• Memorial Day 2021

Beautiful skies and perfect temps greeted those in attendance for Wildomar's annual Memorial Day remembrance event.

The names of the five from Wildomar that lost their lives, serving our nation, while wearing our nation's uniform. Nathan Bouchard, Fernando Hannon, Justin Hunt, Daniel Ray Parker and Eric Seaman.

More than a dozen motorcyclists from both the VFW and American Legion attended.

The service included an opening prayer by Gracepoint Church's Reverend Wink Davis. A welcome message from Mayor Pro-tem ben Benoit.

Wildomar Mayor Pro-tem.

Presentation of colors followed by the pledge of allegiance led by State Senator Melissa Melendez, and a beautifully sung rendition of our National Anthem by Jeanna Oliver. 

Jeanna Oliver as she sang our National Anthem.

The keynote address was delivered by the incoming VFW 1508 Post Commander, Charles W. Golden III.

Good words to keep in mind all year long.

"We as a nation must always remember, we must remember the price that was paid for our liberties. We must remember the debt we owe those who have paid it and the families they left behind."

  

—Charles W. Golden III

•                •                •

“A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?”

– George Washington

Wildomar Rap salutes the guardians of the liberties of our country. Past, present and future; thank you.

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Press Release: WCE Bankruptcy

Below you will find the press release from Western Community Energy, and then if image isn't easy to read, below will be the text of the release.

POWERED BY THE COMMUNITY

3390 UNIVERSITY AVENUE, SUITE 200 | RIVERSIDE, CA 92501

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 24, 2021

Media Contact:

Elisa Laurel

951-206-4498

elaurel@wrcog.us

www.westerncommunityenergy.com

WESTERN COMMUNITY ENERGY FILES FOR CHAPTER 9 BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION TO RESTRUCTURE ORGANIZATION’S FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS

State mandates related to COVID-19 and increasing power costs due to state renewable energy requirements cause WCE to seek Chapter 9 Bankruptcy protection and reorganize finances.

RIVERSIDE, CA – On Monday, the Western Community Energy (WCE) Board of Directors approved a resolution declaring a fiscal emergency and authorized its legal counsel to move forward with the filing of a Chapter 9 Bankruptcy petition to allow for the restructuring of WCE’s financial obligations.

Several external contributing factors have impacted WCE’s financial situation since the program was implemented at the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic in April 2020.

In August 2020, California experienced an unprecedented heat event, which resulted in substantially higher power needs and a spike in the cost of energy. 

Although WCE had secured 90% of its electricity needs for the summer of 2020, the heat storm exhausted the projected supplies prematurely. 

An additional $12 million in energy costs were incurred throughout the 2020 summer season due to the unanticipated warm weather. Additionally, a tightening of the requirements of the State of California for Resource Adequacy (RA) created a shortage in the market, significantly increasing the cost of regulatory compliance.

Additionally, the Governor of California issued an order during the COVID-19 pandemic, implemented by the California Public Utilities Commission, mandating that no customers could be disconnected due to non-payment of their utility bills. Over the last year, delinquencies averaged ten times higher than pre-Pandemic industry standards and have cost WCE millions of dollars in added cost burden.

“The ongoing impacts of COVID-19 severely limited the organization’s options moving forward and

forced today’s action,” said Todd Rigby, Chairperson of WCE.

 

“Chapter 9 protection gives us the opportunity to restructure the organization and reorganize our finances. We look forward to working with our legislators, the Governor, and other parties to identify a pathway forward for WCE.”

Customers of WCE will not experience any service disruptions as a result of today’s actions and WCE will continue to keep customers updated as more information becomes available.

POWERED BY THE COMMUNITY

3390 UNIVERSITY AVENUE, SUITE 200 | RIVERSIDE, CA 92501

WCE has engaged the law firm of Weiland Golden Goodrich, LLP, to help the organization through the Chapter 9 process. Goodrich specializes in bankruptcy proceedings and has a combined 135 years of experience in managing Chapter 9 petitions. 

The Chapter 9 petition has been filed with the Federal Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California. Following the filing, WCE will proceed through the bankruptcy process to work with potential lenders, creditors and regulators to adjust WCE debt and operations and protect the interests of its customers. The process is estimated to take approximately six months.

