• City Council Meeting August 2019

The meeting started with presentations. The first was by EVMWD and how they're going to jack up the rates by another 3.2%.

Red arrow is the previous bill, the green arrow is the new and improved, king size bill.

Reality is, it's all but a done deal. There is a provision (which is nothing more than Sacramento based false hope) known as Prop 218. The theory is, if 50% of the ratepayers protest, then the rate increase will be halted. 

Remember, 50% is referring to EVMWD ratepayers.

Pro Tip: There is only ONE ratepayer per household. 

That means if you're married, it's a waste of time to send in separate letters from both spouses. 

To me, Prop 218 is an exercise in futility. Please don't mishear me, I encourage you to participate in the process and send in your protest letter, but just keep in mind that there won't even be 1% that write in, much less 50%.

Police Quarterly Update (10:45 mark of video)
key takeaway is that with the new approach to trespassing and panhandling the arrests have gone up over the last couple of months.

An average of 45-50 calls for service per day.

Also, in July, the first month of our motorcycle officer, 270 citations were written out... were you one of them?

It was said that "a lot" of the citations were issued to non Wildomar residents.

There was also a Fire Department update and a Library Update (easy to find in the video below).

At the 18:10 mark of the video Councilmember Bridgette Moore asks about weed abatement in the city. There is no image, but the audio is worth listening to. 

We discussed that today, we had a meeting [with staff] and had a lot of good talking points. I think there is definitely some options through the State Fire Marshal office, Cal Fire, and State and Riverside County, and of course your code enforcement. I think next year we'll have a multi pronged/faceted attack on it. It's not horrible, but with the amount of rain we had [this past season] we had more than normal grass growth and weeds. Also community outreach, as far as letting the public know "Hey, it's time to cut your weeds." This year was just one of those years.  

  —Wildomar Battalion Chief John Crater

The fifth presentation was for the city's finance department. 

Mayor Marsha Swanson with Finance Director James Riley and Finance Manager Robert Howell.
Government Finance Officers Association Certificate of Achievement Award.

2.1 Store America GPA/Zone Change
(This item begins around the 40:30 mark of the video below)

This has been wending its way through planning and city council for awhile now. It's an item that is still active, so I'm only comfortable giving a very brief overview.

This is about an older storage place, formerly Wildomar Storage, on Mission Trail. The new owners desire to remodel the whole place. Problem is, it's in the wrong zone according to the general plan.

A look at the new and improved building design.

The applicant has been working with staff to alleviate the issue of "losing retail zoning" in the General Plan by working with the city to help replace the 3.5 acres in another part of the city.  

For a more complete understanding of this, please refer to the video.

Fun personal note: 

I'm still getting the hang of how an official meeting is run where "motions" and "seconds" are part of nearly every item. After throwing in my two cents, Councilmember Ben Benoit gave me one of those time to take off the training wheels looks, and encouraged me make the motion for Item 2.1.

In my haste I made a broad motion to approve 2.1... without taking into account that there were two different options to choose from. Our city attorney reminded me that there were two possibilities, but in the end I finally figured it out and made the proper motion. ☺

That bit of levity starts at the 46:10 mark of the video.

2.2 Waste Management Rate Increase

It's not my intention of giving this item short shrift, but there is somewhat of an anticlimactic feel to this since we just did the CR&R rate hike a couple of short months ago. The reason why this wasn't taken care of all at once is that the city has two different waste hauler contracts. 

The eastside of the freeway is serviced by WM, and the westside is taken care of by CR&R, and the contracts don't coincide on the same dates. 

The rates will be going up more (but not higher) than they did for the CR&R customers because it's not just a simple rate increase in many cases. Many areas that WM services don't currently have complete, three can per week, service that is common in the rest of the city.

In those cases, there will be the usual increase that is tied to the consumer price index, but then an additional increase, to cover the cost of parity, for others... especially those that live in the more established parts of The Farm.

Now both sides of the freeway will be getting the same service at the same rates

One public speaker spoke about the rates going from about $20 per month to roughly $28 per month. That is a big difference to absorb all at once. This was addressed by Councilmember Ben Benoit.

"This has come forward after a very long process, a bit of a difficult process, but in the last [...] couple of months, Waste Management has been working very well with us. There were lot's of different issues, probably one of the first franchise subcommittee meetings we had here we had people coming in with certain issues, especially with the green waste bins. 

