• City Council Meeting March 2018

I'm going to try something new with this City Council recap. Instead of writing in chronological order, I'm going to write about the things that matter, then I'll add the silly garbage at the end... and there was plenty of that tonight.

Presentations 
William Collier Elementary Principal Dorri Neal. She talked about Measure V monies in action, that at her school they still teach cursive handwriting and say the pledge of allegiance everyday. Link to WCE website

Public Comments (on non agenda items)
• Andy Morris speaking as a board member of EVMWD spent his time debunking erroneous internet chatter regarding the trips to Washington DC by EVMWD representatives. (See video for his comments)
• Damien and Michael McVey spoke about their, soon to be opening business, Just Yoga. They mentioned the grand opening for Wildomar Square which is Saturday, March 24th and they will be there with givaways and . It will be in Wildomar Square, next to The Habit. Link to Just Yoga FB page
• Warren Roche spoke about public safety/police protection, that his home has been broken into three times since he moved into the area in 2008. His second issue was "city staff's lack of response to phone calls." (Please see the video to see how it played out in real time). Though there was some confusion as to whether he left his number on the messages he left according to the City Manager, Mayor Ben Benoit jumped in. 

Public Comments on non agenda items aren't allowed to be discussed, by law, as are items that are on the agenda. The Mayor asked Mr. Roche to give him a call directly so that they can sort out his issues... which included a burnt out street light on the busy corner of Frederick and Charles in Windsong Valley. 

Wildomar Rap Opinion Time 
This is the exact reason why we have city council members to represent us. When a resident is needing help with important issues in town, the elected representatives need to be there to intercede and work on their behalf. Not all issues can be handled by a city council member, but a city council member still can take all issues seriously and see that they're attended to, to the full extend of their jurisdiction. Kudos to Mayor Benoit for taking the issue on with no delay. 

There were two more comments, but they are filed under "comedy" and will show in the "Silly Garbage" file after the real points of the meeting.

1.9 Clinton Keith Village
You may remember a blog I wrote last November detailing activity on the corner of Clinton Keith and George (link to blog). I talked to the grading super, or so I was led to believe, and was told that they'd be done in about three weeks. 

Location of Clinton Keith Village.

They were "done" in about three weeks, with that part of their grading. They had a taker for the dirt that needed to be moved, so they completed that part of it. 

I can't imagine why someone with authority would give out misleading info when asked, but I had been told that the buildings would be up as soon as August. Ummm... for that to come close to happening, they'll have to break some land-speed records.

Item 2.1 
This was just covered in the February Planning Commission write up. Here's the link if you'd like the details. It was a simple zone change so that it would be consistent with the General Plan. There are no plans in the works for this site. There was one public comment, but it'll be covered at the end of the blog.

Item 2.2 Smith Ranch Self-Storage
As with item 2.1, this was covered in depth in the February PC meeting (see link above). It only came to the council for final approval, which it was. 

There were two public comments on the item. William (last name not decipherable) had concerns about the grading of a hill on the property. If you watch the brief video, you'll see that he gets his questions and concerns answered, which also included the ingress and egress of the future business.

The second comment will be found at the bottom of the blog.

3.1 PEG Fees
I didn't hear the actual amounts proposed here, but understand this. If you have a cable bill, you will be getting a new charge tacked onto it (unless you think cable providers are magnanimous enough to eat that new fee). It's called a PEG fee. 

According to City Manager Gary Nordquist, "One city further south of us (presumably Temecula) generates over $176,000 a year in PEG Fees."

You may be asking what is that for?

People have been demanding live streaming of city meetings (including me), and this is the path chosen by the staff and approved by the council. 

From a Compcast website entitled, "Learn more about price changes on your bill".

Nothing is free, including public access television... or live streaming and archiving. Though I'm guessing there is a spectrum of various ways to accomplish such, and a spectrum of price tags that go with it too.

Wildomar Rap Opinion Time 
Originally, if it had been me, I'd have gone with the most economical method out there, that would also have given the most basic, least impressive, video capturing of the meetings. 

Such a set up could have been manned with volunteers or interns. If, after a trial period of a year or two, the topic wanted to be revisited, great, discuss it then.

But this is where I erred, where I had no vision and needed more details of the video services that the city manager has in mind.

The service they have in mind goes well beyond streaming video. It'll also be taking the minutes of the meetings, indexing the videos to be synced to the agenda. Meaning, once the videos are up, if you're interested in agenda item 2.2, you'll click on that part of the agenda, and the video will start at that spot.

It'll also help with certain records requests.

Though we could find a way to do it on the cheap, it would look like it was done on the cheap too. 

Reminds me of my opinion of can openers. 

If you buy one from the 99¢ store, it's going to break in no time flat and do a poor job until it does. It's better to go with quality from the start, and after hearing about the details of the video system, and all that it entails, I have to agree it is the one to go with.

In the two minute video below, you'll hear the explanation of PEG Fees and the council voting to approve them. I didn't really hear when they're supposed to be implemented or how much they're supposed to be. 

