The entire field is synthetic except for the pitching mound. As an old baseball player I'd love to see what it's like to play on such a surface.
We all remember that freakish rainstorm from a couple of years ago, it was dubbed a micro burst. It really tore up the campus of Elsinore High School, including the baseball stadium.
The varsity team posed with Co-Principals Arredondo and Hamilton, LEUSD Superintendent Doug Kimberly, LEUSD President Juan Saucedo, LEUSD Board Members Heidi Dodd and Stan Crippin, along with Wildomar councilmember Bridgette Moore, mayor Tim Walker, and mayor pro-tem Ben Benoit.
Since that time they've redesigned the quad to handle the storm waters, and today they had a ribbon cutting on the new baseball field, which includes LED lights. In the image below, you see councilmember Bridgette Moore holding one side of the ribbon, mayor Tim Walker holding the other side and LEUSD board member Heidi Dodd wielding the scissors. Below is a 2 minute video showing the dedication speeches, the ribbon cutting and throwing out the first pitch.
I had a chance to speak to Sarah Arredondo and Robbin Hamilton, co-principals of the school, to get some more insight on the new stadium.
We had that horrible micro burst, and it caused a tremendous amount of devastation. The Dugout was completely devastated, our fencing was down, roofs were off of our buildings. Based on the district wanting to correct that, we redid all the drainage —part of a huge renovation project with the quad, and also the baseball field. This is the final renovation from that and we've been safe and protected from any flooding and this new facility for our young men.
Images previously seen in the Press Enterprise of the September 2014 damage.
The games aren't quite on the same level as the Lake Elsinore Storm, but the admission is free, and locals are encouraged to come down and watch some games. The schedule can be found at the school's website.
What a glorious Sunday in Wildomar. There was so much orange that it nearly burned your retinas.☺
A close up of poppies reaching for the sun.
The temps were hitting 90 and the poppies were popping as families came out to Rattlesnake Hill to take in the beautiful array of wildflowers.
Looking west where people parked on Salida Del Sol.
One family was having an old fashioned picnic as they had a photo shoot. Imagine my surprise when I saw a lamb join them.
The only way this scene could be more perfect, is if the little girl's name happens to be Mary.
With the temperatures in the high 80's for the next week, there's no telling how long (or short) they will stay in bloom. Below is a tranquil video of the poppy field. It runs about 2 minutes long and is sure to soothe your frazzled nerves... assuming you have frazzled nerves in the first place. ☺ If this area isn't part of your usual daily activities, I suggest you carve out a bit of time to see the poppies in person before they're gone for another year (or more).
Map to location.
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Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. – Rainer Maria Rilke 1875-1926
IfWildomar Rap were a poem, it would be an ode to the brevity of life encapsulated in an epic about love's endless battles.
The meeting started with a presentation by the Ronald Reagan Elementary AVID group.
Top row: Bridgette Moore, Tim Walker (Mayor), Ben Benoit, Dustin Nigg, Marsha Swanson. Bottom row: Deanna Steria, Leah, Hannah, Ira, Jeremy and Principal Nori Chandler.
AVID stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination.
• The fire department update stats included 229 calls being handled through station 61, with 181 of those being medical. PUBLIC COMMENTS (non agenda items)
• Ken Mayes touched on the new email restrictions that apply to city officials, the broken guardrail at the Palomar/Mission Trail juncture, the Freedom Swing, zip codes, bus benches/shelters, and Measure Z committee members email accounts. He wasn't all too happy that three emails got kicked back to him, with failure notices. (Why anyone would write to a member of the Measure Z committee is beyond all imagination.)
• Andy Morris spoke as the current president of the Wildomar Rotary Club. He touched on the fundraising efforts to help a Wildomar Elementary student obtain hearing aids. There will be a fundraising dinner at the VFW on Friday April 21st. He also mentioned a Rotary Club event that will be on Saturday, July 22, at Marna O'Brien park.
Councilmember Bridgette Moore, also a Wildomar Rotarian, reminded people that there was another annual Rotary event coming up. A bicycle safety event, which will be at Marna O'Brien park on Saturday May 13th.
