business and Professions Code that the registrant knows to be false is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Government Code Sections 6250- 6277). /s/ Ashley E Pioquinto. This statement was filed with the County Clerk of San Bernardino on December 12, 2024 Notice- In accordance with subdivision (a) of Section 17920.

A Fictitious Name Statement generally expires at the end of five years from the date on which it was filed in the office of the County Clerk, except, as provided in subdivision (b) of Section 17920, where it expires 40 days after any change in the facts set forth in the statement pursuant to Section 17913 other than a change in the residence address of a registered owner.

A new Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed before the expiration. The filing of this statement does not of itself authorize the use in this state of a fictitious business name in violation of the rights of another under federal, state, or common law (see Section 14411 et seq., Business and Professions

Code) File#: FBN20240011359 Pub: 12/16/2024, 12/23/2024, 12/30/2024, 01/06/2025 San

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT File No. FBN20240011399

The following persons are doing business as: SIN YUN TRUCK INC, 2248 Wandering Ridge Dr, Chino Hills, CA 91709. Mailing Address, 919 N Unruh Ave, La Puente, CA 91744. xscape one inc (CA, 2248 Wandering Ridge Dr, Chino Hills, CA 91709; MEIGUANG ZHANG, president. County of Principal Place of Business: San Bernardino This business is conducted by: a corporation. Registrant has not yet begun to transact business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein. By signing below, I declare that I have read and understand the reverse side of this form and that all information in this statement is true and correct. A registrant who declares as true any material matter pursuant to Section 17913 of the Business and Professions Code that the registrant knows to be false is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed one thousand dollars ($1,000). I am also aware that all information on this statement becomes Public Record upon filing pursuant to the California Public Records Act (Government Code Sections 6250- 6277). /s/ MEIGUANG ZHANG, president. This statement was filed

Kaiser cardiologist alleges sexual harassment by supervisor

By City News Service

Alongtime cardiologist at Kaiser Permanente in Riverside is suing her employer, alleging the health care system was slow in dealing with a supervisor who sexually harassed her despite having a history of the same behavior that caused him to be fired elsewhere.

The plaintiff is identified only as Jane Doe 200 in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit in which she alleges gender discrimination, harassment, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, battery, failure to prevent discrimination, harassment or retaliation and a violation of the state Labor Code.

Doe 200 seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages in the suit brought Nov. 26.

A Kaiser representative issued the following statement regarding the suit:

When Doe 200 spoke with another female doctor about the supervisor’s alleged behavior, the other doctor replied, “I know. He’s always looking and staring at me. He also makes me uncomfortable,” according to the suit, which further states that Doe 200 found out from a nurse in March of this year that the supervisor was fired from a previous job for sexual harassment and that he had also been engaged in the same behavior with a Kaiser nurse.

“While we have not yet been served with this lawsuit, Kaiser Permanente is strongly committed to maintaining a safe, secure and respectful work environment for all our physicians and employees that is free of any hostile actions or behavior.”

AThe woman has worked as a cardiologist for Kaiser in

Riverside since 2014. According to the suit, the supervisor began sexually harassing her in March 2023 with unwanted hugs, graphic text messages, frequent visits to her office and putting his arm around her waist while she was resuscitating patients.

In June 2023, the supervisor sent Doe 200 a photo of himself via text message depicting him lying naked in bed while hugging his dog, the suit states.

“Plaintiff was shocked by the unwanted photo, but attempted to deescalate the

situation as they still had to work together,” according to the complaint.

Two months later, weary of the supervisor’s conduct, Doe 200 told him in her office, “No, no more hugs. Stop touching me,” according to the suit.

The supervisor, after an internal investigation, was placed on a paid suspension in October, but the plaintiff has not been updated by human resources, which has contributed to her emotional distress, the suit states.

When asked by an investigator about his behavior, the supervisor said Doe 200 never said “no” to his hugs and also stated that he thought she liked dogs, the suit states.

Nonprofit seeks volunteers in Menifee to help victims of violence, tragedy

nonprofitthat focuses on providing in-person assistance to individuals and families who have suffered a tragic loss, been victimized by crime or experienced shock from a natural or manmade disaster is putting out a call Wednesday for volunteers in

Menifee.

The Trauma Intervention Programs of Riverside County has partnered with the city of Menifee to offer training opportunities for new TIP volunteers.

“Giving your time to this program can make a huge impact on people’s lives who

“If our offices don’t reappoint, the commission or committee can’t move forward,” she said. Individuals appointed by board members generally serve from two to four years. The policy currently permits a member whose term has expired, but who hasn’t been re-appointed, to remain a sitting member until he or she is replaced.

Spiegel said the process of filling vacancies shouldn’t be so loose. Board Chairman Chuck Washington initially questioned her concerns, noting that the person on his staff responsible for helping vet and select prospective appointees was “very good.” However, county Chief

Counsel Minh Tran found merit in Spiegel’s proposal, saying that adding the words “good faith effort” to the policy and establishing a firmer time limit of six months for appointments to fill vacancies might ensure that supervisors and their staffs don’t ignore the need for replacements on committees “forever.”

“The current language allows expired members to continue exercising duties,” Tran said.“The (new) language proposes a good faith effort to properly replace, and after six months, the person with the expired term would not have the ability to continue (serving).”

He compared the amend-

By City News Service

may have no one to turn to for support in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy,”

CEO of TIP Riverside County Magda Stewart said. “Volunteers can also alleviate first responders at the scene, enabling them to do their work, with volunteers taking over comforting the people

involved in the crisis at hand.”