It was suggested to me that the fees will be about 1% and that it'll be up to the discretion of the providers if they choose to add that to the bill or not.

Hmmm... anyone wanna bet if the cable providers will be the eating PEG fee or passing it on? Any takers?

3.2 Measure Z Appointments
The Measure Z Citizen's Oversight Advisory Committee is comprised of five people. They meet quarterly to see that the $28, per parcel, yearly park maintenance fee is being spent appropriately... and to be harangued by bored people with nothing better to fill their lives with.

Scott Rux and Shelley Hitchcock were reappointed, they had been appointed last year to cover the remaining months in prior committee members' terms. Also appointed was Steve Regalado. He is also serving as Post Commander at the local VFW.

City Manager Report

Mentioned in the report was:
  •  The Eggstravaganza set for March 24th at Marna O'Brien Park.
  •  Paving of the bike lanes on Grand Avenue and the multipurpose trail. 
  •  The city's website is supposed to be up this week. He encouraged the community to make suggestions as to features they'd like to see on the City's webpage. 

I have a suggestion, we need a very easy way to report code violations from a smartphone that will allow geotagged photos of the issue at hand. 

Wildomar Rap Opinion Time 
Some of you may not be aware that I like and respect those on the city staff (tee hee). That doesn't mean I think they've done a flawless job on all things, but I don't see the point in being a town crank that whines about every crack in the sidewalk either.

That said, we all end up being part of projects that we'd like a Mulligan on, and my guess is that the website is one of them (or at least I sure hope it is). 

Maybe it's "too soon" to talk about, but this has not been a good experience, watching one promised date after another go by with nothing to show for it. The latest delay was placed at the feet of America's Hat (Canada to the uninitiated). 

"We experienced a couple of setbacks with our Canadian vendors." 

Hey, I get that, my wife used to be Canadian, and I still try to blame her for things.

I found a comment I made to someone at a September WR blog on the subject.

It may be a small thing, but the city's website is the primary way for people to keep up with what is happening here. We can still respect the people, and not be a fan of the process that has proven unworkable in this endeavor.

  •  Deputy City Engineer Matt Bennett will be taking a new job in Highland and will no longer be with the City of Wildomar.

The meeting finished with a moment of silence in honor of the passing of long time city employee, Kirk Schrader. Michelle Schrader came to the podium and said a few words and pointed out some of Kirk's family members that were in the audience.

The Interact club of Elsinore High School will be placing a tree (type yet to be determined) at the cemetery in his honor.

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Actually, it's not different on any level. It's the same old same old from the same old.
Still, some people like to hear about it.

Now, for the promised silly garbage.
Let's go with Miss Miller first. 

What can I say that the videos don't say for themselves? I'm sure that she's well-intentioned, but between her dramatics, hysterics and nonsense statements, it is a major distraction, and waste of time of everyone in attendance.

When I first caught her act years ago, my eyes were popping out, mouth agape and I couldn't contain the laughter. That wore thin in no time, but every now and then she'd uncork something new, and she would find my funny bone again.

There were too many rants of her's to post here, just watch the videos... some of which last longer than her time at the podium because later on you can hear her shouting from the cheap seats.

The highlights were: 
  •  When she declared that the current meeting was in violation of the Brown Act, and that it should be adjourned then and there.
  •  Wanting the city to build a homeless shelter, with the proviso, "If housing challenged people take care of it, then it remains open. Otherwise, it closes".
  •  She coined the new portmanteau: volumptuos (apparently marrying the words voluminous and voluptuous). She used it to describe large amounts of flowing water. It's at the 10:15 mark of the video.

Miss Miller, open space is important and should be conserved when possible, but other people's private property is NOT open space. Let's try and keep that in mind for your future trips to the lectern. 

Now time for everyone's favorite waste of oxygen, Ken Mayes. He just pulled one of the most hilarious blunders of all time. 

He's been a major proponent for live streaming meetings, and unless he has some kind of inside line that such a thing is going to be up and running soon, he basically just shot himself in the foot with his last comment (video below). 

Are you sitting down? Are you ready to roll on the floor while laughing? He basically threatened/promised the city people that he will no longer speak to them until they start live streaming.

Seriously?

Let me get this straight. You want something, so your version of persuasion is to threaten your silence if you don't get what you want? Even more impressive would have been to start holding your breath right then and there.

I don't want to make any enemies of the council and staff by tipping you off to something that every grade schooler has known since they were in diapers, but the proper way to threaten people is with things they'll HATE, not things they'll LOVE.

If you had a clue about what you were doing, you'd have told the council that you'd take up every last minute entitled to you. You'd speak for the max time in every public comment opportunity, and do so with as much donated time as you could muster. You'd let them know that until they capitulated to your demands, you'd be adding at least an hour to every meeting. That would have gotten their attention. Not your promise to remain silent. How is it that you got it completely backwards?

Here's the thing. We both know that your word is a joke when it comes to such promises. There may be a few people that remember you making the same, "I'm never posting again" promise over at The Patch back in late 2013. How long is "never" in your dictionary? About three days?

The office pool jackpot is rivaling that of March Madness with how soon that promise of yours will snap like a twig trying to support an elephant.