###

About Western Community Energy

Western Community Energy (WCE) is a joint powers authority, consisting of the Cities of Eastvale, Hemet, Jurupa Valley, Norco, Perris, and Wildomar, and was formed for the purpose of developing a Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) Program that purchases energy on behalf of its residents and businesses to offer a cost competitive alternative to electricity rates. A CCA provides the community choices when it comes to energy mixes and programs, while providing local control over rate setting.

For more information, please visit westerncommunityenergy.com.

Work to form WCE began in 2016, with the development of a Feasibility Study that examined the viability of moving forward with a CCA by looking at the energy markets and the costs associated with purchasing power on behalf of its customers. As a result of the findings that a CCA would be feasible, WCE was formed as a new program.

WCE aims to provide its customers:

 Competitive, often lower, electricity rates

 A cleaner, more efficient energy supply

 Consumer choice, consumer protection, and local control over rate setting and programs

 Local jobs creation and local power resiliency

 Opportunities to develop future complementary energy programs such as net energy metering, energy efficiency retrofits, distributed rooftop and community solar, electric vehicle incentives and demand response technologies

 New renewable power development

About Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) Programs A CCA is a model that allows communities to aggregate its power and then purchase to meet the needs of its community, offering an alternative choice in the market—often the only alternative to sourcing power from the investor owned utility (IOU). CCAs can provide the communities they serve with competitively priced, clean energy choices while reinvesting revenues into projects and programs that support the local economy.

--------------------------

OPINION

Note: When I went to the WCE website at 6pm Monday, May 24th, I saw no mention of the press release.

This was first on my radar in February of 2018. Here were my take away quotes about it. 

"Since there seems to be savings to the rate payers, and an easy way to opt out if things change, I can't image the point of not exploring this further."

"The thing I want to know is, if this is better than peaches and cream like it's described, then why aren't all the local cities beating a path to their door? Why the deliberation? Why does it sound like WRCOG would be sanguine if they could "amass five to six cities" when their organization has eighteen?"

-Joseph Morabito, Wildomar Rap Feb 2018

It was next mentioned in February 2020. by this time, 15 months later, it's of little consequence to point out that I was less than sanguine about WCE, but there is a link to the video of the 50 minute item, plus opinions of the time at this link.  

Blog Link

I don't have anymore info than you read above.

I'm not sure what to make of it at this point, but I'm a firm believer in transparency and I wanted to get this press release to the people, in an easy to read form, at the earliest point possible.

If you have questions, please use one of these options.

E: info@WesternCommunityEnergy.com
P: (866) 356-4175

•                •                •

An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.
– Benjamin Franklin

Wildomar Rap hears that menudo is a great cure if you forgot to take your ounce of prevention the night before.

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• City Council Meeting: March 2021

No Frills highlights from the March 10, 2021 city council meeting include:

2.1 Authorizing the abatement of weeds/rubbish in areas where the landlords have shown no interest in keeping their property clear.

I'm happy to see that we are getting to this earlier in the year than in the past.

3.1 Covid-19 Update

There is a Covid testing site at the cemetery grounds. An appointment is needed, but it's been reported that it's easy to get an appointment and a not a difficult line to get through.

From the city website

Riverside County designated COVID-19 testing site in Wildomar!

Starting Monday, February 1, 2021, and only held on Mondays: The Wildomar Little League Field parking lot will be a Riverside County designated COVID-19 testing site open to the public and testing is FREE.

However, testing must be scheduled through the Curative site at https://curative.com/sites/24174?date=2021-02-01#9/33.6506/-117.2317

The Wildomar Little League Field is located at 21400 Palomar Street Wildomar, CA 92595, directly behind the Wildomar Cemetery.

Testing services are available EVERY MONDAY ONLY at this location from 8:00 am - 3:00 pm. **But you must be registered to receive a test**

Riverside University Health System (RUHS), in agreement with Curative Bio Inc., have been providing COVID-19 testing services throughout Riverside County.

For questions, please contact Daniel Torres, Cemetery District Manager for the City of Wildomar at (951) 678-2451 or dtorres@cityofwildomar.org

or Les Chapman, Emergency Manager for the City of Wildomar at (951) 677-7751 ext. 205 or lchapman@cityofwildomar.org

City meetings are slowly returning to an open format, though they'll be zoom, or a hybrid, for some time to come.