3.1 2016-17 Mid-Year Budget Report The video link is below for those that would like to hear the info first hand. There were some changes suggested for the general fund. • Asking for the addition of part time staff to assist with special events, front counter at city hall, social media, website and records management. (At no additional costs) • Asking for funds for consultants, regarding economic development and state mandated reports. • In total, looking to add five part time positions. • Truing up the budgets for police and fire. • There has been an increase in property tax revs by $117,000. • General fund balance is $973,787 (which is 10% of the budget). • The HERO program in Wildomar (since 2011) has seen $10,500,000 in projects. Which covered 519 energy related installations, 384 solar energy installations and 43 water related installations.
3.2 Street Lighting Determination This one came with more discussion than I anticipated. A brief recap is that the city (along with other cities in the area) have been given the opportunity to purchase their street lights from the power company.
The advantages of purchasing are that the city would be able to retrofit them with LED lights, and would reap considerable savings in short order. The turnaround time is about seven years. There were three basic options 1) Do nothing, which would end up costing $700K (an increase of 20%) at the 20 year mark. 2) Purchase the poles and retrofit them with LED lights. A savings of over a million dollars after the same 20 years (a 25% savings). 3) Is where SCE maintains the ownership of the poles, and installs their own LEDs onto the poles (a new option that I hadn't heard before). This comes with a projected savings over the current model of about 15%. The nice part about option 3 is that it comes with no cost and no maintenance. The down side is that the savings are 40% less than they would be under option 2. In option 2, there is also the opportunity for the city to make a bit of money leasing out the poles to companies that want to "hang something off of a light pole." An example was high speed wireless internet. At one point the opinions were split 2-2-1. Initially Bridgette Moore was favoring option 3, Dustin Nigg and Ben Benoit were favoring option 2, with Marsha Swanson and Tim Walker leaning towards option 1. The final vote was 4-1 in favor of option 2, with Councilmember Swanson voting no.
During the public comments, Ken Mayes mentioned the idea of the city looking to add solar power to the lights, so as to further lower the costs. During the council discussion, Dustin Nigg asked Dan York about such a thought. Though it's a noble idea, the agreement with SCE would negate any savings from going solar. SCE is looking to charge $2.38 per month per pole regardless if electricity is provided by the them or not.
Though it will cause some short term indebtedness, it won't be costing the rate payers any additional dollars. Below are some pull quotes from the discussion: Councilmember Nigg • With option 1 we're short $35,000 a year. With option 2, we don't have the $35,000 shortfall [every year]. Councilmember Swanson • I like option 1. I like what WRCOG has done and I think it's great and if we were a bigger city or had a higher amount of money in reserve, I think that would be my desire... it's real tough for me to jump into that kind of debt. • I love the lights, I took the Hemet tour and loved what I saw over there and would really like to have that savings [here]. Even though it says "a 25% per year average net savings over twenty years," the first seven years we aren't going to see any of that. Mayor Pro-Tem Benoit • I'm highly in favor of option 2, it has nothing to do with WRCOG or nothing to do with owning the lights, it's about being responsive to our citizens that have complaints. • Not only is there an option here for the PUC to give us a rebate, but the option to buy these —it goes away. It goes away this year and we'll probably never get it back again. Edison figured it out. They opened the window and said, "Hey cities, you wanna buy some of these lights? Great, take 'em away, we don't want 'em." And then, about two years ago they went, "Oh shit! they're all doing it. You know what, those are an asset and we don't want to sell them," and they closed the window. • We have an option to direct staff to go down this path. Yes, going into debt, but you go into debt so you can save money. [In] the long term, we save money. City Manager Gary Nordquist • All the future lights that are coming into the town. We're 62% built out, we have 38% to go for development. What we're looking at is acquiring a franchise basically, and buying the future rights to all the other poles that will be coming in. The developers will be installing them, and they'll give them to you (the city) at no cost, and you'll have rights to those [poles].
