• City Council Meeting May 2025

 It was a very long meeting with some very interesting items. 

The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Troop 332.

The first order of business after the Pledge of Allegiance was to adopt a resolution appointing Chris Mann as the interim city manager for six months with a yearly compensation of $250,000 plus the standard benefits any city employee would get. It passed 5-0. 

Interim Wildomar City Manager Chris Mann

Wildomar Rap opinion time

One of the two big news stories coming out of Wildomar this year was the Black Series Trailers debacle, which had a great ending from our perspective; the other was the separation with the previous city manager.

I wrote as much as I could regarding the city manager matter in earlier blogs. A lot had to go unsaid due to the rules around closed session meetings.

In an action at the April 29th special city council meeting, I was a no vote for Chris Mann as reported by the City Attorney. On May 14th, I was part of the unanimous decision to bring him aboard.

Why the change?

It was never about Chris's abilities or his integrity. He's well-respected in the region. I have high confidence that he's capable of doing a great job. 

Yes, I read the blogs from Yucaipa. 

(this is where it gets dicey)

My reading of the matter is that Yucaipa's city council has been contentious for a while (how long? I don't know), and when the voting majority changed in the 2022 election, they made a change in their city manager: Hello Chris.

When the majority changed again in 2024, they made another knee-jerk reaction: Goodbye, Chris. 

If you want to read about it, do a quick internet search.

For a long time, I’ve likened Wildomar to a small-market team in the world of sports.

The way I see it, we can't reasonably compete with the likes of Temecula, Murrieta, Corona, Riverside, etc. We can't pursue the big-time free agents. Our budget simply isn't like the others.

My assessment was that 'Chris is out of our league'. I'm happy to have him here, like who wouldn't want Shohei Ohtani... ok, that might be too much... let's use Bobby Witt Jr. as an example instead (an all-star level player that would be highly sought by big market teams). 

I'm satisfied with the interim contract, even at $250K per. 

Assuming all the dominoes fall in the right order, when it comes time for a permanent city manager contract, that may put me back to my original vote, irrespective of how well he's hitting in the cleanup spot. 

That's a long way off, but I needed to weigh in now.

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A word about how much a city manager in 2025 makes

I've read countless comments of disbelief regarding how much a city manager makes. I agree that they often make an unbelievable amount of money. 

Research what some of the local salaries are reported to be. 

Most are over $300K, and that's before an embarrassment of additional perks. Things like deferred comp, car allowance, tech allowance, the best insurance conceivable, a ton of days off, and more.

I don't know how things were allowed to get so far out of hand, but that can be said of countless other things in California, too. Go ask ChatGPT and you'll be stunned to see what they make all over the country. 

Last on this topic

In a City of Wildomar Press Release from April 29th, it was reported that a separation agreement with the former city manager had been reached, which included a severance of $44,000. 

That's two months, folks.

Is that a lot? 

Two months is not a lot when the rest of the contract has about nine months on it. 

1.18 Marna O'Brien Park Rubberized Play Surface

This has been a long time coming. The nonprofit Wildomar Parks & Community, headed by Bridgette Moore, secured a sizable grant from the county to pay for this upgrade. 

It's anticipated to be installed before the end of the fiscal year, before July  1st.

3.1 Biennial Budget Workshop - Public Safety Budgets 

These three items, not currently in the budget, were discussed.

There was a lot of information, and I'll leave a link here so that you can access the slide presentation to get a better sense of it. 

link to 39 slide presentation

With #1, I didn't get enough information to be swayed. Also, I'm not a fan of increasing regulations on business. Is there an issue with businesses catching fire in Wildomar, or do we have a solution that's looking for a problem? 

Item #2, the cost of the proposed second motor officer is nearly half a million dollars. That would have to come from somewhere. It was said that it would likely come out of the fund we use for road improvements. 

#3, I'm all in favor of a stronger code enforcement team. I just don't know that this is the best path to achieving it. I'm looking forward to round two when this comes back in June.

Though our city has more revenue now than before I was elected to the city council in 2018, we are still a small budget city, and we can't have everything. We have to make tough decisions.

In the end, we opted to wait until the next meeting to allow ICM Chris Mann the chance to go over the item thoroughly and participate more fully in the process. 

3.2 Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation

As it happened, the very next item on the agenda was regarding our roads. 

"Roads" came back as a number one concern from residents in a recent survey (which is the usual top concern). 

I suggested getting Monte Vista south of the construction area, the areas near Tres Lagos (Catt and Arnett), and Hidden Springs onto the list, too.

Again, keeping in mind how tiny our budgets are for all matters, including roads, we have to take a frugal approach to where the road dollars go. 

If an area with poor streets is currently in the planning department pipeline (albeit slower than molasses in winter), the city will spend its road dollars in other areas. 

3.3 Ordinance to Designate the City of Wildomar Fire Hazard Severity Zones and Adopt the Map of These Areas

Red is very high, Orange is High, and Yellow is moderate.

This map is a joke. My house is in the yellow, one neighbor's is in the orange, and still others are in the gray. 

From the agenda

DISCUSSION: The law does not allow for a local jurisdiction to request changes or provide comments to the State Fire Marshal on the FHSZ designations.

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Knowing the above, I wasn't interested in discussing another bit of nonsense pushed out by the state that MUST be adopted.  

Once the presenter was finished, I verified that we had no choices, then moved for approval, saying, "Thank you, Sacramento."

SOAP BOX MINUTE

Please give me an example of life in California getting better when Sacramento passes laws in the last couple of generations.

The more they help, the more difficult life seems to get for the working families.

That's really all I have time to go over for this meeting, but I do suggest that you use this link and check out the video of the meeting. The new format is great. You can click an item, and you'll be brought to that portion of the video. If you've never tried it out before, give it a whirl. 

https://cityofwildomar.granicus.com/player/clip/1215?view_id=1&redirect=true