• City Council Meeting January 14, 2015 Recap

Let's go down the agenda.

First up was Wildomar City Attorney Thomas Jex reporting on a new lawsuit against the city and Cornerstone Church.

A group calling themselves "Cornerstone Concerned Area Residents" which if it were a more honest name would be something like "Area Residents That Hate Everything About Cornerstone Church" but what's in a name... right?

The reportable action on that topic was that the City Council unanimously voted to defend the lawsuit. This was another Ray Johnson special, but this time the group is headed by a guy named Jim Filanc.

Interesting that the last time Cornerstone had a proposed project in front of the council, this guy had said, "We want the city to have all the facts on what the impact will be on traffic on Monte Vista," he said. "We don't want to stop them from developing. We just want to make sure they pay their fair share and that it's a condition of the project."

Click here for the full article in the UT.

Well, I guess times have changed since there is a comprehensive EIR and they [Cornerstone] are more than paying "their fair share" for this project.

Presentations

• Ethan Edwards received recognition for his Eagle Scout project. 

Eagle Scout Ethan Edwards with Mayor Ben Benoit.

• We met the outgoing Fire Chief Steve Beech's replacement Joel Vela and Division Chief Geoff Pemberton.

Public Comments
There were seven public speakers tonight. Of note were:

• Kenny Mayes speaking about the need for a Food Truck ordinance and wondering when we will be getting the promised Parks Commission. 
• Miss Miller wanted the council to set aside other work and put their efforts on stopping Chemtrails and Global Warming. 
• Bill Keane (sp?) wanting a stop sign on Wesley at Union to slow down the speeders.
• Kristan Lloyd spoke about the historic significance of The Brown House and wanted it known as Wildomar Heritage Museum from here on out. She also took issue with the word, dilapidated, that the city has used in connection to the Wildomar Heritage Museum.

Just to be fair, the word may not be along the lines of "Cozy" or "Quaint" or "Historic" but a person would be hard pressed to find a more apt word for the current condition of the Wildomar Historic Museum than Dilapidated.

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• Matt Patrick was speaking about speed issues on Via Sarah.
• Judy Gugliemana represented the Wildomar Chamber and some of their coming events.
• Kathy Bundy spoke about a planned Volkswalk on June 6th which is National Trails Day.

2.1 and 2.2 were continued to the February meeting.

3.1 Baxter/Susan GPIP

This was covered in Wildomar Rap last year when it was in front of the planning commission. 

Click here for that blog.

This was one of those, "yes you can ask permission to ask permission" moments again. If I were the developer/landowner I'd seriously think about scrubbing this plan the way they envision it. 

You know you're in trouble when Council Member Tim Walker says, "Miss Miller was right" and Mayor Ben Benoit says, "I'm with Miss Miller here." Referring back to her public comments on the project and the area in general.

My favorite part of her comment was when she blamed all the concrete in the area for a bee sting she recently got in the jugular vein which now requires her to sleep with gloves for the next two weeks. She also saw some lion foot prints near Clinton Keith... then she slammed her papers against the podium and stormed out.

This passed 3-0 with Bob Cashman recusing himself since he lives near the project.

3.2 Gracepoint Church Public Use Permit Extension

They need a two year extension to complete their project due to funding and illness that hit the project manager. It passed 4-0.

3.3 Professional Services Agreement

Dan York was speaking about the Parks Masterplan and Traffic Signals in relation to DIF fees and TUMF fees. It was more sausage making and after my eyes finished glazing over I heard the vote go 4-0 to approve. 

City Manager Report

Gary Nordquist mentioned the coming Walmart public hearing on January 21, 2015 at 6:30pm. A scoping meeting for the Grove Park project this coming Monday at 6:00pm.  

He also gave the final numbers for the Green Waste Cleanup Event. The Marna O'Brien location had 132 signers and went through 16 bins and collected 30 tons at a cost of about $2300 paid to CR&R. On the other side of the freeway, at the La Estrella area, there were 78 signers (no bin count) but the services were donated by Waste Management.

He mentioned how the new Subway on Bundy Canyon is progressing.

City Clerk Debbie Lee thanked the City Staff, the City Council and her "Wildomar Family" for the condolences she received after her mother passed. 

Future Agenda Items

Bridgette Moore wants construction project signs to be addressed. (Example: A sign at the new Subway construction telling passersby what the project is, and projected finish dates).

Bob Cashman wanted Wildomar's historic structures designated or recognized. He's counted 14 such structures. 

