• Congressman Calvert and the City Council

Well, it was nothing of what I'd expected. I really was anticipating a full house and plenty of public comments. I got to the council chambers about 20 mins before start time to see a locked door and an empty hallway. I figured if there were people wanting to speak in front of our Planning Commission, which is a regular occurrence, there would be a throng of those wanting to get on the record in front of a congressman.

This is where you insert the game show buzzer sound >>>RRRR<<< because I was 180 degrees wrong on that one.

I was among a very few that weren't with the city or part of the congressman's entourage.

Before the meeting was called to order, congressman Ken Calvert came over to me and introduced himself. He's represented this general area for 21 years, so I asked if he knew my dad (a former business owner in Corona) and they had met before.

Council Member Bridgette Moore, Mayor Marsha Swanson, Congressman Ken Calvert, Mayor Pro Tem Ben Benoit.

Several topics were brought up.

• Funding for Bundy Canyon (which led to a conversation about gas taxes)
• Help with getting funds restored that were taken away by the state
• Waterways and fairy shrimp 
• Modifying and modernizing the Endangered Species Act "to reflect the reality of today's society."
• Some addresses in town that still have Lake Elsinore listed as their city

In the end, as pleasant as the 40 minutes were, I didn't see how anything was going to be noticeably different here any time soon. We all know that congress is broken, and even the most well intended ideas are usually going to go nowhere... or if they were to, it will be so many years into the future that I'd have forgotten they were ever on the table in the first place. Welcome to the snail pace of government. Oh, and most of the things we face are local or state level, and a Republican Congressman is going to have little sway over our governor... even if they've known each other for years.

Check out the brief video of comments that are out of context. Calvert jokingly talks about whether or not Gov. Jerry Brown listens when he (the congressman) speaks to him... I only included it because he mentions "the blog getting back to Jerry" which I found to be funny.

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• A Terrific Grand Re-Opening For Wildomar's Parks

Yesterday saw the FINAL grand opening of our parks... though you can be sure there are still those out there that would gladly waste a "third wish" on turning our city back into part of the county, gleeful at the thought that the parks might turn back into weed patches... but thankfully there are no such things as genies in bottles and third wishes.

It was a great morning, especially if you were a kid. Check out the video, it's starts with one round of the egg hunt, from a kid's eye level, and then has a slide show of how the day looked to me. Don't worry, I set the pictures to 3 seconds, and it goes by quickly with some great music by Kevin MacLeod of  incompetech.com.

Here are a few pics of our local VIPs, but really, you need to watch the video to get a better feel of the day.

Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, Mayor Marsha Swanson, Council Member Tim Walker and Mayor Pro Tem Ben Benoit.

from left to right (top row)  Daniel Torres, Les Chapman, Dan York, Gary Nordquist (not visible), Debbie Lee, Janet Morales. (Front row) Council Member Bob Cashman, Mayor Pro Tem Ben Benoit, Council Member Bridgette Moore, Council Member Tim Walker, and standing with microphone is Mayor Marsha Swanson.

Council Member Bridgette Moore cuts the ribbon making it official.

Those two flags look pretty good together.

Jackpot, of the Storm, is bro-ing down with the Easter Bunny.

Oh, and if you're looking for me to complain about anything here, you probably should go seek out one of those other local blogs, that specialize in such things. It would be great to live in a perfect world, but until such a thing exists, I'm not going to kvetch about things that don't amount to a hill of beans.

The parks are OPENED, though the grass still needs time to mature before it can handle heavy sports play. So easy does it for a few more weeks —then go hog wild on it.

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• Dog Park Reopens and an Owl House

Today Wildomar's dog park reopened. It was after a lot of hard work that was captained by Eagle Scout candidate, Mike Ames. There are two Eagle Scout projects that are aimed at helping the parks and I'm going to dedicate blogs to each of those soon (there are a lot of pictures that tell a good story).

Here is a before and after look at the dog park.

The park was in a dismal condition before the Eagle Scout project.

Such a difference after a lot of team work.

