• 4th of July Parade... The Farm Style

Happy Birthday USA!

Today was a fun morning over at The Farm in Wildomar. They celebrated Uncle Sam's birthday with a parade that wound it's way through the community, something they've been doing since 1977, on a circuit that took about an hour to drive.

There were about half a dozen decked out golf carts, and about a dozen or so cars (including a 1923 Ford) followed by a Station 68 fire truck bring up the rear.

This is basically an event that is closed to those outside of The Farm. We were guests of The Farm resident, and The Farm Facebook Group moderator, Mary Haire. I'm thinking this was her first parade at The Farm since things didn't go quite as planned.

First I just thought we were going to watch the parade. Then I thought we were going to walk in the parade. Soon we found that we were going to have a car in the parade too. 

Good thing our car is just right color of blue for a patriotic parade. ☺

Also in our group was Council Member Bridgette Moore. We actually started the parade on foot, behind the blue Rap-Mobile, and things were pretty good for about 3 mins.

Then we got out of the area with gravel and onto the main roads. Right away we saw George Taylor, long time Wildomar resident out at The Farm, as he was videotaping the parade. He asked if we were going to walk the parade route in a surprised tone.

"Yes" we replied, and went on our way with big smiles. Then we noticed that our ride was about to disappear around the corner, as we'd been left in the dust. Somehow, we thought this was going to be a slower, more traditional parade. Silly us.

Earlier I had done the math in my head. The number of miles divided by the one hour event time and knew the pace was going to be past human capacity... but I ignored that little voice that was trying to communicate with the rest of me.

Luckily, when we got to the first cross street, I saw a flagman about 200 yards up the street. Though the parade had gone a couple of blocks on before turning left, I suggested we go right and see if we couldn't head them off at the pass.

We got there just in time to see the front of the parade. In fact, one of the people in one of the leading cars looked at us in a confused manner and asked, "Aren't you two in the parade?"

We laughed, as we rejoiced, at seeing the Rap-Mobile come around the corner just in time to save us.

What a beautiful sight to see... our Knightess, Grace Morabito, in shining Honda CRV armor.

From there it is was a spectacular time. People were out in front of their houses, on corners, or down at the street's edge as they were waving American flags and exchanged smiles and "Happy 4ths" with us as we drove by.

Dena Piraino was in front of her home, with one of the best shirts I saw out there and waving a flag.

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Some of the cars in the parade were tossing candy out to the watchers.

One of countless groups of people out celebrating Independence Day.

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What a fun event, and afterward they had a big community barbecue, but we headed back home. If you live in The Farm, check out their Facebook page to stay up on the latest news there.

Here's the link.

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America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination, and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand. ― Harry S. Truman

Wildomar Rap isn't affiliated with Wildomar Rapid Transit. Primarily because there is no such thing. 

• Mt. San Jacinto College Update

Carol Toone and Teri Safranek were guest speakers, on behalf of Mt. San Jacinto College, at the recent Wildomar Chamber of Commerce breakfast.

As we all know, Measure AA passed last year which was a bond measure for $295 million to benefit Mt. San Jacinto Community College.

In case you were unaware, there is already a new MSJC campus site in Wildomar, on Clinton Keith, in the works. Take a look at the images below to get a feel for it.

You can see that this areal photo is quite old. I don't see Ronald Reagan Elementary School in it. 

This one is so old that City Hall wasn't built yet, and neither was Stater Bros.
That's how long this has been in the works.

The presentation included a take off on BINGO called FOCUS. It was touting various studies they offer and benefits that come with them.

Most of us know that having a college campus in the area will open many doors for Wildomar and we're eager to see it progress to completion.

When it came time for questions, my hand shot up and I asked:

What are some of the remaining hurdles or obstacles before you guys can put the first shovel in the ground? 

As Teri and Carol were about to answer, Kristen Huyck of Supervisor Kevin Jeffires' office had an answer.

I'm with the county of Riverside, in Supervisor Kevin Jeffries' office, we're working with the college district. From my understanding there is a lawsuit regarding the draft EIR. The college district knew it, as well as the county, so when the property was sold, there was actually money imbedded into the sale, about $300K, knowing that this was going to happen.

It shouldn't hold it up too much, other than just typical litigation... but it is moving forward and with Measure AA going through they have funding too, so it'll [be] coming to fruition very soon.

The city should be seeing some applications for development around that area too... it is moving forward.

George Taylor, long time resident out at The Farm, asked: Is the prognosis good?

To which Huyck replied.

Yes. It's looking pretty positive. It [the litigation] was all anticipated, so it's nothing surprising. 

