• City Council Meeting July 2018

A very long meeting translates into a relatively short blog. 

There were only two key agenda items here, and only one of those came with any hint of controversy: the additional penny sales tax coming to the November ballot.

The meeting started with State Senator Richard Roth leading the packed house in the Pledge of Allegiance, and then went into a presentation where the city thank the Senator for his work in getting the long missing VLF funds restored to the city.

State Senator Richard Roth holds up the plaque honoring his efforts on behalf of the city. 

Three Eagle Scouts were recognized by the council, one project involved repainting the water tower at Marna O'Brien park. Please see the video for more details.

back row: Tim Walker, Bridgette Moore, Dustin Nigg, Marsha Swanson. Front Row: Brenda Denstadt of Congressman Calvert's office, Mayor Ben Benoit, Eagle Scouts Monty Donovan, Grant Manley, Noah Hendley.

The next presentation was a proclamation of Parks Make Life Better Month, and key city staff that make the parks hum took some time to pose for a picture.

Back Row: Tim Walker, Bridgette Moore, Dustin Nigg, Marsha Swanson.
Front Row: Janet Morales, Ben Benoit, Daniel Torres and Cameron Luna.

The Chief of Wildomar Police, Captain Dan Anne, along with city building inspector Martin Haeberle, gave a homeless update. 

In short, they were discussing the difficulties involved in tackling the issues involving homeless encampments and what the city is doing about it.

Wildomar Rap opinion time

It's real easy for those of us in the general community to get loud about the homeless encampments, and the degradation to the quality of life that comes along with them. I've been very vocal about it, and I've not met a single person that isn't upset about them.

The tricky thing is, what can actually be done in the State of California about it? Nearly nothing, considering the various laws and propositions that have been past since 2010.

So it's fine to be angry, and to remind the local officials about it as often as you'd like, but it's good to also remember that there is next to nothing that can CURE the problem. Bandaids, one after another, are about the only current remedy out there.

As it was pointed out by Captain Dan Anne, being homeless isn't a crime, and solicitation is a protected form of speech that can be controlled to a degree (where and when) but cannot have a blanket ban applied.

For the full (22 min) presentation, please watch the video below.

At this point, the city council meeting was put on pause while those in attendance were invited to get a slice of cake to celebrate the city's 10th birthday.

City Clerk Debbie Lee cuts the cake. You can also see some 10 year pins on the table too.

After the cake break, it was time for Public Comments on non agenda items. This was a long meeting, and it was determined that to save some time, all public comments were going to be reduced from 3 to 2 minutes (26 speaker slips had been turned in). That put a crimp in many people's well honed comments, but everyone rolled with it.

There were seven comments, though the seventh one came more than an hour later since the speaker slip got lost in the rest of the stack.
1. I missed the name of the first speaker; it sounded like Arleen Crossinelli, but the topic was homelessness in town and the negative effects on her business.
2. Eric Dye spoke about the impacts of homelessness on his business.
3. George Taylor thanked the council for the repairs on Bundy Canyon, and invited them to The Farm's 4th of July parade.
4. Miss Miller vowed to save the oak trees on Bundy Canyon, even if she had to tether herself to one of them.
5. Monty Goddard spoke about CSA 103 and the Cervera greenbelt and his dissatisfaction with how it was handled and the lack of communication from the city on it.
6. Ken Mayes mentioned several items including food truck ordinances, Malaga Park and the new multi-use trail on Grand asking about their maintenance. He asked about CSA 103, and when will it be determined that it will either be on the tax bill or not. PV Maintenance invoices for streets that don't exist and when will Coffee With a Cop return.
7. Joseph Morabito spoke about his candidacy for city council, and that he wants to see better communication from the city to the residents.

2.1 One Cent Sales Tax on the November Ballot
This item took up a lot of time between presentations, public comments, council discussion and the vote. 

I'll give the highlights, but all that you need to know is that if you're a registered voter in Wildomar, you'll be asked to decide if you're willing to pay an additional penny sales tax on goods purchased in town, or not, this November.

Public Comments
Of the seven that spoke, no one was cheering for a tax increase, but two were opposed, and the other five were good with putting the measure on the ballot. 
  •  Gina Castanon  
  •  Ken Mayes
  •  Monty Goddard
  •  Joseph Morabito
  •  Patrick Ellis
  •  Andy Morris
  •  Brad Nee
The police and fire departments each had a presentation illustrating the response times over the years, various resources and what it would take to provide better coverage.

It's stunning how much things cost in the world where public employee unions run the show.

I'll add the basic comments from each of the council members from their discussion time just before the vote to approve. Most were just about a minute long. Watch the video for the full discussion.