In addition to the dog park reopening there was a brief ceremony dedicating the newly installed owl box. The event was attended by school children from Wildomar Elementary, of which the owl box was a project.

A large crowd of eager students, teachers and parents were on hand.

City Manager, Gary Nordquist, says a few words about the park and the owl house. You can see Mike Ames, alongside Council Member Bridgette Moore at the right side of the picture.

Now that the owl house/owl box is in place, as Gary Nordquist put it,  
"if you know any owls looking for a nice place to live, just send them on over," 
which got hoots from the crowd. ("Hoots" —get it?) ☺











After the students went on with another part of their outing, Mike Ames called all the volunteers together and gave a heartfelt thanks to all those that made the project possible. Mentioning Janet Morales, among many, for making the project a reality.

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• City Council Meeting April 9, 2014

Tonight's meeting started with moment of silence for Joe Tunstall.

Click for Obituary

Then there was a presentation to Sean D'encarnacao — David A. Brown Middle School THINK Together and some of the players from their basketball program.

There was a proclamation that May is Mental Health Month.

In the Council Communications portion there were many interesting tidbits, so I figured I should just upload the video for you to take in the info for yourselves. Many various things mentioned by the five council members, and comments by John Garrett about May 3rd's Astronomy Night at Marna O'Brien park.

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The next part was Western Riverside County Climate Action Plan Update. 

We already went over this at the Planning Commission meeting... but everything has to be presented to the council, so they had to sit through it too.

Look, it is flat out asinine to think that Wildomar, or Western Riverside County could impact Global Climate Warming Change (or whatever you want to call it now) a single iota. Dialing back on our carbon emissions is utter folly and a complete waste of time.

That isn't to say that any sane person is

for wasting our resources, or in favor of pollution.

You could remove all of Riverside County from the map and it would have  ZERO  impact on Global Climate Issues (real or perceived).

You could remove  ALL  of California, all 38,000,000 of us (which is less than half of 1% of the world's population) and it would still have next to NO impact when China and India are constantly expanding, with plans to build more than 1,000 new coal plants planned worldwide. 

Sorry envirosexualists, but silly little things like that can be found in the WRCOG Climate Action Plan are a complete feel good waste of time. If you insist on thinking the emperor has a beautiful robe on, have at it.

I was happy to see Council Member Tim Walker not be on board with this and be willing to go on the record about it. His comments can be seen starting at  16:40  of the video below. This was a no vote issue, just that the city council receive and file the report.

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Followed by the Murrieta Regional Trail Project. 

Again, if you are interested in this exciting project, take a look at the video (actually, listening will be fine here, there are no true graphics in it). You can always contact City Engineer Dan York and ask to see a copy of the power point presentation. You can also click here to see the highlights that I blogged about earlier on the topic.

http://wildomarrap.blogspot.com/2014/04/murrieta-creek-regional-trail-project.html

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Last of the meeting was Future Agenda Items. 

Ben Benoit had a couple of ideas.

The first was a new one for me. The suggestion to change Baxter Road to Wildomar Parkway. Though "Parkway" seemed to be out of place, when I think of roads like Laguna Niguel's Crown Valley Parkway, that stretches from Antonio Parkway all the way to Coast Hwy. Still, replacing the freeway visible Baxter with something that says the name of our town is appealing. After the meeting, Benoit told me that the suffix wasn't the important part.

Let's put it to a vote... I'd like to suggest Wildomar Highway J/K... Take a look at all these street suffixes and see which one you like best.  http://pe.usps.gov/text/pub28/28apc_002.htm

The second was to get the post office to finally change some of Sedco Hills addresses to Wildomar. Check out the video to hear the details.

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• Murrieta Creek Regional Trail Project

If local trails are something that you are interested in, you'll want to attend this week's (April 9th) city council meeting. 

One of the things that I enjoyed hearing about earlier this year was the Murrieta Creek Regional Trail Project. 

This will stretch 17 miles from Temecula to Lake Elsinore.

City Engineer Dan York will be giving a power point presentation about the project. I've seen the pdf file and it's very comprehensive, but here are a few key slides to give you an idea of what's on the table.