Hey, it's Wildomar... so if there hadn't been some Ambulance Chaser... or maybe we should upgrade that to K-Rat/Gnat Catcher/Fairy Shrimp Chaser in this case... that would be the surprise.

After the breakfast I asked Huyck what the name of the litigants were, but she didn't have that info. I was given an email at the college for my inquiry, if I get that info, I'll post the update.

In the meantime, isn't it just grand that instead of getting this campus up and running, that MSJC anticipates the litigation process to take up to three years?

Thank you self appointed community activists... it's not like the time and money could be better used elsewhere.

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The sins that you do, two by two... you pay for one by one. —Rudyard Kipling

If Wildomar Rap were to open a gourmet restaurant, I wonder if Gnat Catcher Under Glass would be more popular than the K-Rat Pâté or the Fairy Shrimp in a red wine reduction?

• Walmart Update

Today I attended the Wildomar Chamber of Commerce's monthly breakfast at Denny's. The guest speakers were a team from Walmart and they were giving the latest info on the pending project.

Direct from Walmart's informational handout/flyer.

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The main point man for Walmart was Phil Serghini.

 Phil Serghini, Walmart's public affairs director, showing how big the EIR is for this project.

Here are some of the points I jotted down.

• In RivCo there are 12 Supercenters, with more than 12,000 employees (sorry, I'm not going to call them associates) with an average wage for full time employees of a little over $13 an hour.
  
• The Supercenter in Wildomar is set to be 200,000sf
• A Supercenter is a combination of a discount/general merchandise store and a grocery store. 
• 300 new jobs.
• Next step: planning commission meeting January 21, 2015.
• Once they get a shovel in the ground it takes about 355 days for a Walmart Supercenter to be opened for business.
• About 45 days before they open they will fill it with merchandise.
• 110 jobs on the construction site.
• "We do expect this project to end up in litigation."
• "We're extremely careful in developing the EIR (environmental Impact Report). The EIRs end up being tremendously big and detailed, we do that to protect ourselves from litigation."

Time for a little head scratching and doing some WR style analysis on some of that.

• The last time the topic of Walmart wages came up, late last year sometime, I had heard that they started ALL employees at $13 an hour.... now it's been revised to $13 is the average, and that's for full time employees. Maybe I just had some wax build up in my ears or something... looks like I'd better switch to Pledge.
• 300 new jobs includes those that are already working at the Grape St location in Lake Elsinore. I listened to the recording I made twice and it wasn't clear that there will be 300 additional jobs, or just 300 jobs at that location.
• 110 construction jobs are great, but don't tell me that even 50% are going to come from Wildomar. I've known people in industrial construction and they commonly drive hours to a job... I bet they won't even have 10% of the construction jobs filled by WildoMartinis. I don't have a problem with that reality, just don't tout the 110 as if they were going to be filled by locals.

Charlene So speaking about traffic around the proposed Walmart.

Key points from the traffic discussion:

• Constructing Canyon Dr. (A short street that will be directly south of the project)
• Widening Monte Vista from Bundy Canyon to Canyon Dr.
• Widening Bundy Canyon to 6 lanes from the freeway to Monte Vista.They will be installing 3 signals. One at the project ingress/egress on Bundy Canyon, another at Canyon Drive and one at Bundy Canyon and Monte Vista.

There were three questions of note during the Q&A session.

First up was Kristan Lloyd.

Q: In that time frame do you do the traffic lights prior to the project or after [construction]? As a good neighbor, even putting one light in [ahead of schedule] would be significant to look at.

A: It's really hard to say right now because of the scope of the street widening. If it were just a signal it would be a little easier to schedule. You can't put the signal in until after the road is widened. We'll do it as quickly as possible, but in all likelihood all of the street improvements probably won't be completely finished until about the time we open.

In other words... sorry, but no. The lights won't be up and running until our doors are opened.

George Taylor asked about the time frame and it being about a year to complete. 

Phil Serghini answered this way: 

Assuming that we are approved in the planning commission process, there is someone that sues us (Walmart) regularly, it's like a cottage industry. That person has solicited information from Wildomar, along with other records requests, so we think we're going to be sued here, and once that happens we don't know how long that will take. The plan check process takes six months to a year to get the plans through the city.

Hmmm... sounds like the APEs will have some competition here. Now the real question is, 'which of those old primates will kick off before the ground breaking?' Looks like a ghoul pool is in order.

I wanted to cut through the impending litigious haze, so I asked, "I have a question about litigation time. In Walmart's history, what's the quickest, the fewest number of months, versus what is the longest amount of time between initiation of litigation and it being finalized?"

