With departing Supervisor Janice Rutherford leaving a vacancy, five candidates are running to represent San Bernardino County’s 2nd District supervisorial district.
Running in this race are former Fontana Councilman and realtor Jesse Armendarez, Luis Cetina, who serves on the board of the Cucamonga Valley Water District, DeJonaé Shaw, a licensed vocational nurse, and business owners Eric Coker and Nadia Renner.
Of those running, our decision came down to Armendarez and Cetina. Both are fiscal conservatives, both cite tackling homelessness and crime as among their top priorities and both generally view San Bernardino County as a place of untapped economic potential.
In Cetina, we appreciate his big picture approach to the issues. In an interview with our editorial board, Cetina emphasized the need for the county to ensure the county’s utilities can keep up with an expanding population. He also offers practical ideas like taking unused commercial buildings and converting them into housing.
Overall, though, we think Armendarez’s experience as a councilman in a well-run city gives him the edge over Cetina and the other candidates.
Armendarez, who ran for supervisor in 2020, takes a practical approach to the issues. On homelessness, he calls for a focus on expanding shelter space and addiction services, and wants mental health professionals deployed to homeless shelters.
On the economy, Armendarez recognizes the need for county government to not only maintain a business-friendly posture, by limiting local taxation and streamlining red tape, but to proactively work to promote the county as a place to invest and do business. Armendarez sees it as critical that San Bernardino County do more to partner with schools to promote college readiness and ensure young people in the region have pathways to highly-skilled and well-paying jobs.
Armendarez’s time on the Fontana council has surely given him insights on putting these words into action. Fontana has consistently ranked well on measures of economic well-being. In 2018, RentCafe ranked the city No. 4 in its ranking of “Most Prosperous” U.S. cities.
Accordingly, we endorse Jesse Armendarez.
