• City Council Meeting June 2025

   TOP NEWS FROM THE MEETING

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• Wildomar City Hall Goes Back to Five Days a Week
• Water Rates to Go Up By an Average of $15 Per Family of Four in July
• 20 Acre Park Update
• 2nd Motor Officer Added ($456K First Year Costs)

It was a great meeting. I encourage you to cue up the video (link will be at the bottom of the blog) and listen to it as it happened, but I'll give you a brief overview of the most noteworthy items in the half hour I have to put this blog together.

The biggest news of the night was delivered at the end, and was a surprise to at least two of the council members: City Hall will go back to five days a week from 7:30am to 6pm. 

That was something the council has been working towards since I got onto council in 2018. There were several things that kept it from happening over the years, but the final impediment was removed in April, and in less than two months, the will of the people was finally heeded. 

Thank you to Mayor Ashlee DePhillippo for being the final push getting this nailed down... kudos to you!

Water Rates Going Up

We knew this was coming. The State has a pie-in-the-sky approach to governing as they're trying to legislate perfection. 

tHaNk yOu, sAcRamENto, yoU'rE alWaYs lOokINg oUt foR Us. 

They are trying to regulate something known as PFAS in drinking water, which, if we're honest about it, is a veritable impossibility to illiminate no matter how desperately would like to. 

But what isn't impossible is to create regulations that make the precious resource more difficult for average people to afford. 

link to EVMWD's explanations for the rate hike

New Park Update

For those who don't know, the city bought about twenty acres of land from the lovely ladies who run Anne Sullivan Preschool about two years ago. It's directly to the east of the school, and continues southward down Palomar a bit.

They've been using it as a natural park to walk through, and they wanted the city to take it over and continue the "natural park" feel, instead of the other option: selling to a developer and building more houses.

There will be parking off Palomar, and the projected opening is less than a year away. There are no specifics this far out, but the city is contractually obligated to have it opened to the public by June of 2026. 

It'll look mostly like it does today. If there are ever further upgrades, that's years into the future, and many millions of dollars away.

Before it opens, we'll be giving it a proper name... be part of the process. 

2nd Motor Officer Approved

I was on record saying that I'd rather have more patrol time, or even more code enforcement, than a second motor officer at the cost of half a million dollars per year. We can't have everything.

Contrary to the well-meaning but misguided views of my learned council colleague Carlos Marquez, we will always be a small market team. 

I never said we were a minor league [team], but a small market [team]. 

Let's jump headlong into the baseball analogy... in this case, we're the Kansas City Royals. 

Kansas City isn't a minor league team like Lake Elsinore Storm, it simply doesn't have the capacity to compete with New York or Los Angeles, just as Wildomar doesn't have the capacity to compete with Temecula or Riverside. 

Their budgets dwarf ours, just as the Dodgers' ability to endlessly shell out greenbacks reminds the Royals who they are.

Sure, some people love sloganeering; it feels good, but I've never been much of a rah-rah guy boosting unrealistic things.

Let's not lose sight of who we are.

Plenty of small-market teams have won the World Series, and Wildomar can achieve excellence while not forgetting who we are. 

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Last, but not least, (actually, this happened at the beginning of the meeting), Wildomar honored its first Employee of the Year, Dustin Wyatt.

Homegrown Dustin Wyatt of the public works team gets Wildomar's first employee of the year award. Back row is Councilmembers Dustin Nigg, Carlos Marquez, Bridgette Moore and Joseph Morabito. Mayor Ashlee is standing to Dustin Wyatt's right in the front of the dais.

 

link to the video

• EVMWD Rate News

Drought Surcharges Could Come Off Starting June 1, 2016

The EVMWD board will consider removing surcharges at the next board meeting June 9th, 4pm.

Last week I heard some rumblings regarding the drought surcharges that we've been paying since last year, about to be removed from our bills. 

So I asked the elected water official in my area, George Cambero, about it. He asked if I'd like to sit in on their next meeting where it was going to be discussed. 

The meeting lasted about 90 mins, and after it was over I asked Director of Legislative and Community Affair, Greg Morrison, to answer some questions about some of the things I heard.

 WR  Can you give me some background on why the drought surcharge was necessary in the first place?

