Wednesday, September 14, 2016

• City Council Meeting September 2016

This meeting was frontloaded with several presentations. 

It started with the flag salute led by the Sea Scouts.
Video Link Below.
The first presentation was of David A Brown middle school choir singing. It was such a large group that they assembled in the parking lot. They sang three songs and I captured the first one, Put On A Happy Face, on video.
Video Link Below.
  They did an outstanding job and brought many smiles to audience member's faces.
It was tough getting a complete photo of the group.
Thankfully Photoshop can stitch two photos into one.

Girl Scout Troop 90 was recognized for their Silver Award work at Donald Graham Elementary.
Girl Scout Troop 90 along with Mayor Bridgette Moore.

Boy Scout Troop 2011 was recognized for their bravery in putting out a fire while on a campout. No, not a campfire, but something that took a bucket brigade to extinguish. 
The entire troop came in, which made picture taking a challenge that even Annie Leibovitz would have failed... All kidding aside, nice job fellas.

The next presentation was recognition of Matthew Wolfslau getting his Sea Scout Quartermaster Project (akin to an BSA Eagle Scout Project). 
Mayor Bridgette Moore, from Congressman Ken Calvert's office Brenda Dennstedt, Sea Scout Matthew Wolfslau.



The Sea Scouts (SSS Integrity) along with Wildomar City Council.

The 4-H Club spoke about their club and upcoming fairs where they will be taking their animals to show.
Left to Right: Cindy Stinson community leader, Wade Walker  member and treasurer, Bryanna Stinson member and vice president, Aspen Walker member, Liddy Walker community leader and Mayor Bridgette Moore.



The members of Elsinore Valley 4H will be auctioning their projects  at the Southern California Fair on October 8 at 10 am and would greatly appreciate the support of their community not only for their club, but for other 4H and FFA clubs in Riverside County. If you have any questions please feel free to go to socalfair.com or call Cindy  Stinson at 714-624-4148.


Still on the agenda at this point were the Library Update, a proclamation about Constitution Week, and National Stepfamily Day (September 16), but this was almost an hour in at this point and I couldn't see straight anymore. 

Never fear, there was an impromptu presentation where Wildomar Police Chief, Captain Leonard Hollingsworth, pointed out one of his deputies that had been honored by MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving).
Chief Hollingsworth pointing to a pin that this deputy received from MADD.

From here, the rest of the agenda started. 

Funny thing about that. There wasn't really anything on the agenda to speak of, and that's why the meeting was frontloaded with so many presentations.

Public Comments on non agenda items
• Kenny Mayes brought up municipal codes and Bingo, plus that many city events go under promoted.
• Miss Miller urged a vote for Linda Gonzales over "Mr. Riggs" (as she called Dustin Nigg) in the "5th district" (also wrong - it's district 2). Then she got on an anti-American rant and blasted US History, as if it was being done today. Had to love her blast against 12 term congressman Ken Calvert when she said he was "part of the Washington gangster machine." 
(I thought Hillary was head of that) ZING!

Item 2.1 was one of these things that I think is a waste of time, but has to be dealt with in an open meeting. It was about a small area of land being "annexed to community facilities district." 

There was no opposition from any of the concerned parties, but that didn't stop Miss Miller from using three minutes to discuss chemtrails and other such nonsense.

3.1 Tiny House Village Meeting
This was brought to the council so that they could approve a meeting that is to be held Thursday September 22 from 4:30-7:30pm in the council chambers.

Kenny Mayes spoke about how the meeting hadn't been well established, though it's been talked about since July. Also that the timing isn't good "even for retired people because that would interfere with chores and dinner".

(He has a point there, I wonder if it would be prudent to bring along a brown bag?)

He went on to conject about how the costs for the meeting were going to be paid. City Manager Gary Nordquist said the costs for the meeting would be $89 from the general fund.

At that point, Councilmember Ben Benoit pledged to pay the $89 out of his campaign funds, which put the issue to bed.

(There will be time for opinions about Tiny House Villages after the meeting is held.)

3.2 City Council Salary Ordinance
Wildomar city council members receive $300 a month. That's dictated by state law for General Law cities with populations under 35,000 (as opposed to Charter Cities). 

Earlier this year Wildomar hit 35,000 residents and that entitled the council members a hundred dollar a month increase.

I know that it's common to want to cut, cut, cut when it comes to government spending, but their current $300 monthly stipend doesn't come close to covering the out of pocket expenses our council members incur (at least most of them) while working for us.

They voted to amend the ordinance so that it doesn't take effect until the next fiscal year (July 1, 2017) instead of the first of the year.

Their next raise won't be until Wildomar hits a pop of 50,000. Our build out is somewhere around 55,000, and at current rates that would be between 15 and 20 years.

Below is the video of Item 3.2. In total, it's under five minutes long.


City Manager's Report 
We were reminded to join the letter writing campaign, urging Governor Brown to sign SB 817, that will return nearly two million dollars a year to Wildomar. 




City Attorney Report
We learned that a new law requires that anytime a head of department gets a raise, it can't just be mentioned in the agenda. It now also has to be mentioned verbally before a vote can be taken. 

Seems fair enough.

•          •          •


Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.

— Brendan Behan , 1923-1964


Wildomar Rap has never been near a harem, much less worked in one.

5 comments:

  1. Without making me watch the video, were the only public comments during the meeting by you, ken and miss Miller??? Also was the item on the storage facility pulled? Btw It was the 8 presentation items that made me avoid last night's meeting...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, we were the only three. I spoke for about 45 seconds, and most of it was a silly introduction where I acknowledged "Madame Mayor, Mr. Mayor Pro-Tem" etc.

      Ken doesn't look to use up his entire three minutes, though I had to love how he equated "Tiny Villages" to "Tent Cities" and how they've proliferated at about the same pace as micro-breweries in some places.

      I had seen all the presentations on the agenda, but couldn't believe they took up an hour. Thankfully the "Step Family" people didn't show and neither did the librarian. In the end, I'm sure that if the agenda had been meatier, the presentations wouldn't have gone on for half that long.

      I was interested in the storage place mostly because I couldn't figure out where it was, couldn't locate the address in the packet. Miss Miller pulled it, along with five other items, but really didn't discuss any of them in a way that made you think she was talking about them.

      Delete
    2. Sheila - The Milestone Rv/Boat Storage project was on the consent calendar. No discussion desired or wanted, unless someone is present to comment or a council member chooses to pull it. Over half the agenda of last evening was on the consent calendar.
      Apparently your opinion on this project wasn't strong enough to warrant you spending 2/3 of the meeting stomaching the ceremonial nonsense. It was commented by Ken Calvert's staff member that wildomar is the only city locally that spends this much time on presentations. I guess the cities business and concerned citizens time is more valuable elsewhere.

      Delete
  2. The address was deep in the packet and it is off Clinton Keith. So did miss Miller pull it or did a city council member pull it. The plain fact is that I don't think the ceremonial stuff is nonsense but unlike some I don't feel a need to render a comment or opinion on everything so while i am interested in the project no I do not have a strong opinion on it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It wasn't a council member. When Debbie Lee announced Miss Miller, she cited at least five items that Miss Miller wanted to address. None of the council members addressed it.

      Delete

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