• District Conversion Update 6: Discussion of Draft Maps

The key bit of business at the February 10th city council meeting was the hour long portion dealing with the implementation of council districts in Wildomar.

A look at Mayor Bridgette Moore as she snaps a shot of Douglas Johnson during his presentation.

I've included the entire video. There are a couple of cuts where there was no action due to the council joining the audience and then returning to the dais.

Also, I have superimposed some of the maps that Mr. Johnson is referring too so that you can better grasp what he's discussing. Still, this isn't a professional video, so there are times where unavoidable camera shaking is present.
This part of the agenda, 2.4 Proposed Voting by Districts Boundary Maps, started with the City Manager, Gary Nordquist, reading a statement about the purpose of the public hearing. After which Mayor Bridgette Moore directed the council to join the audience for Douglass Johnson's presentation.

Mr. Johnson spent about 20 minutes discussing the three draft maps he'd prepared. The criteria/goals involved and what the reason for several [apparent] anomalies in the draft maps were due to.

He also discussed the interactive map on the city's website. Both for those wanting to look at what's there, and for those that want to build their own district maps for submission.

Link to city's website with the maps

After Mr. Johnson's presentation was over, the residents had a chance to speak.

• Ken Mayes complained about the process (jump to the 20:55 mark of the video). You have to love this quote from him:

Public meeting, as an agenda item, within a public meeting [[I think he meant regular city council meeting]] is plain wrong. With only three public meetings being offered, no matter how distasteful the subject is to some, the very least the citizens deserve a meeting uncluttered by all the other nonsense.

Did that guy really just say such a thing? "Cluttered up by all the other nonsense"???

Oh the irony of it all. To the average member of the audience, it's as if he, and Miss Miller, try to outdo each other in hopes of getting Chuck Barris' attention to be contestants on the long defunct Gong Show —every time they go up to the mike. Which is usually at least three times every evening either of them shows up. 

Just to give you a taste of what often goes on for three minutes, several times each meeting, take a look at his ten second contribution from an earlier part of the meeting, that cost us all more than a minute of our lives... but I digress.

• George Taylor read a letter disagreeing with the entire process of converting to districts.
• Andy Morris discussed various lines on the maps. He favored map A.
• Gary Andre let us know that he's a pastor, to read your bibles, that he's had four brain surgeries and we're all the same on the inside. He doesn't like districts, "but we have them. If I were to choose, it'd be 2 or 3," which is equivalent to B and C if you're following the agenda.

From here, city clerk read off the preferences from about half a dozen emails to the council. 

Mr. Johnson spoke again, trying to answer questions posed by the speakers. 

My favorite part of the meeting was when resident Maria Walker asked the following question.

If the community picks one of these, or one that you come up with that meets all of the requirements, will the person, or a person —can they sue? 

—Maria Walker

The question was answered by expert attorney Margurite Leoni by telephone connection.

If the community and council agree that one of these plans is appropriate for the city, and the council enacts it by ordinance, that plan can no longer be challenged under the California Voting Rights Act, and in this case, there would also not be a challenge under the federal voting rights act. 

Let me make clear that there are crazy people out there who sue even when they don't have a basis for a lawsuit. 

So it might be best to say, that if somebody attempted to sue the city, the city would have a very good opportunity to —almost certainly, to get the complaint dismissed very early. 

—Margurite Mary Leoni

The last eight minutes on item 2.4 were the council discussing the issue.  

• Bob Cashman was worried about having an easy drive to service his district and that he favored using the freeway as a dividing line.

"Can I easily drive to the places where the people I want to serve live? And the driving distances are quite a difference because anything on the east side of the freeway is one set of driving pathways, and anything on the west side has another set of pathways. So, I would probably prefer a plan that is divided along the freeway. I think that probably if I lived in Sedco, I would never go on the other side of that hill. So if I'm going to represent an area, I want to represent an area where people have some similarity."  

Bob, Wildomar isn't Los Angeles. You can drive from your house to any point in the city in under ten mins. You're a council member and if such a daunting drive is weighing on you, that may be an indication it's time to pack it in. No offense or anything, just saying out loud what everyone else is thinking.

• Marsha Swanson
"I absolutely do not want the freeway to divide us. I think that's absolutely wrong. We have constituents on both sides [of the freeway] with concerns and I think we need to represent as many different types of people as we can."

• Tim Walker
"All I know is that my horse and buggy will go anywhere in this city (followed by some laughter). I like [map] A, but I can do whatever."

• Ben Benoit
"I've driven this entire city, front to back, and walked almost every neighborhood. I'll go anywhere. With that I get the smallest geographical area in map A, but I think map A, to me, makes the most sense."

• Bridgette Moore
"I'm leaning towards draft A."

A look from the back of the room, which wasn't even half full by the time agenda item 2.4 was addressed.

Last bit of news that came from the meeting is that the same lawyer, sent the same type of letter to San Juan Capistrano, at about the same time as the one he sent to Wildomar. They didn't address it right away, as our council and city attorneys did, and now SJC has had a lawsuit filed against them. It's discussed in the latter part of the video.

As we know, that will not work out well for them. This type of lawsuit has never ended well for a municipality, even when the judgement is favorable for them.

Thanks to our tireless professionals that have saved the people of Wildomar many thousands of dollars over the years, from the repetitive onslaughts by some severely misguided individuals.

Next meeting discussing the conversion to districts will be in two weeks. Wednesday February 24th at 7:00pm. Note the time difference from usual start times.

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Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody . 
— Mark Twain

Wildomar Rap reminds you: Though it feels like mid May out there the last couple of days, I wouldn't go planting any tomatoes until at least the second week of March.