Of course no one likes taxes. [...] Andy Morris said it perfectly [as to] why we became a city, [it] was [for] local control. When we became a city, and point-blank [...] they said we could become a viable city, and no one knew that the next year we were going to go into a downturn (the Great Recession) that would totally affect us. no one knew that we'd have all those lawsuits, constantly. One lawsuit would be done on a Thursday and the next lawsuit comes in a Monday. Then no one knew the governor was going to steal $12M from us. So, in ten years we sure have overcome a lot of challenges. Like I said, "No one likes taxes" but this is something we need, and we need this going forward. We need this revenue, every year, going forward for the safety and the quality of life for all the residents.

— Bridgette Moore

To me it's kind of cut and dry. The people, the voters that live here will have the opportunity to decide if they want [the additional tax]. If they don't want it, cool, we'll figure it out another way. If it passes, I like the idea that it being a general tax [...] if the money's not spent correctly, then guess what, I won't get re-elected. That's the way it's supposed to work. 

If the citizens decide they don't want it, they don't want it. But I think it's prudent of us to spend the money [to put it on the ballot], have some kind of confidence that this will pass. 

— Dustin Nigg

I tend to agree with my other council members, nobody wants more tax, but it's going to be necessary for the voters to make that decision. 

— Marsha Swanson

Wildomar Rap opinion time

There are a couple of ways I can handle trying to transcribe the comments from Tim Walker below. The problem I run into is that he meandered on for almost five minutes, and seemed to be directing a portion of is comments at me.

Since I'm running for his seat on the council, it would be completely in bounds to highlight the things he said here, but at the same time, it could be seen as self serving and a cheapshot by some. So I'm going to refrain from exploiting them in this blog by NOT transcribing them. I'll just add a couple of his comments that pertain to the tax.

If you are interested in the rest of it, which if you're a voter in District 3 you should be, they begin at the 51:40 mark of the video and end at the 56:10 mark.

You watch it, and you decide if his comments speak to you or not.

I would never make a decision to put a tax on people —ever! So, my thinking is, that's why we put it on the ballot. 

I'm not for a tax, but I will put it on the ballot because if everybody wants it, then I'll be willing to pay the one cent, it doesn't bother me at all.  

— Tim Walker

Coming into this eight years ago, when I first got on this council, even then I knew we might have rocky roads ahead. When the state took the VLF out from underneath us, it put us on a really difficult path. We've just finally got that back, but we're $12.5M short, that we'll never get back any other way. 

I feel very strongly that this is a way for us to move that pendulum back the other way, and we've got to. 

— Ben Benoit

3.3 Ordinance regarding aggressive solicitation
This was the other key agenda item of the night. To get more details, please read the previous blog that previewed the agenda item. LINK

I don't know why I thought it would take more time than it did, it's not like it could be controversial on any level, but I thought bringing in a much needed ordinance that aims to address the homeless issues would take more time. 

Wildomar Rap opinion time

I want to thank the city for getting this step accomplished. Like it was mentioned above, we need to know that there is very little that can be done to actually solve the homeless situation in our area. Especially based on the rules of engagement put into motion by elected officials many levels higher than our local leaders.

I didn't render out a specific video for this item, it's in the "everything else" video at about the 1:04:00 mark.

•                •                •

Love is friendship set on fire.
– Jeremy Taylor

Wildomar Rap is confused as to why setting friendship on fire equates to love. I've seen such up close, and wouldn't concur.

This blog was produced for viewing on a desktop or a laptop. Though it's been optimized for smartphones, the formatting can look odd on a smartphone or if you get this delivered through email (such as missing video links). Link to proper format.

• Special City Council Meeting August 2016

This meeting didn't have a definitive start time. Usually, closed sessions (where the council meets with the city attorney to discuss issues not ready for public dissemination) are held before or after the set time. 

The agenda for this meeting read: CLOSED SESSION - 7:00 P.M. SPECIAL MEETING IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE CLOSED SESSION.

The reason that this meeting had to be scheduled in this uncustomary fashion was that they needed to guarantee a quorum would be in attendance to vote on item 2.2 General Municipal Election – District 4.

Without three members voting for it, there would have been an election in District 4 with only one candidate, Bridgette Moore, listed —which would have wasted precious taxpayer money. With only one candidate, why go through the dog and pony show of a meaningless vote?

Normally, it wouldn't be a problem getting the requisite number of votes, but Councilmember Marsha Swanson is away on a Summer vacation, and Mayor Moore can't vote on the item since she is the subject of it. 

Councilmember Bob Cashman couldn't promise to make it back from his day at work in time for a regular start time of 6:30pm, or even a postponed start time of 7:00pm.

The next best option was this format.

