• Planning Commission Meeting: Sycamore Academy

A couple of things on tonight's agenda worth noting.

The long plagued Oak Creek Canyon project was hit with another last minute document dump. So the issue will be continued until April 1st, 2015.

Gary Andre spoke and wanted it known that he has "no problems" with the project, but... He went on to speak for 9 mins, with donated time, discussing the problems just the same. He was concerned about soils tests and repeated more than once that it "wasn't Bill Lo's problem... How do you build homes next to a sewage treatment plant? You wouldn't want to build homes on top of sewage and people getting sick."

Good points Gary. When did you first realize this was potentially the case? I'm guessing that you had your documents ready long before the day of the Planning Commission meeting... right?

So what was the point of doing another last minute Document Dump... other than that's the only card you people seem to have in your hand?

I liked how Chairman Veronica Langworthy worded it: As a commission, we'd appreciate a more timely opportunity to read the information, so if you can get it to us a little sooner, that would be lovely.

To which Andre said, "No Problem".

To which I whispered to my lovely wife, "Yeah right."

Item 2.2 Sycamore Academy

A room full of Scorpions! (It's the name of Sycamore Academy's mascot, and you can see it on the green jerseys.)

The school project was hit by it's own 275 page document dump, around 4:00pm, by Wildomar's own self proclaimed activist, Martha Bridges and pals. The comments were not provided during the 30 day public review period. The actual letter was 2 pages, with 273 pages of exhibits.

Mark Teague spoke about the letter.

Two main points. The first was about liquefaction and the second about fault lines. "We feel that the information here [in the letter] doesn't raise any new environmental issue, or does it cause any problem with the project."

There was then a presentation by the school principal Barbara Hale, about their school's program and mission statement, followed by a detailed powerpoint, by the architect, for the new project.

Artist rendering of what the future campus will look like from it's northernmost point on Palomar.

Aerial view of the campus. To the left, you see the edge of the grassy field area that will provide a play area.

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A couple of interesting things I heard were that the school has a No Walk To School policy, and No Ride Your Bike either. I get that at its current location next to Baron's Market, but once it's at a real campus, I don't get it. I guess it's that I'm an old fashioned parent that's out of touch, because I had my kids ride their bikes, or walk, once they were old enough. My kids only got rides to school when it was actually raining.

The other thing that caught my attention was that the rules of a charter school are different than that of a typical public school. Sycamore Academy is attached to Ronald Reagan School and part of the District and open to all students without charge, but there are a ton of things that don't apply to them, that do apply to other schools such as the speed limit when children are present.

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CORRECTION

Sycamore is not "attached" to Ronald Reagan Elementary.

Though, according to the internet, it's full name is:

Ronald Reagan Charter School Alliance,Sycamore Academy Of Science and Cultural Arts 

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It's not an automatic thing that the speed limits will be reduced. 

I have two thoughts on that one. First, the city council needs to take the necessary steps to have the speeds lowered while kids are present. Second, since kids won't be allowed to walk or ride bikes, it seems that they won't be "present" and so maybe lowering the speed isn't necessary. I'll leave that to the city engineer to hash out with the council members. ☺

There were two public comments of note. First was George Taylor, and he made several strong points in support of the project.

• Win-Win for both the city and Sycamore Academy.
• The school gets a place out in "the country", where it's quiet.
• The city gets ready made office space, without having to go through the building process.
• As far as the seismic thing is concerned, we are at the tail end of a fault, and maybe we should all pack up and leave tomorrow morning. (I read that as a forearm shiver to those that would bring such a silly thing up in these here parts.)

Everyone loves Debbie Downer!

Next up was Kenny Mayes, and probably due to the applause that George got for his comments, Kenny started off by declaring himself as Debbie Downer as he proceeded to say that the school has no business being built on Palomar Street.

Watch the video to see it in real time, along with some well placed sound effects.   Principal Hale comes back to rebut a comment about the property line "being manipulated to be shoehorned into a parcel" to avoid environmental factors. 

There were two speakers from the school, Hillary Martinez and 6th grader Taylor Bedley. There were also 101 comment slips filled out in favor of the project.

Taylor Bedley speaks in front of a full house as the Planning Commissioners give him their full attention.

What an exciting campus they have in mind. If I had kids that were the right age, I'd be looking to get them into this school.

This is a bundle of 400 letters from the students.
This looks to be a future heirloom that the school will want to get back I'm sure.
There was also a giant banner that they didn't get a chance to unfurl.

The vote went 4-0 to approve. The only potential hitch is whether the Last Minute 275 page Letter Writers want to pay the $964 filing fee for the privilege of further trying to hold up this project with an appeal. They have ten days. Which means they'll wait until 9 days and 23 hours have passed before dumping more documents.

Let's hope not, though I told one city staffer that "I'm going to mortgage my house and head to vegas, putting it all down on the Bridge-Burner to do what she always does..."

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Last on the agenda was Westpark Promenade. It's still in the early stages, but it is another half commercial—half housing project. This has been discussed in the past, but has been revised a bit. This project is off of Clinton Keith Rd behind the USA gas station and abuts the I-15. 

