• City Council Meeting November 2021

The longest day in Wildomar City Council history... or at least I'm using this as the new benchmark. It started at 3pm and didn't let out until Nearly 8pm. 

Ok, in there was a recess of about an hour, but never the less, it was a marathon in terms of being there. (Oh Joseph, stop whining)

At 3pm there was a workshop dealing with the widening of Palomar from Wildomar Trail to the cemetery and around the corner, east on Gruwell St. 

I suggest that you watch the video below if you'd like to hear the details. Come on, you can spend the 15 minutes watching the video and getting all the details yourself, or you can spend hours going down the various social media rabbit holes and end up with tons of misinformation instead. 

I've always loved drawing these silly cartoons, but I'm really the only safe target to lampoon anymore. 😁 

This should be coming to Wildomar in not all that long a period of time since the funds are needed to be used within a narrow window before they're no longer available.

Very exciting look that will be stretching from the corner of Palomar and Wildomar Trail north to Gruwell and along the cemetery.

The second part of the workshop dealt with DIF Fees (Developer Impact Fees). 

In short, when new development comes in there are fees that are paid. 

Ideas behind the fee increase proposal.

Though the fees are enormous in my estimation... welcome to California. They are a fact of life, and a reason why our housing costs are so much larger than in the middle of the country. 

The various items that DIF covers.

Presently the fees were last adjusted in 2015. The workshop was to get this ball rolling. There is recent legislation that will make it rather cumbersome to have such fees keep up with inflation if the process isn't started before the first of the year.

Details will be finalized at subsequent meetings after much wrangling I'm sure. 

I apologize if this isn't very legible. The limitations of copy and past from a video and then someone reviewing it on a smartphone. 

Below is a link to the workshop portion of the meeting.

Key pieces of business in the regular meeting included the second of four discussions of redrawing the city council district maps. 

There were no sample maps for this public hearing. 

I'll give you three guesses as to why, and they should all begin with the ripple effect of Covid and how it interrupted everything last year, including the census.

There will be sample maps at the December city council meeting. There will also be opportunities for you to draw a map yourself and submit it before the December meeting... and even for those that insist on procrastinating, ways to submit maps after the (suggested) deadline.

The link to the map tool isn't active yet. If this is something that you'd like to participate in, be sure to sign up for city emails.

The deadline to adopt new maps is April 17, 2022. I heard mention that we have all sorts of time and that we shouldn't have had the second public hearing without sample maps. 

That may be the MO of some people, but understanding the process and what goes into it, there was no reason to push this off and then (potentially) run out of time when some unforeseen occurrence were to visit us.

Other highlights of the meeting including the SWAG permanent housing improvements. 

This is a key to keeping a lid on homeless issues in the city of Wildomar. Without beds available, and no trespassing letters on file, the law does not allow to the approaches of the past to be used in the present. 

I had a chance to tour the facility and things look good there. There were two sums listed in the agenda for this. $217,600 for "to provide permanent supportive housing (PSH) services for six (6) chronically homeless individuals in the City of Wildomar for the fiscal year 2021-22"

The other sum was one-time $262,700 of the ARPA funds to be budgeted for the conversion of the garage at the property into a livable Accessory Dwelling Unit.

In non ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act of 2021) times this could have been a tense/contentious item to deal with. However, this is ARPA time and those moneys have a lot of strings attached to them. I find that this is a very acceptable way to use part of them.

Future City Hall

This is one of those topics that I am very interested in, but can imagine that most residents are somewhat less concerned about. 

Since the city's inception we have been renters of our city hall facilities. That was fine in the beginning as we were learning to crawl, but now it's time for us to walk on our own.

Though it would be great to be in what was referred to as a "class A building", that is still years into the future. However, a good temporary solution was shared at the meeting that will take us off the rental rolls and start building up city assets that will benefit residents for years to come. 

This is still in the concept phase, but one real option is to put a building up at the (yet to be named) park near Ronald Reagan Elementary.

Many details need to be worked out, and if this site can't be used, the city has another possible location at the undeveloped park near David A Brown Middle School that this could work at. 

From there, the city could be looking for a forever home, waiting for more favorable land prices (this market is crazy to be purchasing in) without the pressures of needing to renew a leasing agreement in the interim. 

The longer we wait to push forward with a new city hall, the longer we are renters making the building owners rich while not building assets for the residents of the city. This is a great move and I look forward to hearing more information as it becomes available. 

Concept of what the building could look like.

In the future, most likely after the current council is long gone, the "temporary" city hall could become a community center at the park.

Holiday Lights Contest

The Mayor and his family will be doing the judging, and I encourage as many families to participate as we can muster.

Make him put a lot of miles on his car as they tour the city looking at Christmas displays. 😃

From the agenda: 

The Holiday Lights Contest is an annual event that recognizes the efforts of the community who have decorated their homes with consideration to the holidays. 

The contest will be judged based on two categories: “Traditional” and “Clark Griswold”. 

Within each category, entries will be judged on such criteria as: 

•First Impression 

•Design 

•Originality 

•Suitability to Site 

•Environmental Elements (environmental elements including recycling, energy conservation, etc.)

The city will provide an online application for easy entry to the contest. 

Entries will be accepted from Monday, November 15th through Thursday, December 9th at 5:00 p.m. 

Judging will take place from Friday December 10, 2021, through Sunday December 12, 2021, from 6:00 - 9:00 pm. Recognition and awarding of the contest will be announced on the City’s Social Media outlets and a presentation with the contest results will be held on the following scheduled City Council meeting on December 15, 2021.