The first thing that came out of this meeting was from the closed session. 

SoCal Environmental Justice is suing the city and Strata Baxter (the Baxter Village project). The council voted unanimously to defend against it.

2.1 Roth Senate Bill 817
This is our annual attempt to regain our confiscated VLF funds. If the governor signs it, it would be an addition of about $1.9M to the annual city budget.

Click image to see details.

There was some discussion about if there was a quote in print, from Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, about why Governor Brown keeps vetoing this same bill year after year. Councilmember Cashman said he'd heard about it, but never saw it in writing.

I couldn't help myself, so when it was public comment time, I reminded the council that there is a direct quote from the Assemblywoman in some local blog discussing it.

Below is the excerpt from Wildomar Rap's blog of October 2015. 

Wildomar Rap:

Bringing it back to legislation, maybe you can talk about SB 25 which was going to help Wildomar. I don't know if it's even worth trying anymore with the current governor. 

Melissa Melendez:

SB25 was a bill where they took away the [portion of the] Vehicle Licensing Fees that went back to the cities. Wildomar was one city, and Menifee as well, where when they calculated their budget, they calculated that money in with the other money they were supposed to be getting.

Then the state, in 2011, took that money away, and so there went Wildomar's budget. There has been a bill three years in a row, my entire time in the legislature, they have done a bill to give that funding back, because it was promised to these cities.

The cities didn't do anything wrong, they played by the rules, but the state took it (VLF funds) away. Three years in a row I helped with this bill and three years in a row the governor has vetoed it.

Now I will tell you, and I don't mind saying this out in public, that I had a conversation with governor Brown a couple of months ago. We were at dinner, not just he and I it was a group of people((which led to some laughter among the attendees)). But it just so happened that he was sitting right across from me... I got the lucky seat.

So I said to him, "Governor Brown, we have this bill coming up which will really helps two cities in my district [by] giving back their vehicle licensing fees. They were pretty hard hit, what are your thoughts on that?"

And he paused for a minute, and he looked at me in his Jerry Brown way, and he said, "What was the percentage of votes I got in Riverside County?" 
((The assembled let out a protracted gasp at that))

He actually said that to me. 

I was stunned, I said, "uhhh... Well... you know, it was probably higher in some other areas of the state." 

And he replied, "I think it was about 22 maybe 23%, so I'm not really motivated."

So that bill is never going to pass (be signed into law), ever.

Link to Blog of October 2015

This item was just for the council to discuss it, no action was to be taken here. 

Still, when I saw this posted on councilmember Benoit's facebook page today, I couldn't resist throwing my two cents in there too.

2.2 General Municipal Election – District 4

City clerk Debbie Lee gave the brief presentation to the council, less Mayor Moore (who had stepped out of the room for this item), the key factor was the cost. An estimate of $5k to $7k was given to hold an election in District 4.

When the budget was being made, there were no districts and the estimate for an 'at large' election was $35,000.

There were a grand total of three people in the audience for this "historic" meeting; Mr and Mrs Wildomar Rap, and Wildomar's Chief of Police, Captain Leonard Hollingsworth. 

I was the lone public commenter. I told them that I'd run into a couple of councilmembers from neighboring cities, Greg August of Menifee and Maryann Edwards of Temecula. They were of the opinion that an election, even with only one name on the ballot, was their preference.

In fact, Greg August is also running unopposed this year and he was adamant about wanting to be on the ballot. He didn't want to be 'appointed'.

Councilmembers have a lot of responsibilities, but they don't have the same background as a city clerk —whose job it is to know the ins and outs of elections.

Debbie Lee made it clear that even write in candidates still have to qualify. They still have to pull papers and qualify, they just don't get their names on the ballot or their statements in the voter pamphlets.

She further wanted to speak to the related comments from Maryann Edwards and Greg August about it being better to be elected.

A nomination paper is an election. Those people that have signed that, have elected you to that office. It's not an appointment. I too was confused about that until, in my last city [that I worked for], it got clarified for me. The nomination papers aren't just names saying "yeah, go ahead" it's people electing that person. If you cancel the election and appoint Bridgette, what you're in essence doing is saying she has been elected, and she does serve as if elected; it's even in the election code that way. 

Wildomar City Clerk Debbie Lee

Below is a video link that has the lone public comment, the council comments, Debbie Lee's comments and the vote.

Now Bridgette Moore gets to hold the titles of Mayor and Councilmember Elect until her next term begins in December 2016, when she loses the "elect" part. Congrats!

=================

UPDATE

=================

Candidate Linda Gonzales withdrew from the election on August 31st, but too late to save the election costs.

Click for link to blog discussing it.

===================

Here's a bit of unfinished business from the meeting that revealed the continued lawsuit against Walmart.