I'm happy to see that we're finally fixing that issue. I know it's a burden but, Calrecycle would tell us, as a city, if we didn't have green waste bins across our city that they would start fining us up to $10K or $15K per day. [...] They overlooked it for a few years, and the last year or two we said, "We're working on it, so please don't fine us yet." 

If we were to deny this today, and not get those green waste bins out, we would be on the hook, from the state, and having to pay that. 

I know that this is not easy, and it's not something we want to ever do, to burden our residents, but the state requires this stuff. I guess my warning is, is this might not be the end of it unfortunately. 

I'm hearing that we might be seeing other rate increases because of that (recycling demands put on by the state), but for starters we've got to make sure that the city isn't going to start getting fined."

- Councilmember Ben Benoit

3.1 Mandatory Spay, Neuter and Microchipping 
(1:02:30 mark in the video)
This wasn't a controversial item. It was voted in 4-0 (Councilmember Dustin Nigg not in attendance). I've always had my pets altered, and for most family pets there is no useful purpose to keep intact animals. 

There are exemptions for hobby breeders, but for the vast majority of pet owners, it's time to take overpopulation of dogs and cats seriously.

Link to county page

The statistic of "less than 20% of pet owners license their animals" was suggested by public speaker, Kenny Mayes. 

Though I fully support altering pets, and cheerfully voted to have it be the rule in Wildomar, if an overwhelming percentage of people aren't bothered with licensing their pets, I see this to be a feel good measure only, as a similar percentage of scofflaws will undoubtedly be running afoul of this too.

I asked about enforcement and essentially there won't be any proactive enforcement. Think of it like the seatbelt law. Something that will be "enforced" when other issues come to light first. 

The fines for lack of compliance are $50, $150 and $250 for 1st offense, 2nd offense and 3rd offense... but they will work with people that are in the process of complying.

3.3 Palomar/Clinton Keith (1:26:45 mark in the video)
This item discussed additional sidewalks and bike lanes to complete some connectivity on Palomar and Clinton Keith.

This is in reference to grant money from RCTC (Riverside County Transportation Commission) that is specifically for these types of projects. 

The blue dotted line is the proposed sidewalks. The green dotted line is the proposed bike lanes.

Since I've seen comment after comment that suggests people don't understand the process (that you must spend the money according to the grant) I played Devil's Advocate when I asked our City Engineer, Dan York, the following:

Joseph: Can we spend the RCTC money on something else once they give it to us?

Dan: No, we cannot. These are very specific funds for very a specific use. We could have easily not applied for the it and another city would have won the [grant]. This is only specific for these types of things. This is part of the TDA Act, under Senate Bill 821, these are monies that come out every year, they're very specific to safe routes to school, for pedestrians, for bike paths, so that's really the only things this money could be used for.

Even with that clear as crystal I predict that when construction begins on these projects, Facebook will be flooded with, "But why are you building bike lanes and not fixing my street?"

3.5 Stormwater Drainage System Protection (1:33:00 mark in the video)
This should have been called, City of Wildomar protection from overreaching state agency. 

By the letter of the law you can't even wash your car on your impervious driveway. Actually, that has been verboten for many years now... but who knew? I didn't! 

Don't get the water police angry... you wouldn't like them when they're angry.

You certainly can't wash down your driveways (as if this is still the 1970s), but that also means you can't have your driveway pressure washed if there is going to be any runoff that hits the gutter. 

Those are called "illicit discharges"

Additionally, if you have a pool, you can't drain that without some serious hoop jumping. 

The way I see it, it's another seat belt law/mandatory spay and neuter law/no fireworks law... etc. See the pattern? The law is on the books, but there isn't enforcement. 

I hate those kinds of laws (didn't I already intimate that above?), but that's the kind of crackerjack work we get from unrealistic bureaucrats that are far removed from reality. 

At the same time, if you're producing so much runoff from washing your car, or over watering your lawn, that you can have clothespin regatta races in the gutter all the way down the street... you're doing something wrong. 

That said, the odds that you'll get rung up for washing your car in your driveway are about as remote as the water wasters having gotten a $500 fine during the drought we had. Caveat Emptor.

Could We Have Ignored This?

I asked City Engineer/Public Works Director/Assistant City Manager Dan York what would be the risk of not approving this item.

The answer came back that the city would be out of compliance and we'd be facing fines of $10K per day.

That part picks up at the 1:42:30 mark of the video.

The city will be working on educational material that will be added to the webpage regarding illicit discharges of water in the near future. 

The first three minutes of the video are dead air, please skip ahead.

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To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.
― Albert Camus

Wildomar Rap asks, "What is this 'others' he's talking about?"

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