Re-Printed from the Daily Press
December 28, 2010 8:08 AM
Brooke Edwards

VICTORVILLE • After 38 years on Victorville’s City Council, Terry Caldwell may be ready to try his hand at another political office — though he isn’t saying just yet which office that might be.

Caldwell, 72, announced just before the filing deadline that he wouldn’t be running for reelection on Victorville’s Council this past November, citing his age and desire to spend more time with his family as contributing factors. But since stepping down from the dais Dec. 7, Caldwell has said publicly several times that he might be considering a run for a new position.

William Buck Johns, president of Inland Energy, the company behind several of Victorville’s energy ventures, has told community members that he plans to support Caldwell in a bid for 1st District Supervisor Brad Miztelfelt’s seat in 2012.

To read more about Caldwell, see the full story in Tuesday’s Daily Press. Get complete stories every day with the “exactly as printed” Daily Press E-edition, only $5 per month! Click here to try it free for 7 days. To subscribe to the Daily Press in print or online, call (760) 241-7755, 1-800-553-2006 or click here.

First time USCIS has halted an EB-5 regional center
Reprinted from the Daily Press.
October 26, 2010 1:01 PM
Brooke Edwards

VICTORVILLE • The federal government has terminated Victorville’s foreign investor program, ending the city’s hopes to raise tens of millions of dollars for projects at Southern California Logistics Airport.

It’s the first time U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has ever terminated an EB-5 program, agency spokeswoman Mariana Gitmore said by phone Tuesday. She said Victorville hadn’t been able to demonstrate that it meets the criteria to raise funds through the federal program, despite repeated requests for more information. Read the rest of this entry »

By Joe Nelson
Posted: 09/08/2010 04:14:03 PM PDT
The Sun

For the second time, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has threatened to terminate the Victorville Regional Center, which the city fears could jeopardize hundreds of jobs at Southern California Logistics Airport.

In a notice of its intent to terminate the Regional Center dated Aug. 10, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, determined that most of the jobs being generated at the Regional Center, including jobs at the Dr. Pepper Snapple and Platipak factories, could not be directly attributed to a $30 million wastewater plant, which began operations in July.

An economic analysis submitted to USCIS by Regional Center Chief Executive Officer Keith Metzler in late June indicated that money from foreign investors would be used to construct the wastewater plant, which would create 12 jobs at the plant once completed and treat 900,000 gallons of industrial wastewater daily from the Dr. Pepper Snapple plant. The construction of the wastewater plant, according to Metzler, would also create more than 400 jobs at the bottling plant and more than 1,200 jobs within the regional center itself.

But USCIS is disagreeing with Metzler’s analysis.

“It is of note that neither the Dr. Pepper Snapple plant nor the Plastipak plant appear to have a relationship with the wastewater treatment plant other than being parties to agreements to be consumers of the services of the wastewater treatment plant,” according to the USCIS letter. “It would appear that your
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regional center asserts that any newly created public or private entity that provides a commodity or service to commercial consumers, such as a wastewater treatment plant, power plant, solid waste disposal center, etc., would in effect be able to claim credit for the jobs created by the commercial consumers of its services.”

USCIS is the federal agency that oversees a foreign investor program called EB-5, which allows wealthy foreign investors to invest in American infrastructure and capital improvement projects that create at least 10 jobs in exchange for green cards.

Victorville was given approval by USCIS last June as a Regional Center, allowing the city to participate in the EB-5 program. Newport Beach energy magnate William Buck Johns has been aggressively recruiting investors in the the last year from Asia, South Africa and Mexico.

So far, 28 investors have agreed to invest in the regional center. Nineteen applications have been processed through USCIS, and loans totaling $9.5 million have been made to the Southern California Logistics Airport Authority, Johns said.

But the latest roadblock by USCIS – its second notice threatening to terminate the regional center – threatens it all.

“The notice directly jeopardizes the ability of the Southern California Logistics Airport

Industrial Wastewater Treatment Facility to sustain jobs created as it prohibits the ability of the SCLA (wastewater treatment plant) to refinance its construction debt,” Metzler said in his 14-page response letter to USCIS dated Sept. 1.

Despite the setbacks, Johns and other city officials who have kept up on the regional center issue are nothing but optimistic.

“We’re expecting our green light from USCIS any day now,” Johns said Wednesday.

To read the rest of the story, click here…….

Feds renew threat to terminate fundraising efforts
September 13, 2010 9:11 AM
Brooke Edwards

VICTORVILLE • Federal officials have sent a second notice of their intent to terminate Victorville’s efforts to raise funds through foreign investors, so far unsatisfied with the city’s defense of its program.

Victorville shot back an 83-page response, waiting once again to hear whether it will be allowed to use loans received through the federal program — loans Deputy City Manager Doug Robertson declared “the only viable option” to help fund construction of the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved Victorville’s application as an EB-5 Regional Center in June 2009, allowing the city to solicit $500,000 loans from foreign citizens so long as that money helps create 10 local jobs. In exchange, the aspiring immigrants are put on the fast track to getting U.S. visas.

But USCIS sent the city a rare notice of intent to terminate its EB-5 program in May, raising questions about whether Victorville had misrepresented itself in marketing the program and if projects such as the stalled Victorville 2 power plant are still viable.
To read the rest of the story, click here….