Tim Walker wanted to get school test scores for Wildomar specific schools, away from LEUSD.

Ben Benoit Wants an option for various neighborhoods to be able to avoid the Windsong Valley slurry boondoggle when their neighborhoods are scheduled to be re-slurried, by paying additional monies through their HOAs if desired.

Marsha Swanson wasn't at tonight's meeting.

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Mayor Ben Benoit adjourned the meeting in honor of Debbie Lee's mother.

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We are men of action. Lies do not become us. 
- Farm Boy Wesley AKA The Dread Pirate Roberts

Wildomar Rap has been accused of not including "vital info" in blogs. I can handle being called a city insider/suck up, but shake yourself. This blog always has the vital info.

• New Light on Ortega Highway

Well, it's official. There's another new light on Ortega Highway that will be slowing down your commute. It's located less than half a mile east of La Pata. Oh the joys that await.  >:(

Traffic signal at the new intersection of Ortega Highway and Gateway Place.

Anyone that has commuted on Ortega Highway regularly can tell you how much longer the drive has gotten in recent years. Add to that the relatively new traffic light at Gibby Road, where the trash trucks all merge onto Ortega Highway starting at about 6:30am every weekday morning, and what used to be less than an hour can now be 90 mins... depending on where your final destination is.

Thankfully I only use Ortega once a week these days, but last week this light wasn't there in the morning, yet was up by my early afternoon return trip. Today, it was functioning and though I was passing Gateway Place at 5:45am, and those new apartments aren't occupied yet, I still had it turn yellow on me as I was entering the new intersection.

Well, good luck to those that have decades more commuting to do on that road... you'll need it as they build out that new area near La Pata.

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For shame, doc. Hunting rabbits with an elephant gun. Why don't you shoot yourself an elephant? 
- Bugs Bunny

If Wildomar Rap were a kite, it would be one of those standard diamond shaped kites, with a long tail and 2 miles worth of string.

• Baxter Crossing Scoping Meeting

Tonight was an EIR scoping meeting for a project that is tentatively named Baxter Crossing. I say "tentatively" because last year Mayor Ben Benoit was expressing interest in having Baxter Rd's name changed to something like Wildomar Parkway Click here for a video of it.  It would be kind of funny to name a place such as this after a street that no longer has that name, so we'll have to see how that one goes.

A view of the project with the surrounding areas showing.

The project, as it is currently configured, is comprised of 70,000sf of commercial retail. With four sit down restaurants included in the mix. Also, in the north east part of the project will be 204 apartments that go up to three stories. Last in the Multiuse Project (MUPA) is 70 houses.

Pardon me if I'm not overly excited about 204 apartments that are stacked three high and abut the freeway... especially if they come with similar rental price tags as the other new apartments in town have. Those things cost more than a typical mortgage, and hundreds more a month to rent than a typical house. Places well out of reach of the local youth looking for their first place, yet wanting to stay local.

Keep in mind that the new Wal-Mart is supposed to be 200,000sf by itself. Yes, that's a Supercenter but the 70,000sf that is proposed here is barely a third of that. Maybe there is a way to lose 25 of the houses, and 80 of the apartments and put a bit more retail in there.

Oh, I also didn't see any public park area in there either.

A detailed look at the project design.

In this image you can see where the deadly Baxter Rd/Central Ave jackknife will be smoothed out a bit. The dotted line represents the existing road as it stands today. The road is going to need to be better aligned no matter which project goes in due to safety and traffic concerns.

Bad news locals that live where Baxter becomes a dirt road... you won't be able to fly off the paved road at full speed, kicking up clouds of dust anymore.

The Brown house has been factored into the designs of the new retail development. After speaking to a few members of Wildomar's Historical Society I was a bit more swayed into it's value for the city. Like John Lloyd and George Cambero were remarking, the house was built long before there were ADA guidelines, and the house will need to be brought fully up to code. It will look beautiful when rehabbed.

That was in response to my concerns that I would hate to see a less than beautiful building sandwiched into a new shopping area.

The key question with the Brown House is about funding. Where will the money come from for the refurbishment? It's currently owned by Wildomar Historical Society and they have plans to fundraise to pay for the costs.

If you have questions or concerns about this project you can contact City Planner Matt Bassi.

Matthew BassiPlanning Director
Phone: 951-677-7751  x 213
Email: mbassi@cityofwildomar.org

The final day to submit questions for the EIR is Jan 19th, but he can discuss the details any time. He prefers email as the best method of communication.

