Workers return to site of San Bernardino massacre

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — In the offices of the Inland Regional Center, tinsel still festoons cubicles. A small tree with presents sits undisturbed. A sign-up sheet to bring in food remains empty of names.

The staff was still gearing up for the holidays on Dec. 2, the day 14 people were massacred on the center’s gleaming campus.

On Monday, its 600 employees return to the office, most for the first time since the attack.

While many have continued to work, visiting the homes of autistic children and mentally disabled adults, they haven’t been together in the place where everything froze once law enforcement officers whisked them away.

The plan is, after a welcome and some food in the lounges, to do what social workers and counselors do best — sit and talk.

“Just be together again, share where they’re at,” said Lavinia Johnson, the center’s executive director.

Amid the investigation and cleanup, the campus has been locked behind a chain-link fence wrapped in green mesh. Within that perimeter, in one corner, is a second fence.

It seals the conference center that San Bernardino County’s health department was renting for a holiday luncheon when the two attackers began their assault. A county restaurant inspector targeting his co-workers was joined by his wife in killing 14 and injuring dozens.

The conference building will not reopen Monday, and it’s not clear when it might.

For now, the act of reuniting on campus will be a huge step forward for Inland Regional Center staff. They miss the friendly faces, the hallway chitchat. They yearn to renew a sense of stability.

“That’s what I’m hearing from them: ‘We want to be together again. We want to be back at work,’ ” Johnson said.

After workers talk, they’ll get work. sit and back to

Professional counselors will be available for employees who want them.

“Our goal is to help people help themselves. And that’s pretty much the same strategy that we want to take with our staff,” said Kevin Urtz, the center’s associate executive director. “You know, help them through this.”

Urtz and Johnson both have worked more than 25 years at the Inland Regional Center, which with nearly 31,000 disabled clients in the working-class sprawl east of Los Angeles is the largest of 21 in California. It is a vital community resource in a place where about one-third of households live below the poverty line.

They expect staff to be resilient, in the spirit of the #SBStrong phrase that has become a community rallying cry.

While people want to move ahead, Urtz doesn’t expect ever to put that day behind fully.

“I don’t think we’re ever going to just, you know,” he said, with his voice trailing off. “No, it’s too big.”