I suggested that we begin to open the meetings to the public, even if that only means there are 5 chairs in the chamber until such a time as "social distancing" is reduced or eliminated. 

I also asked that we return the meeting start times to 6:30pm. Most of us need dinner and though I'm approaching 60 years of age, I don't really want to eat at 4pm. 

I guess that for next week's special budget meeting, I'll just bring my food there and eat at the dais. 🤔😂

The parks are back open

As the backboards were being installed at Marna O'Brien park.

The basketball backboards at Windsong Park are being reinstalled, but since the two backboards are different, and one is particularly old, it's taking longer to find the proper pieces for it. One of the backboards will be up shortly, but the other will take some time as city staff works on a replacement.

3.2 Fireworks discussion

City council discussed the issue of fireworks in our neighborhoods. 

I started off by suggesting that the point of the discussion was to find a way to reduce the number of incidents where neighborhoods have to endure the actions of a handful of fools that enjoy disrupting the peace within our city.

If that's you, you are indeed a worthless slug, and your neighbors can't stand you... jus' sayin'

Yeah, some of you think that launching explosives over your neighbors' houses is some how "patriotic"... very few actually buy into that claptrap. 

At this point we're waiting on the county for guidance as they are also working on this issue. If you have suggestions, please be sure to share them IN AN EMAIL to the city council.

3.3 City Hall Lease

It was approved 4-1 (Morabito voting against spending an additional $2500+ per month) to add more square footage in the leased building, on the first floor where the mortgage company used to be.

An active search for a permanent city hall location is underway, but best case scenario would make such an option several years into the future.

I figured it would be better to live with what we have, save some money in the process, as we look to the future for a permanent home, but no one on council agreed with me.

Below is a link to the video of the entire 2 hour meeting.

• Local Charity Comes Through on Thanksgiving

Here is an encouraging story for Thanksgiving weekend, of local charitable works in action... as told to me (through email) by VFW Post 1508's very own Cari Gardner. 

My name is Cari Gardner and I am the President of the VFW Auxiliary in Wildomar. I just wanted to send out a BIG Thank You to Albertsons in Wildomar on Clinton Keith. 

Cari was honored earlier this year by the MWCoC as Wilomar Citizen of the Year.

You may know about the charitable event they do for the community each year they pick a non-profit to receive what they call Turkey Bucks which essentially equals to Thanksgiving Dinner with all the trimmings. 

This year we were lucky enough to receive those dinners in the amount of OVER $8000 in dinners. 

The dinners were donated to Caring Hearts for Veterans and Community, which is a non-profit that is one of the committees in our Post at VFW Post 1508. 

Here are a few pictures that were taken of us picking up the dinners and a picture of us taking some of them to March Air Reserve Base.  

Pictured below is VFW Commander Roger Miller, VFW Life Members Curtis Gardner and Mike Sheehan, and Life member of the Auxiliary Al Castorena. 

 

Also, pictured is Albertsons Store Manager and the Front end Manager. Pictures taken by Isabella Schieffer, President of Caring Hearts for Veterans and Community.

https://www.facebook.com/VFWpost1508

 

#wildomarVFW

• Wildomar Beautification Program Part 2

It seems that I just did a blog on this topic, on September 19th to be exact... so what could have happened since then to merit an update? 

The Halloween edition of the Wildomar Beautification Volunteers. Among them was Wildomar Elementary School principal Mr. Hoffman (far right). I asked him for his thoughts and he said, "Helping out for an hour to start your weekend... it just makes your weekend go better."

Well, I wanted to let you know how very easy it is to fill out the waiver online to get your 10 free orange bags per month. I'd been procrastinating like the rest of you. 😅

The process is very short. Thing is, you do have to give them some personal info. Super secret things like, your name and address... but if you guard those like the Coca-Cola recipe, then just buy your own bags. 

Use this link to quickly jump to the waiver page

Below you'll see the various screenshots once you get to the city's waiver page. It was easy on the phone and a laptop. 