Here is a link to the PDF file for this evenings information 

There are several more steps for this project this year alone, with a bigger meeting set for sometime in the fall. In the meantime, those that use the area as an Off-Road Park will still have free rein out there. Being at the north end of Windsong we can hear the sound of the action just like it was a scene from that '70s classic movie On Any Sunday.

Take a look at the Mock TV Ad I made for it.

Though I refer to Wildomar's historic Brown House as a Haunted House in the video above, I'm 95% sure it isn't actually haunted... even though it's been at its current location for nine years now and those window coverings are da bomb! ☺

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Try some more. The strawberries taste like strawberries, and the snozzberries taste like snozzberries.

Snozzberries? Who ever heard of a snozzberry?

*We* are the music makers... and *we* are the dreamers of dreams. 
—Willy Wonka to Veruca Salt

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• Winter Snow Storm Green Waste Cleanup Recap

Today was Wildomar's "Winter Snow Storm Green Waste Cleanup" event. Since we have two different trash companies in our town, there were two different drop off points.

For the west-siders we were assigned to Marna O'Brien Park. For the east-siders, they were sent to a drop off point near Ronald Reagan Elementary School.

From what I could gather, Waste Management donated the bins, whereas CR&R only cut Wildomar a discount on the containers. Just for that, I'll be adding extra dog missiles into my trash next week in protest.

Mayor Ben Benoit at the head of the line of trucks.

Around 12:30 I asked how many truckloads had been made, but stats weren't being kept. However, since people did have to sign liability waivers, there was a rough estimate that could be had. There were 14 lines per sheet, and at Marna there had been more than 7 pages filled. Over at the Ronald Reagan site, more than 5 pages had been filled. Many people made multiple trips so I'll put my math wiz beanie on and estimate that there were at least 300 trips between the two sites.

[BTW my math wiz beanie hasn't been calibrated in a few years, so I may have underestimated by a lot]

When I left Marna O'Brien Park the line up was still down the street, around Bryant and, as rumor had it,  it was almost all the way to Grand.

Mayor Pro-Tem Bridgette Moore checking papers to make sure everyone was from Wildomar.

Not having a truck, I figured I'd just put my trees into the green can over the next several weeks, but local resident Jaime Fernandez offered the use of his truck. Not only that, but he helped load it and he spent more than an hour in the line up waiting for his turn to unload it. I felt bad about it, but he smiled and said he was happy to do it.

A look at the west side drop off area at about 12:30. 

The line up was said to be shorter at the east side location. When I got there at midday, there weren't too many trucks or cars lined up, but Shelia Urlaub had snapped a picture from one of her three trips that showed quite a line up... though not nearly as impressive as we west-siders had to put up with. ☺

A look at the line up at the east side staging area.

Of Wildomar's elected officials, I saw three in action. Ben Benoit, Bridgette Moore and Tim Walker. I missed Marsha Swanson since she was doing the early shift on the east side. She had just left before I wandered over there. The only one that didn't show was Bob Cashman... the same guy that wanted to be either Mayor or Mayor Pro-Tem.

Let me take a moment to say this. I don't know why our City Council Members take such pride in their work. I don't know why they put so much time in where it clearly isn't part of their duties. I can only tell you this, I am very thankful that they care that much to not only be there, but to actually work.

And they didn't just work for ten mins, they put in some legit volunteer work, so that those that brought their green waste wouldn't have to wait longer than necessary. Imagine if we had a city council with five Bob Cashmans on it. Nice fellow and he even goes to most City Council meetings... but is that all we really want from an elected official? Perfunctory effort? I don't.

Kudos to the four that went and made the event all the smoother. I'd also like to add into that list Planning Commissioner Gary Brown. He and his wife were working tirelessly, helping people unload their vehicles. Let me also include the many other volunteers that were there. Without so many people willing to help others, people they've never met and most likely won't see again, this wouldn't have worked out so well.

Council member Tim Walker pitching in.

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Below is a 72 second video. It'll give you a feel of what was going on over at Marna O'Brien Park.

Over at Marna O'Brien Park, there were some able bodied people that didn't feel like helping people unload... and I'm pretty sure they were actually paid to be there by CR&R. Oh sure, they weren't being paid to do more than move the big blue bins, but imagine how much quicker their morning would have gone if they'd done more than play pocket pool during the down time.

The new version of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" called "Pockets, Head Scratch, iPhone"... a favorite among the bored.