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All five council members were part of the discussion, and had valuable things to say, but many of their points didn't translate into pull quotes. Give the video a listen if you'd like to hear how it went in real time. Councilmember Moore did show concern about the city going into debt over option 2, as she noted we hadn't done that before. Next up this will come back to the council and most likely wind up on the consent calendar, without any further council discussion. Now just for some fun... Below is the isolated part of the video where I questioned the math I just heard... plus some onscreen explanation. The issue arose when Assistant City Manager Dan York discussed the differences between plans 2 and 3. Plan 2 comes with a potential savings of 25% per year, and plan 3 comes with an estimated 15% per year. He said that was a 10% difference. Sorry, but that is a 40% difference. So I spoke during the public comments wanting it corrected. It wasn't as bad as pulling teeth, but something as simple as correcting a misspeak sure took longer than it should have. It's not a big deal, and it's not like the wrong interpretation of the percentages were going to cost us money, but I'm just a stickler for such things, especially when I can't get a straight answer from a fair question. City Manager Report The part of the report that I'm highlighting is the discussion of the sinkhole on Grand Ave. In the 4 minute video you'll see Dan York talk about what is going on with it, and how it probably came about.
It's surmised that the aftermath of a fire hydrant being hit, with the loss of millions of gallons of water, is what has caused the cavitation around utility lines under the street. At this point, there is no resolution, but a stopgap measure has been identified by Matt Bennent. It involves about 80 K Rails, that will be delivered free by Riverside County Flood Control, and also carted off free once the project is complete. There will be an update on this at the April city council meeting.
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"I'm too much a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything." – Aldous Huxley, 1894-1963
Wildomar Rap takes skepticism to new bounds and just skips the middle man by not believing anything.
There is an arm of the Rotary Club called EarlyAct Club.
April Watkins is on the left, the students leaders of EarlyAct, starting third from the left is VFW President of District 3 Brenda Wardrip, local VFW President Cari Gardner, and Ayesha Sabree Program leader.
If you visit their website you'll see that EarlyAct aims to teach its members:
Caring
Respect
Empathy
Responsibility
Tolerance
Citizenship
Compassion
Friendship
Leadership
There is an EarlyAct club at Wildomar Elementary School headed by April Watkins and the student president is Victoria. She shared some details about the clubs' latest service project.
During the presentation, Brenda Wardrip and Cari Gardner answered many questions from the kids. One was from Isabella asking where the blankets were going to go, and the answer was to the VA hospital in Loma Linda.
The project was to make blankets for veterans that are in the hospital, and present them to the local VFW for distribution. In all, they made ten large, colorful, comfy blankets. In total, there were about 100 of her fellow students that helped make the ten tie blankets. The idea was to help the veterans, so that "they could get better, and to stay warm when it's cold," she told me.
The kids were listening attentively as their questions were answered. Rosalyn (sp?) asked, "How many people are sick?" Cari Gardner answered, "There are lots of them. A couple of weeks ago we served up hamburgers and hot dogs for them and there were over 1500, serving all the patience in the wards and the nurses and doctors. There are a lot of them there."
It took about four months to complete the project and they worked on it after they'd finished their homework at THINK Together.
I'm going to break this blog into two parts. The first will cover the basics, the second will be opinion. PART 1 The meeting started with the flag salute and then went into public comments.
From left to right: City Manager Gary Nordquist, City Attorney Thomas Jex, Councilmember Bridgette Moore, Mayor Tim Walker, Mayor Pro-Tem Ben Benoit, Councilmember Dustin Nigg and Councilmember Marsha Swanson.
Public Comments on non agenda items. • Sycamore Academy came by and thanked Mayor Tim Walker for coming to their annual Science Showcase last week (link to blog covering it), they brought cookies for him too.
• Janice Lee of Geri-Fit spoke about her business, invited the council to her ribbon cutting (Saturday, February 25th at 9:00am), and also talked about a free osteoporosis workshop and Zumba classes at her location. (Blog about Geri-Fit as it was about to open)
1.1 Vision Statement for the City The nearly 2 hour meeting has been uploaded for those that would like to see it. It was hosted by WRCOG's Rick Bishop and he had a cordless mic and usually faced the council as he went through a PowerPoint presentation (which doesn't make for a great looking video).
He differentiated vision statements, mission statements, mottoes, slogans.
A vision statement shares the optimal desired future state of what the city wants to achieve and be over time.
A mission statement flows from the vision statement.
An example he shared was if Carl's Jr's vision statement is to make the greatest hamburgers in the world, a mission statement within that is to make sure that people get served within two minutes of their order.
It was established that a vision statement shouldn't be too long, and that ideally it should be something that could be memorized. First, a list of attributes was made. Wildomar assets Things like community, open space, rural, and hometown feel, among other things that were included.
