• Better Know a Candidate: Barbara Hale

We're nearing the primary election, June 7th, and I asked Barbara Hale, who is running for County Board of Education, if I could ask her a couple of questions about it. She was happy to oblige and below are the questions and answers.

 WR:  What seat are you running for?
 BH:  The Riverside County Board of Education. It represents all education in Riverside County and there are seven trustee areas. Temecula, Murrieta and most of Lake Elsinore are in trustee area number seven —I'm running for that seat.

 WR:  What 's the job description for that position, and how does that differ from a local school board?
 BH:  The local school board handles the district that it's in, policies, approving budgets, personnel reports those kinds of things. The county board [deals] with county wide policies, overseeing and approving the superintendent's budget for the county programs and things like that.

 WR:  What motivated you to consider running for elected office?
 BH:  I've been going to the county board meetings, I've missed very few, for five years now, and just the back and forth between the board and the staff, the absence of the superintendent, the tone and attitude towards the teachers and parents that do show up, those kinds of things —I think that they need a different perspective now.

I think that they need somebody that's actually in a school, in the classroom, that's working with teachers, working with parents on a daily basis.

No offense to the people that are there, I'm sure they're doing the best they can with the information that they have, but I don't think that they have current, up to date information. 

Especially this area (SWRivCo). In this area, parents want choice, but the county doesn't really support that. I want to make sure that it's there for them.

 WR:  What makes you qualified for the job?
 BH:  I have background experience in education —twenty years, as a teacher, as a parent, as a principal, and the fact that I've been attending those meetings (County Board of Education) so I'm very familiar with what they're doing. I've even gone to their workshops.

Being an advocate for students and parents, I think that's what qualifies me. I was a business owner prior, so the fiscal part of it —I think that I'm qualified there too. 

At this point I interjected.

"I like how your answer went, because you're not just blowing your own horn, but I saw you get a school together in a short period of time." (Speaking of the new campus for Sycamore Academy)

With a smile she responded, "Yeah, I'm not a politician, I'm doing my job. My job was to get that school done and I'm going to do my job."

Barbara Hale is 6th from the left at the ground breaking ceremony in Spring 2015.

Barbara Hale addressing the crowd at the Sycamore Academy's ribbon cutting ceremony, Autumn 2015.

 WR:  If elected, what would be your top priorities?
 BH:  The first thing we have to do is help the rest of the board understand their role. I think that they don't understand that they do have the authority to set policy. Which changes the tone of the county office, which changes the tone in all the districts.   

 WR:  I'm assuming that you'll be accessible to the public once in office.
 BH:  Here's where I can toot my own horn. That is something that I complained about to the board. There was no way to contact them, except through through the county office secretary, and if you didn't know how it worked, you didn't know that. I used my five minutes (public speaking time) at several meetings in a row [about this issue]. They're now accessible on the county website with email addresses.

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The job isn't a full time position, sort of like a city council member. All the work and a small stipend for the trouble. If elected, she'll still keep her role as principal at Sycamore Academy.

It's worthy of mentioning that the location of the CBoE meetings she's been attending are in downtown Riverside and at 9:00am on Wednesdays. Her commute starts in Winchester, yet she has made nearly every meeting over the last five years just as a member of the public. Something neither of her opponents in this election can say. In fact, the other two haven't been to a single meeting. Not even after announcing their candidacies.

For more information visit her website and facebook page. Links are below.

Facebook Page

Campaign Website

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Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor vexation.

— Francis of Assisi

Wildomar Rap is an admitted and proud genwunner. Be real, how many Pokémon does the world need after all?

• Sycamore Academy Ribbon Cutting

A terrific accomplishment by all that were involved in the construction of Sycamore Academy. On April 9th I wrote a blog about the ground breaking, and now on October 16th they're having a ribbon cutting. If that isn't impressive enough for you, they've actually been having classes for nearly a month now.

A look from behind Barbara Hale as she was addressing the crowd.