Here are two views of the same area being discussed. The first is a general map, the second shows nearby trails.

                      Allow me to retype what is on the slide                

1. Isolated segment of existing DG trail developed along the western levee of Murrieta Creek.
2. Beginning of asphalt surface trail developed along the eastern levee of Murrieta Creek.
3. View of the Murrieta Creek corridor looking south beyond future Temecula Parkway bridge.
4. Existing asphalt surface multi-use trail running adjacent to Diaz Rd.
5. View of the confluence area of Murrieta Creek and Santa Gertrudis Creek.
6. Bridge at Rancho California Road crossing over the Murrieta Creek corridor.
7. Facilities at Rotary Park, including parking, playgrounds and picnic areas, provide an opportunity to establish a formal trailhead.
8. View of trail intersection at Rancho California Road.

1. Informal natural surface trail along Murrieta Creek near Vineyard where future proposed levee trail will be developed.
2. Existing DG trail segment runs along Murrieta Creek corridor to the end of Sykes Park.
3. The Murrieta Equestrian Park represents one of the few equestrian staging area opportunities for Murrieta Creek Trail users.
4. View of Kalmia  St as it crosses Murrieta Creek.
5. Small greenbelt adjacent Murrieta Creek just off of Kalmia at Calle Estancia.
6. Critical creek crossing point from existing DG trail segment into Copper Canyon Park.
7. View of the B St bridge as it crosses over the Murrieta Creek corridor.

1. Existing steel frame bridge across Murrieta Creek inlet.
2. View of locked gates where the creek inlet meets Grand Ave.
3. Looking west across Union St to concrete lined creek inlet.
4. Looking west at trail entry point off McVickar St.
5. Existing segment of DG multi-use trail along a portion of Grand Ave.
6. Existing shade structure at trail entry point at western end of Gruwell St.
7. View of Gruwell St as it crosses over the Murrieta Creek corridor.
8. View of Central St as it crosses over the Murrieta Creek corridor.

1. View looking north from Serenity Park over Lake Elsinore open space where many informal trails intersect and connect into the lake levee trail.
2. Break in the fence from Serenity Park indicate where non-sanctioned trails intersect with the park.
3. Locked gates to flood control channel on northside of Corydon St.
4. From Palomar St, looking south into the the flood control channel which connects off of Corydon St.
5. The Lake Elsinore levee trail continues on to the lake Elsinore Diamond, a potential significant "anchor" point for the northern terminus of the regional Murrieta Creek Trail.
6. Access road behind Lakeland Village Middle School wraps around Rome Hill and connects into the lake levee trail.
7. The Lake Elsinore levee trail provides significant hiking and biking opportunities for trail users.

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I was asking Dan about this and learned that this has the National Parks and the Sierra Club on board with it. Though it would take time to complete, there is a one year goal for connectivity. 

Come on out to city hall and learn more this Wednesday. Meeting starts at 6:30PM but you may want to get there fifteen minutes earlier than that.

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• Joint Work Experience Program

This week I had the pleasure of meeting an inspiring group of young adults. They are all part of the school district's Joint Work Experience Program. A program that takes special needs students and gets them job experience.



I met them at city hall, where they were sorting flyers, for the coming Eggstravaganza Egg Hunt, to be distributed to the local schools.



In the group were Kristina Koenings, Mathew Morse, Louis Mauries, Michael Watersfriend and Corey Heller, of the Adult Transition Program; students aged 18-22. They all allowed me to ask them questions about the program, though Louis and Kristina preferred to not be photographed. 

Michael Watersfriend sorting flyers.

The work was being done in a conference room/break room at city hall.

Job Developer, Lori Olson, giving tips to Mathew Morse (left) and Corey Heller.

While the group was busy working I had a chance to ask Lori Olson more about the program. Here is some of what I learned.

