I had heard rumblings about continued upheaval in the offices of the San Bernardino Sun and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. Two papers led by Steve Lambert, the guy who fired me two months ago.

But I haven’t seen either paper with any regularity since then, and my contact with survivors of those two papers has been limited and pretty much social.

But a former colleague the other day mentioned how it was difficult to get any feedback (or leadership, for that matter) when “all of the papers’ middle managers are halfway out the door.” That should have made my ears perk up.

A day later, I got this update from someone with numerous sources inside The Sun building in north San Bernardino — out of which essentially every LANG paper east of the 710 freeway is run.

Warning: It ain’t pretty, and involves the departure of nearly the entire city editor management team, the departure of a managing editor and an assistant managing editor. In a span of a few weeks.

Let’s start with Sun city editor Nicole White, a lightning rod for criticism and co-worker scorn for most of her short career in Berdoo.

From my source:

“The Nicole thing is … complicated. Yes, she is/was the city editor. Word trickled out a few weeks back that she was told she had a few weeks (we think it was no more than four) to find another job. And word has it, by at least three people, she was told if she did not get a job and submit her resignation, she would be fired. They’re trying to do everything possible to make sure it does not look like a firing. The reason: They don’t want to be liable for the unemployment.

“Basically, after the (March 6) layoffs happened, her already lukewarm work ethic went into the dumper. She linked up to Reporter-G’s (LANG-oriented blog), and she was getting notifications whenever there was a new comment. And some of the people on there were absolutely brutal with their critiques of her work. She read most, if not all, from what I understand, and would have crying jags during the middle of the day. She would walk away, go to her car, leave early. … The day after the (March 6) layoffs … (of the) 15 stories on the budget that day, she only read one.

“And that continued for a couple of weeks. Things were getting dropped and she was leaving early because she was making herself sick from crying. Not good when you’re on thin ice, with a thin staff.”

Also apparently on the way out of Berdoo are two of three assistant city editor, Ben Demers and Pat Maio, following hard on the heels of the departure of former ACE Jessica Keating, wife of soon-to-be-ex-AME Jeff Keating.

My source says:

“(Jessica) started at the Sun as a courts reporter, then was the night ACE … after their first child. When Jeff moved to the Sun (from an ME job in Ontario), she was given an online-type post, and then they moved her to the Bulletin to work in features. More recently though, she was reassigned to work on the editorial pages, reporting to (Mike) Brossart, and (former daily metro columnist) John Weeks was made features editor. And now, Brossart has been put in charge of the Bulletin as the de facto “editor” in that building.

“Jeff Keating, in the meantime, had asked to take that job at the Bulletin, but the Bulletin people said no. So he was left at the Sun to be the first lieutenant (to Steve Lambert), so to speak. He has gotten a job as a PR person at Western University (he started talking about it in the newsroom this week, and Reporter-G had that up earlier this week).”

Meantime, Pat Maio is being sent back to Ontario in some capacity, at the moment unclear, and Ben Demers, current night ACE, is being returned to Ontario head up what is left of the two papers’ business coverage.

Back to my source:

“So, after Jeff leaves, Nicole is out and Pat Maio heads to Ontario, that’ll leave Lambert and one night ACE in San Bernardino. And at this point, I would think they would have to look to replace them. But who’d be willing to jump into that mess?”

And what of Frank Pine, former No. 2 to Lambert? Well, he’s over in San Gabriel now, warming the editor’s chair Steve O’Sullivan sat in until he was canned, back in March.

“Pine, meanwhile, was shipped to San Gabriel in the wake of Steve O’Sullivan’s leaving. The story on that one is that he apparently told them months ago he would leave, and they said, no, we want you to stay. Well, this last time, they told him well, yeah, you can leave now. I don’t think Pine comes back East much these days, but am not completely sure.”

And just to make matters worse, “local cops reporting” is near a state of collapse. And remember, this is always one of the most basic beats at any publication representing itself as a newspaper.

“And as far as night cops goes: Jannise Johnson works Wednesday through Sundays. Three days a week, she’s based in Ontario. And she’s supposed to work the weekends in San Bernardino. That’s one person covering night cops for both “papers.” The other two days, it’s an intern covering the shift.”

And just for fun, an update on the Quark situation, the desktop publishing system LANG papers leaned on when their main system, Unisys, crashed bigtime.

“And, by our count, there may be one Bulletin copy editor left on the combined desks who knows how to use Quark … One of the kids who had worked on Quark at the Bulletin left this week (before the crash, I think).”

So, there you are. At least two formerly thriving suburbans in a state of complete disarray.