Director/Principal of the school Barbara Hale, spoke and received certificates from State Senator Jeff Stone's office and Mayor Pro-Tem Bridgette Moore gave a certificate on behalf of the city.

It takes a team effort to build a school. This was far beyond a team effort, this was a band of heroes, our own Fantastic Four. The leader of that Fantastic Four is the lady by my side, Barbara Hale. Without her "never say die attitude," without her relentless engergy, without her passion, we would not be here at this point; and we really need to acknoledge that. I've been at this for thirty years and I've never had a client that was this adamant, this professional, and this energetic to get this done... and we're blown away. We've never had a school go [up] this quickly.

-Tom Kruse, PJHM Archetects

Grant Hamel, of Hamel Construction, holds up a gift from the school showing a before and
after of the project entitled "From Dirt to School in Five Months." Barbara Hale is on the left.

Just in case it isn't already known. Sycamore is a public charter school, not a private school. Any student in the district can apply to attend.

Bob Cashman, Bridgette Moore,  Roland "Skoom" Skoomavitz (w/scissors), Grant Hamel, Tom Kruse, Clyde Han.

This is truly a terrific campus. It's so nice looking it almost hurts your eyes. Someday the current students will tell stories to their grand kids, of how they used to attend school in a shopping center, and then found themselves on a Cinderella like campus the next school year.

A look from behind the guests during the ceremony.

Looking down at the new playground equipment from the ballfield.

A look at the facade of the school.

Rooms are separated by"barndoors" that are on tracks for easy opening and closing. 

Below is a picture of their walking track and sports field. The track is about as wide as a sidewalk and snakes around in a loop that is at least a quarter of a mile.

Isn't that a great view that the students will have once the field is ready for use?

My brother Jeff is part of the team at Sycamore Academy and he was showing me his office. That building was just cleared for them to use today.

I'm the one with the awesome forehead and a number on my shirt.
Jeff and Joseph Morabito.

He hadn't even been in the multi-purpose room (seen behind the ribbon cutting) until today nor has he been up to the field yet. It's still fenced off, and as you can see. It doesn't have any turf yet, but such things are to be expected when getting a new school ready for students in record time. Things like administration offices are a luxury... but now they're up and running.

After the ribbon cutting it was fun to share some of Sycamore's spread, various antipasto trays with many varieties along with fresh fruit and cookies too, with my brother along with Bob Cashman and Bridgette Moore. Also at our table was Mark Dennis, Coordinator of Community & Media Relations of the superintendent's office.

I was enjoying the conversation about a project that our City Councilman Bob Cashman is working on, dealing with a plane that may have belonged to Amelia Earhart.

A link to the blog about the ground breaking from April 9th.

Click logo to visit their facebook page

Here is a link to their website if you want to learn more about Sycamore Academy. 

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"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." ― Carl Sagan 

Wildomar Rap agrees that the only thing better than a tray of antipasto, is a second and third tray of antipasto.

• Sycamore Academy Groundbreaking

A beautiful morning for a groundbreaking

In total there were a little more than 30 people at the groundbreaking for Sycamore Academy's new campus. Among the people in attendance were the Mayor of Wildomar Ben Benoit, City Manager Gary Nordquist, City Planning Director Matt Bassi, Planning Commissioner Bobby Swann and City Clerk Debbie Lee.

Rounding out the A-Listers were the builder, the architect and keystone of it all, Barbara Hale - Director/Principal, who gave a brief speech before the ceremonial first shovel of dirt. Though the project had actually been started on Monday of this week.

Mayor Benoit speaking to the assembled gathering while Barbara Hale watches from off to his left (our right).

In this pic you see City Manager third from the left, and the City Planning Director is to the right of him.

Barbara Hale is 6th from the left (no hardhat) and the builder is 3rd from the right. (those are all that I can identify). 

Now the race is on. The goal is to have this school ready for this Fall's school year. It's going to be tight, but Hamel Construction has experience with building schools in the area and they are primed for the challenge of getting this project completed in the small window between now and September.