If the readers of this blog watch the video, and end up wondering who "the Mussolini and his black shirts" are... I'm still not sure who "the black shirts" are, but he's calling me out as Il Duce. 

Last week, according to him, I had "Gestapo tactics" (an allusion to Hitler), this week I'm head of the black shirts. Eventually he'll call me Stalin, Pol Pot, Che Guevara, Lex Luthor, Hannibal Lecter, Hans Gruber, Freddie Kruger and Nurse Ratchet too.

Apparently tall tale tellers don't like to have their fibs exposed. I think there's an app for that.

Just like he took "credit" for getting $20 off the property taxes of the Windsong Valley tax payers (something we've been paying since day one that our houses were built ((CSA 103)), that pays for landscaping and drainage, but is going right back onto the bills where it belongs) he needs to claim responsibility for any increase on cable subscriber bills with the soon to be added PEG Fee mentioned above.

On behalf of all those affected by your diligent efforts, thanks Kenny.

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"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
– Albert Einstein

Wildomar Rap is certain that the father of relativity coined that phrase after watching the public comments at a Wildomar city meeting.

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. Link to proper format.

• Planning Commission Meeting February 2018

Two items of note came from the February 21st Planning Commission meeting. 

Item 2.1 Smith Ranch Self-Storage

This should have been a slam dunk, but got hung up a bit discussing how a perimeter wall, with a two foot pathway, would be maintained. 

From the presentation.

In the end, the applicant agreed to have a maintenance plan in place, that would be approved by the city planners, before permits were to be issued.

The other hang up came as to when it would be built and how much time would it take. 

This project is planned to built in three phases

This is to be a family run business with their corporate headquarters transferred from Temecula to Wildomar upon completion of Phase I, which was estimated to take between 9 and 12 months after groundbreaking.

It was explained that Phase II would begin after Phase I was 70%-90% occupied. Then, depending on the economy, Phase II would begin, which would take between 5 and 6 months to complete. In turn, Phase III would follow the pattern of Phase II.

In the end, it was approved 3-0 with Commissioners Ballard and Strong absent.

Item 2.2 Boyajian Consistency Change of Zone

This item got a lot of attention, but there is no point in going into any real details at this point since it was stated up front:
"There are no immediate plans to develop this site".

A look at the General Plan map and the Zoning map.
The area in question is designated by the blue star within the odd diamond shape.

This was just a formality for the current owner to get the zone changed to meet the General Plan (from what I heard after the meeting, it's so that it'll make it easier for them to sell the land). 

For those that read Wildomar Rap regularly, we went through this last Summer with the Camelia Townhouse fiasco. When many irate homeowners from the adjacent development (Grizzly Ridge), coupled with a known contingent of Wildomar cranks, tried to block that development.

There were many local residents from the North Ranch community that spoke against this. North Ranch is a new development, visible from Clinton Keith Road, off of Stable Lanes Road. 

This For Lease sign is clearly visible in the Google Maps November 2016 edition.
You can see the southern edge of North Ranch in the distance.

The concerns were all the usual NIMBY things: 

• quality of life
• increased traffic 
• homelessness
• fire hazards 
• lose of privacy 
• lower property values, etc.

Funny thing about this is that North Ranch is a brand new area. Being that I live in Windsong Valley, I was so happy to see it get built. Now I have a short cut to Barons.

Seriously though, each person that moved there should have been fully apprised of what was in store for that corner. It's been on the GP as Commercial Retail for as long as Wildomar has been a city. 

This is what the same corner looked like in 2007. Notice, there are no houses in the background, because North Ranch was years off into the future.

The RR designation (zoning for Rural Residential) was something that the county slapped onto most parcels that weren't already developed, or in development at the time. If you want to blame Riverside County for being sloppy and lazy, I doubt you'll get too many defending them... unless there are some Bob Buster holdovers still out there.

I feel for the residents, a bit, but you can't expect to move into a place that has a General Plan —that includes Commercial Retail, then get angry because the landowners want to develop their lands. This is still the USA, though I've heard that some people want California to secede. 

I imagine that many of the same people that spoke at the Planning Commission meeting will attend the March 14th City Council meeting to repeat their grievances. 

Let's hope that in the meantime, all those concerned will brush up on the General Plan and what its intent is. Also how the Zoning Map is not about what goes there as much as how it goes there (set backs, parking spaces, landscaping, etc).

UPDATE

It was drawn to my attention that the image of the For Lease sign on the corner wasn't of the parcel in question. Since the comments from the public speakers were discussing commercial retail off of Stable Lanes, I used that image and the basic NIMBY points remain valid.

I did come up with two other Google Images to give people a more accurate view of the area. 

The yellow star is the location of item 2.2. The reddish star denotes the corner of Stable Lanes and Clinton Keith that are in the google images I used above.

A 2014 image of the back of the field in question with a for sale sign prominently displayed, which is directly across from the Stater Brothers shopping center, on Hidden Springs Road.

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"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."

– Goethe

Sounds like Goethe has read Wildomar Rap more than once.