• The adult program is based out of Ortega High School.
• Each high school in the district has a program, supported by a total of three job coaches.
• Students can enter the program once they are in 11th grade.
• There are currently 30 local businesses in the program, known as Community Business Partners.
• Students do not get paid —as they are interns, but they do get invaluable work experience, and often given small perks related to the business (like a meal at a restaurant, or perhaps movie tickets if they are working at the cinema).
• The school district provides liability and worker's comp insurance.
• They also provide the transportation to and from the business.
• The district monitors the student's progress.
• There are currently 100 students in the district-wide program.
• They get their Food Handler Certificates when working around food.

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Meet some of the participating student interns from the Adult Transition Program.

 Here is a look at the program's Mission Statement. 

I asked Lori about how local businesses could participate. 

Email is a good first contact.

lori.olson@leusd.k12.ca.us

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• Planning Commission Highlights: Now There Are Five

A couple of things I took away from tonight's planning commission meeting.

First, we have five of five seats filled for the commission again. Council Member Bob Cashman's pick of Dan Bidwell was sworn in.

General business 3.1 Bundy Canyon 38 GPA Initiation Request

According to Planner Matt Bassi, we may be seeing the last of the GPAs (General Plan Amendment) once we get our General Plan done.

Here's a quick run down of how I interpret a GPA.

It's a request by a developer/land owner to change the zoning for a certain area. From what I've gathered, if we were a more established city, that had a General Plan in place, such amendments wouldn't be part of the process. So, in essence, such a request for a GPA at this stage, amounts to nothing more than saying, "sure, make your preliminary plans and get back to us."

All it does is give them the ok to start coming up with details and concepts for a project. 

By the Planning Commission "recommending" that the council ok the GPA, it only allows the developer to start with studies and other preliminary work. Unless the developer was suggesting building a combo Sriracha Sauce/Pampers Recycling plant on the playground of one our elementary schools, I'd always vote yes for a GPA.

It's their money (for the studies, et al), and if they want to try and float a lemon of a project on the planning commission, they can be told "no" then. In the meantime, this is still the USA and landowners have rights that need to be respected.

Public speakers on the matter were Gail and George Taylor. Both made fair points about the potential impacts of the project. Which was said to be between 275 and 300 units, on 36 acres on the north side of Bundy Canyon just west of Tulip Lane. We all know that Bundy Canyon is a nightmare in waiting, it's already pretty challenging as it is. Just wait until the Walmart goes in there... Still, I think George may have exaggerated a wee bit when he labeled Wildomar as the High Density [housing] Capital of the World.



Let's face it, this city is in desperate need of apartments and condos, and I don't mean those overpriced ones that are just now opening behind Albertson's off of Clinton Keith Road.
The younger generation is in need of quality housing, that people just starting out can afford.

Those are called apartments... something that is in short supply here. Still, I don't see how "clustering" up to 300 units (still not determined whether rentals or for ownership) would work on that property, especially before Bundy Canyon is improved.

Standard math here tells us that 36 acres divided by 300 units is about 8.3 units per acre... but like the gentleman said, they weren't going to be disturbing the hill in front, and they were going to "cluster" the units in the center.

I've been to this site, it is rather hilly and seems like quite an undertaking. So, they aren't using all 36 acres to build. It seems that they couldn't really even use half of it for building. That means to get the number of units they have in mind, they'd have to double it to about 16 units per acre. I don't know that that is bad, but it sure is a far cry from what's already zoned there, and that's before the traffic considerations.

I still subscribe to the grassy knoll theory when it comes to building in Wildomar. Meaning, that builders/developers know all too well about the sue happy clicque here, and are smart to suggest something that is off the charts and would never be approved. Then they can come back at a later date, with a more modest proposal, something that they had in mind the whole time (wink,wink), and now everyone is happy because the project is more "reasonable".

The vote was 4-1 in favor of recommending that the council approve the GPA (Commissioner Langworthy voting no, though both Commissioners Gary Brown and Dan Bidwell later said they weren't too keen on such a project as this).

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The balance of the meeting, was finishing up the General Plan Update from the meeting before. It lasted until past 9:30pm. Ouch! It was interesting, but mind numbing at the same time (no offense, nothing personal). 

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