 GM  If the board approves staff's recommendation next Thursday, June 9th, surcharges will be removed. The reason for the surcharges was to recover revenue lost because of less water use. We have a twenty-five year plan. We were going down that twenty-five year plan/road and the governor said, "No, you're going to take a hard right turn and reduce your use."

 WR  Why would that matter to the average rate paying Wildomartini?

 GM  We have issued dept, we have built projects,  et cetera, that have payments on them, based on a certain amount of revenues. When the governor said, in essence, you're going to reduce that by 25%, in our case 28%, as far as water use is concerned, we needed to maintain that revenue stream. The surcharge was to help maintain that. 

 WR  What does the removal of the drought surcharge mean, and NOT mean, to rate payers?

 GM  The drought surcharge was applied to every tier. Even our customers that are staying within their water budget; tier one and two. They were still getting penalized with that surcharge. That's being removed. It's a literal monetary savings.

 WR  How about the "What does it NOT mean?" part?

 GM  That was my point [during the board meeting], we're loosening the belt, so you can go back to some semblance of normal, but don't go hog wild. You shouldn't ever water down your driveway, you should always wash your car with an automatic shutoff [nozzle]. It's basic common sense. 

 WR  When does this go into effect?

 GM  Once the board votes on it, it'll be in effect June 1st. Customers won't see it until July 1st on their bill.

 WR  How about Drought Penalties?

 GM  Those are on people that still waste water above their water budget.  We have four tiers. One and two are your water budget, three and four are those that go outside their water budget.  

There still is a drought emergency declared by the governor, we have the ability to assign an additional dollar amount on top of that for tiers three and four.

 WR  When might the drought stage 3a drop?

 GM  (after a bit of hesitation) I'd need a crystal ball for that one. The governor said, "The drought has waned," but he also said, "the drought's not over," and Southern California did not get the rain that Northern California did. That's why he (Gov Brown) was very cautious in his announcement.

There are still restrictions on water use, just not as severe and now without the drought surcharges. Be looking for more information in your next bill.

A bit of welcomed news for homeowners in the Woodmoor area 

 WR  During the meeting, the Wildomar area called Woodmoor was mentioned, can you tell me about it?

 GM  It's a CFD and we had the ability to refinance it at a lower interest rate. Each property owner will see that savings on their property tax bill.

At this point Bob Hartwig, Assistant General Manager of Administrative Services, got the precise figures for me.

A savings of $388 per year per parcel.

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Don't blame the mirror if you don't like the look on your face.

— Nikolai Gogol, 1809-1852

Wildomar Rap has been CFD free since its inception.

• Water Restriction Time: Stage II

I'm guessing that we all got one of these in the mail.

Click the image to enlarge it (or do that finger spreading thing if you have a smart phone).

The question is, did any of us read it?

Complaining about the local utilities is as American as apple pie, and for good reason. There is a long track record of shell game antics when it comes to those that provide basic necessities to us. We all remember ENRON and as for water, just google DWP Slush Fund and read about the ruckus that's been roiling LA for months not to mention the local LEAPS project that seemed more like a three stooges scheme than an environmentally sound idea.

Curly: We'll pump water up a hill at night, then send it downhill in the daytime.

Voila, we'll be millionaires!       Moe: Why you imbecile, I oughta brain you!

Thing is, this isn't about that end of things. It's about how much water we have here versus how many people we have wanting to use water here. California is a desert and we've never gotten much rain even in the "normal" years. However, we've basically doubled our population since the time I was in grade school, so something's gotta give.

I've always quibbled with the overuse of the term "drought"... unless we were actually in one, which California has been for some time now. Still, I remember times when we were coming out of a good rainy season, and people saying, "That doesn't mean the drought is over." Ummm, yes it did.

The thing I've never quibbled about is that we are in a constant state of having a water shortage. Unless historic weather patterns change, and we start getting rain like they do in the Pacific Northwest, we will have water shortage conditions as long as California exists with its ever-burgeoning population. So that makes it incumbent upon the residents to use the resource wisely.

If you look at the postcard from EVMWD you'll see things that are reasonable. Do you really need to bathe your driveway or sidewalks?

There is a water wise landscape workshop Saturday, September 13^th from 9am-12noon at EVMWD.

EVMWD also has a page with tips on how to save water indoors.

