{"id":335494,"date":"2026-05-28T04:13:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T04:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/335494\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T04:13:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T04:13:15","slug":"san-bernardino-county-supervisors-may-attempt-to-remove-ensen-mason-daily-bulletin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/335494\/","title":{"rendered":"San Bernardino County Supervisors may attempt to remove Ensen Mason \u2013 Daily Bulletin"},"content":{"rendered":"

If San Bernardino County voters<\/a> reelect county auditor-controller\/treasurer\/tax collector Ensen Mason next Tuesday<\/a>, the board of supervisors might try to remove him from office.<\/p>\n

\"DawnDawn Rowe, chairperson of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. (File photo by Beau Yarbrough, San Bernardino Sun\/SCNG)<\/p>\n

At the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors\u2019 May 19 meeting<\/a>, Chairperson Dawn Rowe took direct aim at Mason.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve heard Mr. Mason make a lot of accusations directly to the media as well as on social media that I do not believe at all to have merit or truth in them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Rowe asked county counsel Laura Feingold to bring back an item for the board to vote on in an upcoming meeting, in which the board could censure or even remove Mason from office.<\/p>\n

Her request followed the board\u2019s unanimous decision to vote down a request from Mason to retain an independent legal counsel during investigations the board opened into him at their Feb. 24 meeting. The investigations are looking into alleged conflicts of interest between his elected role and work as a financial advisor in private practice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause my office is overseeing this investigation, we do have a conflict of interest,\u201d Feingold told the board, \u201chowever, Mr. Mason\u2019s request is specifically for counsel to represent his interest in the investigation. He is not requesting counsel to assist him in carrying out the official duties of his office.\u201d<\/p>\n

State law doesn\u2019t require the county to pay for legal representation for elected officials when it\u2019s not necessary to the performance of their duties, Feingold said at the meeting.<\/p>\n

\"SanSan Bernardino County Auditor-Controller\/Treasurer\/Tax collector Ensen Mason. (Courtesy of San Bernardino County)<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the last meeting before the election,\u201d Mason told the board before the vote. \u201cI don\u2019t think everybody who\u2019s listening knows what\u2019s going on here, why this investigation is being performed and probably the motive behind the words you\u2019re about to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, May 27, Mason said the Board of Supervisors \u2014 all of whom have endorsed Mason\u2019s<\/a> rival,\u00a0Rancho Cucamonga<\/a> City Councilmember Ryan Hutchison<\/a> \u2014 are involved in election year dirty politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve taken it up three notches and it feels like desperation,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve taken it to a level I\u2019ve never seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rowe declined to comment Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The investigations into Mason have been the subject of several attack ads mailed to San Bernardino County voters. Mason for his part, has sent a letter explaining his side of the story<\/a> to voters.<\/p>\n

But most of his focus has been on posting videos to his new Facebook page<\/a>, along with blog posts to a\u00a0website of the same name, TruthSBC.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe county is kind of run by a conglomerate by people who have a lot of money,\u201d Mason said Wednesday. \u201cUnions, developers, big corporations with business before the county. \u2026 All of this money going into the campaigns, you might call it dirty money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mason said he should have been making these posts \u201cyears ago,\u201d and vowed to continue producing them, whether he wins the election or loses.<\/p>\n

The investigations into Mason were opened by the board in February after several members of the public at the Board of Supervisors\u2019 Feb. 24 meeting<\/a> accused Mason of using his role as the county\u2019s treasurer to influence the prices of stocks he advised his clients of his private financial services business to buy.<\/p>\n

As county treasurer, Mason manages a $15 billion investment pool and is on the board that oversees the county\u2019s $17.2 billion pension fund. According to Mason, none of his private clients at Mason Financial Services<\/a> has ever held investments that are also in the county\u2019s portfolio.<\/p>\n

Mason\u2019s interviews for the investigation were completed on May 11, according to Feingold. The documents produced by the interview are being evaluated by the county counsel\u2019s office, she said, before a final report is submitted to the county. Citing attorney-client privilege, the county has declined to release the results of the investigation to him, Mason said.<\/p>\n

And Mason has thrown his own punches this election season.<\/p>\n

In March, Mason took Hutchison to court. He argued the\u00a0challenger for his position doesn\u2019t meet the legal requirements to serve\u00a0if elected<\/a>. California Government Code sets out specific requirements for both the positions of\u00a0county auditor<\/a>\u00a0and for\u00a0county treasurer, county tax collector or county treasurer-tax collector<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In April, San Bernardino County\u00a0Superior Court Judge Stephanie Ta\u00f1ada effectively ruled against both Mason and Hutchison<\/a>, leaving Hutchison on the ballot but striking some of the allegations Hutchison had made against Mason from the ballot statement shown to voters.<\/p>\n

The board of supervisors\u2019 next scheduled meeting is June 9, a week after Election Day. The meeting agenda will likely not be released to the public until June 5. And potentially, it could include a vote to kick Mason from office based on his videos and comments to the media.<\/p>\n

\u201cKicking somebody out of office for what they said, no matter what they said, I think everyone would agree that\u2019s a Constitutional violation,\u201d Mason said Wednesday. \u201cThat\u2019s just so anti-American.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If San Bernardino County voters reelect county auditor-controller\/treasurer\/tax collector Ensen Mason next Tuesday, the board of supervisors might…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1400,7,56393,48,52,51,205,47,50,49,100,13,5518,24836,136],"class_list":["post-335494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-2026-elections","tag-california","tag-investigative-reporting","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-local-politics","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-bernardino-county","tag-socal-watchdog","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}