The county chapter has been in operation since 1993, serving multiple jurisdictions. The national organization was chartered in 1985 and provides guidance and support to the constituent parts.

Filling vacancies

ment Spiegel wanted to adding a “layer of notice” for board members to pay attention and not neglect their responsibility to make appointments. But he also noted that, in some cases, the appointment process was controlled by state law, including the Maddy Local Appointive List Act of 1975. So supervisors and their staffs may only have limited discretion in the appointment process.

The board unanimously approved Spiegel’s proposed amendment.

The groups, committees and commissions in the five supervisorial districts include municipal advisory councils, where unincor-

Victims of sexual assault, car crash survivors and those who experienced tragedy stemming from suicide are among recipients of TIP volunteer care, according to the nonprofit.

Also, victims of residential fires and wildfires, rape and robbery victims and

their loved ones, as well as “disoriented older persons” who are alone without help can receive assistance 24 hours a day, the organization said.

TIP volunteers are often

Karen Spiegel, Riverside County District 2 supervisor. | Photo courtesy of RivCo TV/YouTube

The Kaiser Permanente facility in Riverside. | Photo courtesy of the Riverside University Health System

Thousands of kids receive Christmas gifts; visits from Santa, The Grinch Multiple top players confirmed at American Express tournament

By City News Service

Morethan5,500 elementary schoolage students in the Val Verde Unified School District received Christmas gifts, enjoyed a simulated train ride, took pictures with Santa Claus and greeted The Grinch as he arrived via helicopter in Perris on Dec. 14 during an annual event organized by the district’s police department.

The seventh annual Chief’s Toy Chest was slated to begin at 11 a.m. on the campus of Val Verde High School.

“Students from preschool to fifth grade, and all special education students, will receive a brand new toy,

helping families celebrate the season with holiday cheer,” VVUSD Police Department Chief Mark Clark said prior to the event.

Santa was on hand to distribute gifts, aided by police personnel and representatives from some of the schools whose students received the presents.

Ahead of the event, “golden tickets” were handed out to select students, who will have an opportunity to “choose a special toy, such as an Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Oculus, Atari, American Girl Doll, Segway scooter, bicycle” and other products, according to a VVUSD police statement.

Jobless

There was a North Pole train on wheels providing rides to participants, and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department’s STAR-9 helicopter delivered The Grinch for a visit Dec.14, officials said.

Hot chocolate and coffee were served, in addition to a range of treats from a churro truck.

The event was made possible via donations from police personnel, community groups and residents.

The school district spans the north end of Perris, south end of Moreno Valley and a portion of unincorporated Riverside County, with a total enrollment of roughly 20,000.

|

services and public sectors grew by an aggregate 6,900 positions, according to figures.

Payrolls shrank in the construction, financial services, information tech-

nology and manufacturing sectors, which shed an estimated 2,600 jobs. Miscellaneous unclassified industries also contracted by 500, while the mining and hospital-

ity sectors were unchanged, according to data. The statewide nonseasonally-adjusted unemployment rate last month was 5.3%.

By City News Service

Organizers announced commitments Tuesday from several top-ranked golfers for the 2025 American Express tournament.

World No. 2 Xander Schauffele, who won two majors this year, will be among the field at the multivenue event, held from Jan. 16-19 at the PGA West’s Pete Dye Stadium Course, Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course and La Quinta Country Club. Schauffele had 15 top-10 finishes this season and hasn’t missed any of his last 56 cuts, the longest active streak on the PGA Tour.

He will face opponents including top-ranked Scottie Scheffler, who was previously confirmed at the event. Scheffler was named PGA Tour Player of the Year following an impressive

2024 campaign, including his second green jacket at the Masters.

Defending champion Nick Dunlap was also previously confirmed to be returning to the Coachella Valley event.

Also announced on Tuesday was Tony Finau, who recorded five top-10 results in 2024, including a tie for third at the U.S. Open. The 2016 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year was joined by the player who earned that title six years prior, Southern California native Rickie Fowler. This was a disappointing year for Fowler, who is hoping to reach the standard he set earlier in his career with three runner-up placements at major tournaments.

Organizers also revealed that 17-year-old Blades Brown would make his professional debut in the

Volunteers

desert. Brown is one of three golfers to win a medal at both the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Junior, a list that also includes Tiger Woods. He ended up in the top five at four out of five national junior golf events.

“With commitments from stars like Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau and Rickie Fowler, as well as rising talent like Blades Brown, this event promises to be an exciting showcase of world-class golf,” tournament Executive Director Pat McCabe said.

“The combination of established veterans and emerging stars makes for a highly competitive field.”

Daily passes start at $60, and children under 16 receive free access if joined by a ticket-purchasing adult. Additional information can be found at theamexgolf. com/tickets.

requested by law enforcement officers, paramedics and personnel at hospitals to provide assistance.

Volunteers are required to train for 37 hours spread out over eight days before they reach the benchmark for qualification. TIP Riverside County is actively seeking volunteers to serve Menifee, where the training program is planned from Jan. 23 to Feb. 1. Three training sessions occur during the day, while the remainder take place in the evenings. Anyone interested was asked to contact Stewart at 951-698-2453, or magdaceo@ tiprivco.org.

Further information is available at tiprivco.org.

Image courtesy of the state of California

Children display their Christmas gifts from the VVUSD Chief’s Toy Chest event. | Photo courtesy of the vvusdpd/Instagram

The Trauma Intervention Programs staff welcomes a group of new volunteers in July. | Photo courtesy of TIP of Riverside County

| Photo courtesy of The American Express