Alfredo Garcia wrote out the list on the easel.
WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG BECAUSE IT'S TEDIOUS TO WRITE (IF YOU WANT ALL THE DETAILS, PLAY THE VIDEO)... LET'S SKIP TO THE END AND ALL SAVE A BIT OF TIME. The vision statement took several turns before the final version was finished being coined: The City of Wildomar will be a safe and active community, responsibly grown, with quality infrastructure while keeping a hometown feel. The way the meeting had been going, and the earlier rather wordy versions looked, it was a pleasant surprise to see it all come together at the end. The vision statement is realistic, succinct, and easy to understand. Good job!
Which leads to part 2.
There was one ornery resident that seemed to think her opinions reign supreme in the land, that made the meeting far longer and more tedious than it needed to be. I had thought that I'd go off on her here, diagram all the stupid things she said, but thought better of it. She isn't worth more of my time than that, if you'd like to hear her act for yourself, cue up the video... she's all over it like rash on a kid with chicken pocks.
My take on the process of having a vision statement is mixed. I get it, such things are normal for cities to have, and this meeting didn't cost any extra money. So even if at times it felt like an exercise in futility, at least it could be filed under the no harm, no foul category. A vision statement for a city such as Wildomar is akin to a retiree enrolling into a four year university seeking a bachelors degree... because it was something they'd missed out on when they were younger. Unlike a kid fresh out of high school, going to a university, seeking to build a solid foundation as they grow and mature. The latter is a good first step, the former is a noble desire to back fill something they shouldn't have skipped in the first place... but let's not pretend that they are even close to the same thing; they aren't! Wildomar may only be 8 years old in city years, but in community years, we're 135 years old. There are things that can't be undone here and will always hamper any vision statement that is settled on. When I was sitting there, listening to the ideas for a Wildomar vision statement, I couldn't help but think to myself, "Hello McFly, have you taken a look around lately?" Such grandiose visioning statements make complete sense if you're looking to carve a city out from an orange grove, and calling it Irvine. Same would go with any other vacant area that was about to be developed, but I don't see how it's applied to a place that's long been established. The brutal facts are that the die was cast long ago and it didn't land very favorably for 21st century Wildomar (and beyond). While other areas like Temecula, Murrieta, Menifee and even Lake Elsinore were modernizing, the people in charge of Wildomar took another path, and that has led to us being what we are today. Pleasant, but not remarkable. Does that mean we shouldn't have a vision statement? I didn't say that. It's a great idea to have a vision statement and the one that they came up with was quite good. The problem is that I don't see it as anything more than a nice thought with little practical value. All the vision statements in the world won't bring us the money to fix the roads, or address many of the wants and desires of the population. Like I learned long ago, measure twice and cut once. Obviously the oft venerated David A. Brown —along the William, Donald & Margaret trio, and any others that were in charge back in the day, failed to do that with li'l ol' Willy Mar, and we are what we are.
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"Time cools, time clarifies, no mood can be maintained unaltered, indefinitely. Time changes us all, or it should. There are those who resist, who hold on, who refuse to let go of yesterday's truths even though they have been revealed as today's lies." – EG Marshall (CBSRMT)1914-1998
Wildomar Rap really, really, REALLY hopes that that self important gas bag runs for city council in 2018. Come on, put up or shut up already.
On Thursday February 16th, from 5:00pm to 6:30pm, Sycamore Academy held it's 8th annual Science Showcase.
Wildomar Mayor Tim Walker has to do a double take after seeing Sycamore Academy Assistant Principal Jeff Morabito. Someone who looks remarkably similar to the author of W'Rap.
The school has more than 550 students, ranging from transitional kindergarten through 8th grade, and all of them participated in the fair.
The kinder and 1st grade classes do group projects, whereas the students from 2nd through 8th do individual projects.
Hey, where's the Tapatío or Sriracha sauce?
The teachers lead them on how to use the scientific method and how to do the projects while following the state guidelines for the state science fairs. Though competition doesn't start until the students reach 5th grade, the 2nd graders follow the same guidelines.
I know that dropping them usually makes them NOT work.
The school has had participants that have had their projects in the county science fair, which is typically a month after the local event. Some SASCA students have then gone on to a competition at Cal State San Marcos.
I had to throw in a random shot of my brother taking a picture.
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“I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
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