In short, it includes 191 Townhomes, about 100,000sf of retail with two 8,000sf restaurants. It has a large anchor store and though a clothing or grocery store was mentioned, there are no commitments at this point. 

Commissioner Bobby Swann said, "You used the G word, and I think the worst thing we could do is put a grocery store there. I can't control what you do, but we're putting a Walmart one off ramp up, it's a Super Walmart, it's in essence a grocery store, and the existing grocery stores are going to have a [fiscal] problem with that."

Come on Bobby, we don't have a Ralphs, Vons, Pavilions or Gelson's yet... but I sure could go for a Winco myself.

There was a lot of wrangling about enough parking spaces for the condos, errr... I mean, Townhomes.

Had to love Langworthy's invocation of Little House on the Prairie again. Where you live above your own general store. Not sure how real that is in a wide open place like Wildomar, but it's good to have dreams.

The problem I see with this project is that the people that live off of Depasquale have an advanced case of the NIMBYs. They don't want ingress and egress going in and out of their neighborhood. 

Commissioner Stan Smith said it best on the topic, "That's what happens, you do a development, then the adjacent property gets developed. Then the residents that moved into the first development say 'Oh no, we don't want anything happening over here next to us.' So if you don't plan for it in advance you end up with this impact where you don't get adequate flow."

This project is still in the early phases, and there won't be much movement on it for months. Be sure to stay tuned.

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The best of men cannot control their fate,
The good die early, the bad die late.
— Daniel Defoe

The editor of Wildomar Rap can prep a mean Shepherd's Pie in under 30 mins, and the photographer enjoys it very much!

• Planning Commission Meeting: Walmart

Let's jump to the end... all the three items on the agenda passed 4-0. Commissioner Bidwell wasn't in attendance. Next stop is in front of the full City Council... not sure if that's the next meeting or not at this point.

Walmart had a full team that started at the foyer, with many easels holding various poster sized images.

There were 31 public speaker slips filled out, though most chose not to speak. Those people were in support of the project. There were no people there to speak against the project. Though many concerns were raised.

Chief among the concerns were drainage issues, whether Walmart will be utilizing reclaimed water for irrigation, light pollution, due diligence, police and fire services, being able to attract more big box stores, shame on the same old people filing lawsuits, road construction and traffic.

Click to see the video of these remarks.

There were no real fireworks, though the evening did start with another of Ray Johnson's hilarious document dumps. Thing is, Walmart doesn't even know that guy exists. Walmart has bigger fish to fry than that minnow. They have a group that follows them around from project to project and that's the legal hurdle they'll be looking to overcome.

A look at the rare Ray Johnson minnow.

I was expecting more hoopla, there was even a cop on duty to keep the rabble-rousers at bay... but none showed up. There was an overflow crowd, with about fifteen people listening from the hallway.

I had to chuckle when Walmart's attorney stood up and said they had been collecting "supporter cards" and that they've received 785 cards in support and only 10 against. Come on now... that is flat out silly. I've been running a poll, and out of 74 current votes, 39 are against it, while 35 are for it. I'm sure it's not accurate, but it's not any worse than Walmart's skewed stats on it.

Click to go to poll

City Engineer Dan York answered a question about when the road improvements would be done. He said that all the improvements will be done before the store opens, but I interpret that as they won't be finishing the roads until right before the doors of Walmart open.

The commissioners all made some points.

Commissioner Gary Brown asked about the closing of the existing store on Grape St. The answer he got was that it will close after the Wildomar store is opened and the Wildomar location is slated to open before the new Walmart that is planned for Lake Elsinore.

Commissioner Bobby Swann said he had questions... until Dan York answered them all. Also earlier in the meeting Bobby Swann asked about the Ray Johnson letter, here's a link to that part of the video.

Commissioner Stan Smith made good points about this project when he said that "Walmart didn't create the demand, they just are responding to the demand... Without commercial retail sales, Wildomar will not have the necessary funds to make needed improvements or increase public safety."

I also like Chairman Veronica Langworthy's inquiry about access to the Shell station from Walmart. Good point Veronica, I sure hope that Shell station is smart enough to play ball and think about what will bring them more customers, and not how to horse trade themselves into a corner that ends up cutting off much needed access for them after the raised median is put in on Bundy Canyon.

Below are some video links to the meeting.

First link is for the presentation of the project by City Planner Matt Bassi, and Mark Teague.

The video below is where the public comments can be seen. I edited out where Alfredo Garcia was reading out names of those that filled out speaker slips, but didn't want to speak.

The last video is where you'll see the commissioners discuss the project. Also where Dan York answers many questions about it.

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UPDATE

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After some discussion, of a way to get from Walmart to the Shell station in the comments below, Kenny Mayes brought it to my attention that in the plans, there is a place in the designs for such access where Sellers leads into the proposed Walmart. 

See the image below, the red circle showing the linkage between Walmart and Shell. I'm assuming the plans are correct, so I'm not sure why it was ever a topic. I'll have to ask for clarification when this comes before the city council.

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Nobody forces you to work at Wal-Mart. Start your own business! Sell something to Wal-Mart!
—Kevin O'Leary

Wildomar Rap is not a low price leader.