Add caption

That was very quick to complete. 👌

Literally under five minutes. 😊

The next step was to go to the cemetery during regular business hours during the week and request the 10 large orange bags (which you can get monthly).

I asked Bridgette Moore (one of the primary movers behind the Wildomar Beautification efforts) the following: 

Assuming you get reelected next week, what kinds of things would you like to see happen with the Wildomar beautification program in 2021 and beyond?

"I'd like to see the program expand and get more volunteers, and also start a Wildomar beautification committee; staffed with volunteers from our community. They can plan clean ups, they can plan getting sponsorships. I'd also like to branch out into getting the utility boxes wrapped."       

I'd like to suggest a little friendly competition between the various city council districts in town once we get to 2021.

C'mon fellow council members, wha'tcha waitin' fer? the water's fine, come on in! 😁

If you'd like more information, please visit the Wildomar Beautification Volunteer facebook page at this link.

 •                •                •

Fairness is a matter of post positions at the race track. 

– EG Marshall (CBSRMT)

Wildomar Rap is the racetrack.

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• Wildomar Gets New Bus Shelter

The northern end of Wildomar, better known as Sedco, got a new bus shelter today at the corner of Elberta and Mission Trail.

Getting the shelter in place.

If you're thinking, "I can think of another 20 places in town that could use a shelter," let me give you the hitch involved first.

This whole operation took less than an hour. 

Thanks to the ADA laws, the shelters must have wheelchair access. You're probably thinking, "Sounds good to me, what's the problem?"

Once last look at the shelterless corner.

2020 RTA Chair Bridgette Moore gives the bus shelter a looking over before it's put into place.

RTA's Jim Kneepkins chats with Bridgette Moore.

Well, if you've seen other bus stops in Wildomar, you've noticed that many are just off the side of the road in the dirt. To install a modern bus shelter, there must be proper footings and wheelchair access.

This is one of dozens of examples of our rural bus stops.

That can change the cost but many dozens of thousands of dollars... which makes them cost prohibitive in much of Wildomar.

RTA Chair Bridgette Moore lends a hand to get the shelter installed... or it's a photo-op... you decide. 😁

Anywho, thanks to the tireless efforts of Bridgette Moore (who has been Wildomar's RTA representative for 10 years), 2020's RTA Chair, Wildomar has this new bus shelter.

Next on Bridgette's radar is getting that corner in better shape. 

• Trunk or Treat 2020

Sadly the yearly Trunk or Treat event, which is one of the most popular park happenings in town, had to be cancelled along with most of 2020's events.

However, that didn't stop Wildomar parks team from coming up with an alternative: Drive In Laser Show.

One of the many decorations that adorned Marna O'Brien park.

Fun and lively tunes were played by Robert Walker of Heyday Events to lasers overhead and some videos on three different screens. 

I didn't get a lot of great photos of the event. For all the wonders a smartphone camera is capable of, capturing lasers at night (or anything else in the dark) doesn't seem to be among them. 😁

A look at the early set up. The white vacuum exhaust looking hose was where mist was made. The mist was to give the lasers something to bounce of off.

There were two shows

The first started at 7pm and the second show started at 9pm.

What may not have been apparent is that this type of show is new, a work in progress. Heyday Events has put on countless shows over the years, but drive in laser shows are a new frontier and a lot was learned from the first show to the second show.

Another great decoration... that in another pic had his purple horns sticking out of my head... just look below. 😳

I'm telling you, those purple horns are *not* part of my costume. 😁

The second show had a lot more audience participation. From horn honking, light flashing and having people do their best Halloween scary laughs, werewolf impersonations and screams. It was so much fun to be part of. 

The first show was over by 7:45pm. I didn't see any cars lining up for the second show. I was starting to think it was going to be a bust. 

Then it was like a scene out of Field of Dreams....and out of nowhere a line of cars appeared. 😁

A great ending scene from a great movie.

Not as great an angle as the movie, but still impressive.

Waiting to be checked in for the 9pm show.

Thanks again to the dedicated team that makes Wildomar's park events so much fun.

•                •                •

A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others.

– The Wizard of Oz

If Wildomar Rap were judged by that metric, forget a simple snowball, it would be one of those days that the entire Winter Olympics could be held in Hades.

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