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Man is the only animal that can be skinned more than once. —Jimmy Durante

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Green Waste Clean Up Reminder

Reminder

After all that snow we had on New Year's Eve many trees were damaged. The City of Wildomar has contracted with the two trash companies to help with the cleanup.

To clean up my downed trees it'll take about 6 weeks worth of filling the green can... or I can make one trip to my designated green waste drop zone and be done with it.

Be sure to bring an ID that shows you live in Wildomar. 

From what I was told, there is no limit, but you can't be silly and try and bring yard clippings or other waste. This is about getting the downed trees cleared away from public view and to help out the residents that were hit hardest. Still, if all you have is a couple of branches, they won't turn you away... but I'd be wondering why a person with that little wouldn't just use the regular curb service.

Below you'll see some of my downed tree limbs... it was a veritable treemageddon at my house.

Remember, it's from 8am to 2pm, but don't try and show up with ten trucks full at five mins before 2pm. Reminds me of the stories my auto mechanic friend tells me about the people that show up five minutes before closing, on a holiday eve no less, wondering if he can change a timing belt or maybe put on some new brakes. Be smart and show up early on.

This is a Rain or Shine event.

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♫ ♪ Rock-a-bye baby in the tree tops, when the snow blows —in Wildomar— the cradle freeze, when the bough breaks the trees will come down and probably crush anything below it. ♫♪

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• 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 

To keep up with all the Walmart in Wildomar news remember to subscribe to Wildomar Rap. Another easy way to know when a new blog is uploaded is to like the FaceBook page.

• New Year's Eve Snow Storm

Why am I writing about something that we all know about, and all have been talking about since it happened? Because I think it makes sense to have this as part of Wildomar Rap's details of the city in 2014. Especially since this was pretty historic... at least from my perspective.

At about 11:00pm my wife Grace woke me up and told me it was snowing. I got up, and took a look, but it really didn't seem like much, and I'd seen a light dusting before, so went back to bed. Who could have imagined it would be anymore than that?

I got up well before sunrise, and when I looked out to the backyard, everything was aglow. I also noticed that my trees were a lot shorter than I'd remembered them being. I went to the front yard and this is what I saw.

The view from my front yard, down the street (Hunwut). You can see a downed tree that is less than 100 yards away.

As all of us, undoubtedly, were in amazement at what we saw that morning, this is what my house and nearby streets looked like. Here is a brief video of the snow, a downed tree and a guy that had to spin his tires for fun.

What a remarkable day it was. I've lived in SoCal for all 50 of my years, and though it's "snowed" in the past, it's never done this before. We still have snow on the ground and my neighbor's yards are still white four days later.

A view of my house before most people had gotten up.

I was surprised to learn that we had ten inches of snow... I had been guessing it was closer to four. It was so heavy, and it wasn't melting, that I chose to go on my patio cover to shovel it off the next day. If it could break trees the way it did, why not my patio cover that wasn't designed for that kind of weight too?

A picture of CBS's weather report. 

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An aerial view of Wildomar near the freeway.  

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Here is a panoramic of Marna O'Brien Park. Click the picture to see a larger version of it.

We went out driving at about noon. First we went in the direction of Marna O'Brien Park. There were wome people there, playing in the snow, but not nearly as many as were playing on the hills across from Stater Bros and near where Sycamore Academy's new campus will be (southwest corner of Palomar and Clinton Keith). They were like a couple of ski resorts with all the cars parked about and kids in the fields.

Not be be a downer here, but I wouldn't have let my kids play there. Not so much because it was trespassing, though it was trespassing, but it's not as if it was an area set up for kids on sleds. Just a few inches under that white blanket of snow was the hard ground of a vacant lot. Who knows what hazards (nails, pieces of rusty metal, broken bottles) were laying but a few inches away from a child's hand or leg.

I didn't hear that anyone got injured, so I'm guessing no one was, and that everyone had a good time.

A panoramic looking west from Palomar.

Something that a lot of us experienced were broken trees. Our trees got hit hard. A lemon tree, a mexican lime tree, a loquat tree, some feijoa, a few big branches on some olive trees. We've been hearing the hum of chain saws around the neighborhood ever since.

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The halcyon days of childhood, a time when everything lay open before him, when the most minor episodes could be construed as events and every chance encounter … gave rise to fresh insights. —Ivan Klíma

Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays Wildomar Rap from the swift completion of their appointed rounds... or something like that.