Matt Nelson, Walmart attorney, stated "It could be anywhere from six months to three years."

Phil Serghini followed up with:
Gresham Savage is the law firm and they've been through this on a lot of different projects. We know where we've slipped up in the past, so we know where in the EIR process to really make sure we do it right. People get frustrated because it takes so long... if it were a different store, and different name than Walmart we probably wouldn't have that problem. With Walmart we cross every t and dot every i.

So if it's between six months and three years, what's your guess? I'm going with 21 months.

Please participate in the informal poll about Walmart.

Click to go to poll

Almost forgot something... for full disclosure I just joined Wildomar's Chamber of Commerce. If that makes me a toady sellout in your eyes, oh well.

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The optimist pleasantly ponders how high his kite will fly; the pessimist woefully wonders how soon his kite will fall. 
—William Arthur Ward 

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• Planning Commission Meeting Aug. 20, 2014

I've been going to city meetings for the past year, and I think I haven't missed a single planning commission meeting in that time... though there have been a couple of regularly scheduled meetings that have been cancelled, including next month's.

Here's what I've taken away from that experience.

I am so glad that I'm not a landowner in this town.

Let's take this little, odd shaped, piece of land where Corydon meets Mission Trail for example. There used to be a rock yard there, I bought a bunch of stepping stones there in the past, but it's been gone for what seems like the better part of three years now.

Plot of land in question.

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From what the developer/owner said —he first wanted to come in with some high density housing, but was told that most likely wouldn't fly here. Funny thing about that, I remember a former Planning Commissioner that said he understood the need for high density, but didn't like that it was all being put into one area of town (presumably the area near Kaiser). Well, this area is at the other end of town and would have made a lot of sense, but the developer opted to heed the planning department and went into another direction.

It's currently zoned CR (commercial retail), and he wanted the zoning changed to add some light industrial. Let's all remember that this part of the process is actually before the proverbial first step. It's NOT a GPA (it's a GPAIP - General Plan Amendment Initiation Proposal (pre-application review). A step that will soon be relegated to the history books, but is still needed today.

The developer came in with retail in the front portion and light industrial in the back. Most of the commission was holding out for only retail on the entire property. If you are familiar with the retail area north of the Baxter off ramp and east of the 15, you may agree with me that having a retail business that is tucked away, out of plain sight for people driving by, can be a death knell.

However, I did enjoy the optimism of long time Wildomar resident, from the farm, George Taylor on the topic. He reminded us how Temecula did not allow Walmart to build on a certain plot of ground years ago... and how later that land was developed into what is now The Promenade.

"You don't know what might happen here, in the future, with commercial real estate"

—George Taylor—

He can't really be comparing the two... is he?

I understand that people like to exaggerate to make a point, but please there should be limits. If you want to say, "I'm hungry enough to eat a horse" we understand that bit of hyperbole. There is no need to accelerate it up to, "I'm hungry enough to eat the entire Budweiser team of Clydesdales."

There is no way to compare a vast open area, that later became a regional mall, to a relatively small piece of land that is simply going nowhere. If we wait, as was suggested, and skip over the current owner's plans, it will not become The Wildomar Promenade... at least I don't think it will be.

The developer was speaking of possibly having automotive related retail in the front of the property. Things like custom tires or car stereos. Items that come with high prices, hence are good sales tax generators. Certainly as good as the "dress shop" I heard tossed out as an alternative.

The thing that got to me, and Commissioner Bobby Swann touched on it a bit, is the reverence that seems to be paid to a document that was put together before we were a city; by only a handful of locals.  I hear it took almost three years, and I bet it was a ton of work, but it was put together in another time —before our economy went  >>poof<< . Sorry, but there is no document that is above being revised as time marches on.

Even our own US Constitution has been revised dozens of times. If that hallowed document can be amended, so can our General Plan.

Still, that isn't the best part. Am I the only one listening at these meetings?

This General Plan Amendment Initiation Proposal (pre-application review) request on the part of the applicant will NOT be an approval of anything. It simply allows him to start the process, and if his plans don't fit within the desires of Wildomar, he'll be told NO —then.

Once our official General Plan kicks in, which is sooner than later, this 'pre' first step will be eliminated in the GPA process. This part of the process is what is called a formality. Meaning: rubber stamp it, and let him be told 'NO' later if his ideas don't work in our city.

In this cartoon, Peach is playing the part of Wildomar and Mario is the developer.