Speaking of saving water indoors... a couple of years ago EVWMD had a program that we took them up on. It was a toilet exchange deal.

My free toilet can beat up your toilet everyday of the week!

I'm sure we all love toilet talk [ewww] but seriously... the two we got from them have been great. Check that, one of the two failed after nearly a year and they replaced it right away. For all the jokes about having to flush 5 times when you have a lo-flow toilet, that simply hasn't been the case. It's one-and-done around here!

Oh, and one other thing about the model they installed (the Stealth). They are the taller type, and after being perched on high for the last couple of years, I giggle when I visit people that still use the short kiddie level toilets... but to each his own. ☺


Anyway, we have more people in this state than we have water, and for all the chest thumping some people like to do... that's what we Americans love to do whenever we get a chance, no matter what the topic is, but I digress... water is something we can't do without, and a laissez-faire attitude isn't going to cut it. I'm not so sure that I'm in favor of the fines that have been proposed. $500 for over watering is what has gotten people's attention.

According to EVWMD, this is a double no-no since the watering is after 6:00AM and the sidewalks are wet.

Quote from the USA TODAY:
Though Gov. Jerry Brown had urged a voluntary 20% reduction in water use, figures released last month indicated a drop of only 5% statewide for the year. But the State Water Resources Control Board on Tuesday updated the monthly survey from water districts to show that consumption had increased 1% in May compared with a year ago.

Well, Yeah... we have more people, so even if individuals find a way to use less water, we should expect that overall use will go up.

When we moved into Wildomar back in 2001, we had a ton of grass. Being on a corner, it wrapped all the way around the house. We first removed the side yard grass, then the front yard grass and now we are reduced to a patch in the backyard that is about 12x30. [The dogs have to have something to try and turn yellow, plus it only takes me about three and a half minutes to mow.]

Most of my neighbors still have full grass front yards. 

We enjoy the park-like views from our front windows... just glad the water bill isn't being sent to our address.

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As much as I'm a code enforcement type of guy, I'm not ready for any neighborhood water watch committees. People are paying for the water they use, and the billing is tiered. The more they use/waste, the steeper the bill. That seems like punishment enough at this point in time. Thing is, many people are stubborn folk and they ain't gonna let the gubment tell them how to live. So I'm thinking that voluntary restrictions will be short lived if we have another dry year.


Below is one of my favorite pictures. It was taken during the day we had heavy rains back at the end of February. I'm thinking that this person doesn't read his/her water bill very closely.

♪ Sprinklers in the rain... (sing it as Gene Kelly would).

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follow the link

Wildomar Rap has a facebook page. If you want to keep up on the latest blogs, go over and like the page and I'll quaff a glass of ice water in your honor.

• Buckle Up Now, Smells Like A Rate Increase Is On The Way

As the tryptophan ebbs from my body, on this glorious Black Friday,

I'm reading the latest from EVMWD. 

Click here to read EVMWD's latest flyer

I'll let you read it for yourself,

but my conclusion is that we are being softened up for another rate hike here.

 (what's new... right?)

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We should all be concerned for our environment — Duh!

And we should all be eager to hand it over, to the future generations, in BETTER condition than we received it... 

 still, I smell a money grab disguised as a good deed about to be spun on us.

Cha-Ching!

I want to point your attention to two paragraphs in particular:

When prevention is not enough...

If the salinity problems become too much to manage through prevention, water districts may be forced to seek more direct and costly measures to remove salts. These could include:

• Development and construction of a desalination plant, which is an expensive alternative to prevention. Not only would the cost to install local facilities be a burden on customers, but the desalination process is expensive, requiring an extraordinary amount of energy to remove salts.
• Introduction of limitations/bans on salt-based water softeners. Self -regenerating water softeners that use salt or potassium pellets can release a pound of salt per day when it regenerates and “flushes” away the brine or “salty waste”. Water districts have begun to ask residents to remove their self -regenerating water softeners, but may have to implement more strict policies if salt levels continue to be high.

(emphasis is mine)

This is the first of a four part series by EVMWD. Can't wait to see what comes in the next bill.

Looks like they want to put a stake through the heart of The Culligan Man.

Personally I always hated the "soft water" at my grandma's house.

I could never wash the soap off my hands.