I had a chance to ask Grant Hamel of Hamel Construction a couple of questions about the time frame

It's going to be a fast pace. So hopefully things go well and we don't run into too many obstacles and we're going to give it our best shot.

When do you anticipate that you'll be putting the foundation in?

The foundation is about 30-45 days from now. We have to get water and sewer onsite; a lot of infrastructure. That's the thing, there is so much that goes underground that isn't seen. Once we get through that you start to see change everyday, but for now it's just moving dirt and digging holes.

This deep pit isn't for any olympic sized swimming pools... just getting the grading right.

Stay tuned for periodic updates as to the progress of this project.

Oh, and a hearty thank you for the refreshments. That was the first time I'd had coffee from a box... and it was delicious. After three cups I'm pretty much fueled up for the rest of the day too. ☺

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As we all know, it's easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent, like thinking. And it's also easier to do little things we know we can do than to start on big things that we're not so sure about. — John Cleese

Here is a Wildomar Rap tip of the day... remember to get your free cup of coffee every time you go into the bank. That is if your bank is Chase located in the Stater Bros center. 

• Planning Commission Meeting: Sycamore Academy

A couple of things on tonight's agenda worth noting.

The long plagued Oak Creek Canyon project was hit with another last minute document dump. So the issue will be continued until April 1st, 2015.

Gary Andre spoke and wanted it known that he has "no problems" with the project, but... He went on to speak for 9 mins, with donated time, discussing the problems just the same. He was concerned about soils tests and repeated more than once that it "wasn't Bill Lo's problem... How do you build homes next to a sewage treatment plant? You wouldn't want to build homes on top of sewage and people getting sick."

Good points Gary. When did you first realize this was potentially the case? I'm guessing that you had your documents ready long before the day of the Planning Commission meeting... right?

So what was the point of doing another last minute Document Dump... other than that's the only card you people seem to have in your hand?

I liked how Chairman Veronica Langworthy worded it: As a commission, we'd appreciate a more timely opportunity to read the information, so if you can get it to us a little sooner, that would be lovely.

To which Andre said, "No Problem".

To which I whispered to my lovely wife, "Yeah right."

Item 2.2 Sycamore Academy

A room full of Scorpions! (It's the name of Sycamore Academy's mascot, and you can see it on the green jerseys.)

The school project was hit by it's own 275 page document dump, around 4:00pm, by Wildomar's own self proclaimed activist, Martha Bridges and pals. The comments were not provided during the 30 day public review period. The actual letter was 2 pages, with 273 pages of exhibits.

Mark Teague spoke about the letter.

Two main points. The first was about liquefaction and the second about fault lines. "We feel that the information here [in the letter] doesn't raise any new environmental issue, or does it cause any problem with the project."

There was then a presentation by the school principal Barbara Hale, about their school's program and mission statement, followed by a detailed powerpoint, by the architect, for the new project.

Artist rendering of what the future campus will look like from it's northernmost point on Palomar.

Aerial view of the campus. To the left, you see the edge of the grassy field area that will provide a play area.

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A couple of interesting things I heard were that the school has a No Walk To School policy, and No Ride Your Bike either. I get that at its current location next to Baron's Market, but once it's at a real campus, I don't get it. I guess it's that I'm an old fashioned parent that's out of touch, because I had my kids ride their bikes, or walk, once they were old enough. My kids only got rides to school when it was actually raining.

The other thing that caught my attention was that the rules of a charter school are different than that of a typical public school. Sycamore Academy is attached to Ronald Reagan School and part of the District and open to all students without charge, but there are a ton of things that don't apply to them, that do apply to other schools such as the speed limit when children are present.

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CORRECTION

Sycamore is not "attached" to Ronald Reagan Elementary.

Though, according to the internet, it's full name is:

Ronald Reagan Charter School Alliance,Sycamore Academy Of Science and Cultural Arts 

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It's not an automatic thing that the speed limits will be reduced. 

