Desert Town Can't Shake Its Wild West Reputation

ADELANTO, Calif. — When he took over as mayor, Tristan Pelayes thought shutting down the Charlie's Girls strip club on the edge of this desert town would be his biggest headache.

Half an hour after being appointed, he knew better.

Pelayes was handed a set of recall petitions that accused him and two other City Council members of everything from corruption and racketeering to poor hygiene and problem marriages.

"It's totally groundless. This is what happens when someone new comes in and tries to clean things up," said Pelayes, an attorney in the county counsel's office for San Bernardino County and a former sheriff's deputy. "This is making the city look like a joke."

Even with the local casino boarded up and tumbleweeds lying against empty saloons, this parched Mojave Desert hamlet and old Air Force outpost can't seem to shake its reputation as a scandal-plagued, Wild West town.

Within the last year, Adelanto's police chief has been fired, two city managers have quit, a mayor was unseated and recall campaigns have been launched against all five City Council members.

In this one post office town of 18,000, known for its packed welfare rolls and 100-degree days, the political free-for-all has grown as twisted as the desert's gnarled Joshua trees. The campaign to recall one councilman is being led, in part, by his next-door neighbor.

Even people who have lived here for years--long enough to see another former police chief sent to federal prison and three previous council members recalled in 1996--say they can't remember a more venomous atmosphere inside Adelanto City Hall.

"Who needs 'em," said resident Diana Torres, 39, an employee at Yvonne's Beauty Salon. "All I can hope for is something better to come in. I mean, it can't get any worse."

Adelanto is tucked up against the former George Air Force Base, about 65 miles northeast of Los Angeles in the high desert area known as Victor Valley. The Pentagon abandoned the air base in 1992, taking away an estimated 5,000 area jobs and drying up the local economy, and that's when the trouble really began in Adelanto.

The city fathers dreamed--some say foolishly--of converting the base into an international airport. Adelanto spent about $11 million--twice its annual budget--suing neighboring cities for complete control of the facility and wound up with nothing.