Asking the applicant about the specifics at this point is like asking your spouse if he/she wants sour cream and chives on their baked potato... six months from now. Let's deal with today first.

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There was also another GPAIP by someone wanting to build 48 homes on 15 acres off of Baxter.

Click to see the full info at the city's website.

I'm not sure if that's good fit or not, but still what was all the wrangling about at this juncture? This was another one of those formalities that should have been kicked upstairs to the city council to deal with. This was not the time to ask the applicant anything. When at a restaurant we don't give our food order to the hostess. Time and place my friends.

Lastly, there seems to be some romantic notion among many that we are "rural" and they want only to see The Ponderosa on one side of the street, South Fork on the other.

Pa better keep this a secret, Hoss and Little Joe ain't gonna like it one bit.

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Sorry, but in the words of SE Hinton, that was then, this is now.

Take a realistic view of our city —Google Maps is great for that— and you'll see that it is not some rural place with swaths of pristine open land. Click the link and you'll get an aerial view of our city. It's already been built and we can only be considered "rural" when compared to metropolitan areas like LA, or other major media markets.

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Click This Now!

Wildomar Rap has never attempted to eat a horse, much less a Clydesdale, though I hear they are rather tasty.

• Planning Commission Highlights: Now There Are Five

A couple of things I took away from tonight's planning commission meeting.

First, we have five of five seats filled for the commission again. Council Member Bob Cashman's pick of Dan Bidwell was sworn in.

General business 3.1 Bundy Canyon 38 GPA Initiation Request

According to Planner Matt Bassi, we may be seeing the last of the GPAs (General Plan Amendment) once we get our General Plan done.

Here's a quick run down of how I interpret a GPA.

It's a request by a developer/land owner to change the zoning for a certain area. From what I've gathered, if we were a more established city, that had a General Plan in place, such amendments wouldn't be part of the process. So, in essence, such a request for a GPA at this stage, amounts to nothing more than saying, "sure, make your preliminary plans and get back to us."

All it does is give them the ok to start coming up with details and concepts for a project. 

By the Planning Commission "recommending" that the council ok the GPA, it only allows the developer to start with studies and other preliminary work. Unless the developer was suggesting building a combo Sriracha Sauce/Pampers Recycling plant on the playground of one our elementary schools, I'd always vote yes for a GPA.

It's their money (for the studies, et al), and if they want to try and float a lemon of a project on the planning commission, they can be told "no" then. In the meantime, this is still the USA and landowners have rights that need to be respected.

Public speakers on the matter were Gail and George Taylor. Both made fair points about the potential impacts of the project. Which was said to be between 275 and 300 units, on 36 acres on the north side of Bundy Canyon just west of Tulip Lane. We all know that Bundy Canyon is a nightmare in waiting, it's already pretty challenging as it is. Just wait until the Walmart goes in there... Still, I think George may have exaggerated a wee bit when he labeled Wildomar as the High Density [housing] Capital of the World.



Let's face it, this city is in desperate need of apartments and condos, and I don't mean those overpriced ones that are just now opening behind Albertson's off of Clinton Keith Road.
The younger generation is in need of quality housing, that people just starting out can afford.

Those are called apartments... something that is in short supply here. Still, I don't see how "clustering" up to 300 units (still not determined whether rentals or for ownership) would work on that property, especially before Bundy Canyon is improved.

Standard math here tells us that 36 acres divided by 300 units is about 8.3 units per acre... but like the gentleman said, they weren't going to be disturbing the hill in front, and they were going to "cluster" the units in the center.

I've been to this site, it is rather hilly and seems like quite an undertaking. So, they aren't using all 36 acres to build. It seems that they couldn't really even use half of it for building. That means to get the number of units they have in mind, they'd have to double it to about 16 units per acre. I don't know that that is bad, but it sure is a far cry from what's already zoned there, and that's before the traffic considerations.

I still subscribe to the grassy knoll theory when it comes to building in Wildomar. Meaning, that builders/developers know all too well about the sue happy clicque here, and are smart to suggest something that is off the charts and would never be approved. Then they can come back at a later date, with a more modest proposal, something that they had in mind the whole time (wink,wink), and now everyone is happy because the project is more "reasonable".

The vote was 4-1 in favor of recommending that the council approve the GPA (Commissioner Langworthy voting no, though both Commissioners Gary Brown and Dan Bidwell later said they weren't too keen on such a project as this).

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The balance of the meeting, was finishing up the General Plan Update from the meeting before. It lasted until past 9:30pm. Ouch! It was interesting, but mind numbing at the same time (no offense, nothing personal). 

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