I have two thoughts on that one. First, the city council needs to take the necessary steps to have the speeds lowered while kids are present. Second, since kids won't be allowed to walk or ride bikes, it seems that they won't be "present" and so maybe lowering the speed isn't necessary. I'll leave that to the city engineer to hash out with the council members. ☺

There were two public comments of note. First was George Taylor, and he made several strong points in support of the project.

• Win-Win for both the city and Sycamore Academy.
• The school gets a place out in "the country", where it's quiet.
• The city gets ready made office space, without having to go through the building process.
• As far as the seismic thing is concerned, we are at the tail end of a fault, and maybe we should all pack up and leave tomorrow morning. (I read that as a forearm shiver to those that would bring such a silly thing up in these here parts.)

Everyone loves Debbie Downer!

Next up was Kenny Mayes, and probably due to the applause that George got for his comments, Kenny started off by declaring himself as Debbie Downer as he proceeded to say that the school has no business being built on Palomar Street.

Watch the video to see it in real time, along with some well placed sound effects.   Principal Hale comes back to rebut a comment about the property line "being manipulated to be shoehorned into a parcel" to avoid environmental factors. 

There were two speakers from the school, Hillary Martinez and 6th grader Taylor Bedley. There were also 101 comment slips filled out in favor of the project.

Taylor Bedley speaks in front of a full house as the Planning Commissioners give him their full attention.

What an exciting campus they have in mind. If I had kids that were the right age, I'd be looking to get them into this school.

This is a bundle of 400 letters from the students.
This looks to be a future heirloom that the school will want to get back I'm sure.
There was also a giant banner that they didn't get a chance to unfurl.

The vote went 4-0 to approve. The only potential hitch is whether the Last Minute 275 page Letter Writers want to pay the $964 filing fee for the privilege of further trying to hold up this project with an appeal. They have ten days. Which means they'll wait until 9 days and 23 hours have passed before dumping more documents.

Let's hope not, though I told one city staffer that "I'm going to mortgage my house and head to vegas, putting it all down on the Bridge-Burner to do what she always does..."

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Last on the agenda was Westpark Promenade. It's still in the early stages, but it is another half commercial—half housing project. This has been discussed in the past, but has been revised a bit. This project is off of Clinton Keith Rd behind the USA gas station and abuts the I-15. 

In short, it includes 191 Townhomes, about 100,000sf of retail with two 8,000sf restaurants. It has a large anchor store and though a clothing or grocery store was mentioned, there are no commitments at this point. 

Commissioner Bobby Swann said, "You used the G word, and I think the worst thing we could do is put a grocery store there. I can't control what you do, but we're putting a Walmart one off ramp up, it's a Super Walmart, it's in essence a grocery store, and the existing grocery stores are going to have a [fiscal] problem with that."

Come on Bobby, we don't have a Ralphs, Vons, Pavilions or Gelson's yet... but I sure could go for a Winco myself.

There was a lot of wrangling about enough parking spaces for the condos, errr... I mean, Townhomes.

Had to love Langworthy's invocation of Little House on the Prairie again. Where you live above your own general store. Not sure how real that is in a wide open place like Wildomar, but it's good to have dreams.

The problem I see with this project is that the people that live off of Depasquale have an advanced case of the NIMBYs. They don't want ingress and egress going in and out of their neighborhood. 

Commissioner Stan Smith said it best on the topic, "That's what happens, you do a development, then the adjacent property gets developed. Then the residents that moved into the first development say 'Oh no, we don't want anything happening over here next to us.' So if you don't plan for it in advance you end up with this impact where you don't get adequate flow."

This project is still in the early phases, and there won't be much movement on it for months. Be sure to stay tuned.

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The best of men cannot control their fate,
The good die early, the bad die late.
— Daniel Defoe

The editor of Wildomar Rap can prep a mean Shepherd's Pie in under 30 mins, and the photographer enjoys it very much!