I was thinking about the road improvements slated for Bundy Canyon near the freeway. 

The improvements are to be completed before Walmart is allowed to open. There is no incentive for them to begin the road improvements (which includes widening, traffic signals and improvements to area drainage) while they are still in litigation.

Walmart has made it clear that it takes just under one year from first shovel in, to doors opening. It's a fair assumption to conclude that the road improvements would be finishing up around the same time that Walmart is ready to open.

Basic math tells you that if they'd have already started the process, then the countdown to the Bundy improvements would be underway. With a completion date of sometime in 2017.

But no. 

Everything is on hold because a no name person in the community, that claims to be impacted by the project, has decided to hold things up. They know they can't win, but to some people, just the power of jerking with the masses is payoff enough for them.

So, when the Bundy Canyon improvements are delayed by a year or more, just remember that was a gift from the yet to be named litigant in the case.

•          •          •

I'm throwing rocks tonight. Mark it, Dude.
— Donny, “The Big Lebowski” 1998 

Wildomar Rap has yet to lose a bet when Casa de Rap is wagered against boxes of day old donuts, and not even when the ante is upped by a flat, room-temp Coors Light.

• Governor Brown Relents... a little

Somewhat breaking news about, what seems to be, Wildomar's age-old fight with the governor over our missing VLF funds (About $1.8 million dollars per year).

It was a delight to see this from State Senator Roth's facebook page:

At the same time, I happened to see a Yahoo News article about Brown looking for a record budget.

Brown talking about record $115.3Billion budget. Click to read the story.

I responded to Mayor Pro-Tem Bridgette Moore's FaceBook post, saying I hoped that it could include the arrears too.

That's when  Mayor Ben Benoit posted a few details about it on FaceBook.

It looks like the money is just going to Riverside County to pay off our bondage to them from when we became a city.

My reply was this:

So it's good news... like we just won the lottery!!! 

Problem is we didn't win the grand prize, we only had a scratcher that was worth about $1000.

Still it's better than the repeated kicking in the family jewels that'd we'd been getting from him, so I'm sticking with my claim that we won the lottery here.

Thanks to all those that have kept this fight going until we got some kind of settlement.

•      •      • 

I was going to buy a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, and then I thought: What the hell good would that do?

— Ronnie Shakes

We at Wildomar Rap always value a token gesture over a sharp stick in the eye. 

• SB 69 Update... Where 4 Transmogrifies Into 22

I was asking Mayor-ProTem Ben Benoit for updates regarding SB 69, where we are hoping to get our VLF funds returned to us. For those that are unaware, that translates into a sizable chunk of Wildomar's yearly budget.

Here was the exchange...

I then asked him a wonky-ish (or is it -esque?) question. 

▼

So instead of having just four days left to hear about our fate, we now have about 22 days to go, assuming my California public education math isn't failing me now that is. 

If you'd like to see Wildomar get those funds back, I suggest that we all take this seriously. This will be the last chance on this one, if not forever, then certainly for the foreseeable future. 

Link to sample letter.
When you click the above link, it downloads the file as it does when you click the link on the city's website.

Share this info with your Wildomar friends.

—.—

Here is the contact information for the Honorable (cough) Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. - also know as El Baldo among his ardent followers.

Governor Jerry Brown

c/o State Capitol, Suite 1173

Sacramento, CA 95814

If you'd rather call or fax, here is that info. 

Fax:(916)558-3160

Tel:(916)445-2841 

Link to the Governor's official contact page.

This is the site you have to go to in order to email him.

—.—

For all you Dems, left leaning types, and other inexplicable Brown voters that think I'm being a bit disrespectful to Linda Ronstadt's old boyfriend by calling him El Baldo, let me remind you that this is the guy that is the number one booster to the Bullet Train to Nowhere —also known as "The Crazy Train" and the "Browndoggle"— that is going to cost us well over $100Bn and provide us nothing of real value.

That and the fact that he sided with unions, and bad teachers, over the educational needs of California's students, by appealing Vergara v. California. Let's not forget that he not only LOST the Tesla factory for California, but also is refusing to release public records in connection with the case.

Poor Li'l WillyMar, just wants to be treated like all the other kids... errr I mean cities.

So, as much as I'm rooting for Li'l Ol' WillyMar here, and that SB 69 was backed by a democrat (State Senator Richard Roth) which makes one think it might just actually be signed into law —due to the partisan nature of Sacramento, I'm still not too keen on holding my breath here.

—.—

Let's be friends... deal?

Wildomar Rap has long lambasted both political parties since they are both rapacious pigs hellbent on stealing us blind. I wonder If I was clear enough here about my true feelings on the matter?