The Riverside Registrar of Voters has certified the election results and Measure Z has passed. While that marks the end of a very long road to creating a funding source for our parks, it also marks the beginning of a new road toward developing and maintaining a park system that fits the needs of the community.
It’s not going to be easy to identify exactly how to achieve that goal. Part of the City Council’s job will be to review each of the parks and identify what physical improvements each of the existing parks could benefit from and then set priorities to match the budget.
The most important “To-do”, to most people in the community, is to define the “When”. Our new Parks Tax will not be collected until 2014. That’s quite a ways into the future. We have already seen how hard the non-profit “Friends for Wildomar Parks” has struggled to keep Marna O’Brien open, and has found only a limited success. Even with their hard work and good intentions they are currently thousands of dollars in debt to the utility companies. Leaving the park, solely in the hands of this non-profit doesn’t appear practical.
The City Council does have the option of temporarily funding parks until the park tax funding is available. A question that has come up in the community is, “Can the City Council borrow from their back-up fund to re-open the parks and pay that back over time from the Parks Tax”? While this sounds interesting and possibly a positive move, there is little doubt that the City Council will have their legal staff review this, in detail, and identify exactly what the state law says on the issue.
These issues will need to be addressed over the next couple of months and an initial set of goals identified to get the parks moving in the right direction, but don’t expect this to be a slam dunk. We will have Parks, We will have Events, We will have Activities, but we can’t expect City Council to rush this. The community has decided it does want parks, but we also understand the community wants to see this done correctly, even if it takes a little longer to get the plan just right.
Yes, Wildomar will have Parks, but that’s just the answer to the first question. I believe it’s important for the City Council to hear from the community on this issue. Please take the time to come to the next City Council meeting or send in your comments prior to the meeting.
On Tuesday, the City of Wildomar opened utility accounts to address health and safety issues at the park. At this point in time, the City is only going to keep the safety lighting on in the parking lot and on the building. They are also keeping the water on in the restrooms. They are not paying for any debts of WFFP. Sheryl Ade
WFFP as of today has not received its 501(c)3 status per the IRS website. In a February city council meeting the people representing WFFP were asked for their books so the city could review them before completing a contract with them and these people asked to go into closed door session with the city council at which time they were told no, their response was we really don't have any books when we get a bill in we just pay it. http://www.cityofwildomar.org/uploads/files/minutes/02-08-12-cm.pdf (Item 3.2) You yourself were quoted in June or July stating that WFFP could not reach an agreement with the city primarily because the city wanted the lawn mowed more often than WFFP was prepared to do. WFFP's website has not changed since June of this year and their facebook page sat dormant since the city decided to put Measure Z on the Ballot in September As for the stench, its getting worse by the minute.
1. Special Ed teachers are provided because of Constitutional Mandates both state and federal and are paid for from the general fund. 2. Motorized carts in the grocery store are provided by a private business, not all stores have them. 3. Disabled parking is in the building codes both state and federal, a developer cannot build without providing them. 4. Policing the city and how they spend tax money is what a citizen needs to do in order to prevent situations like the city of Bell, CA, Stockton, CA., Providence, RI. and on and on. Wildomar currently spends just over 6.5 million in General Funds and about the same amount in special funds totaling $12,690,000.00. Of that $430K is spent on animal control which has a fee and fine schedule that should collect enough money to pay for this service but because of poor oversight by city officials only about $80K is collected from the minority of citizens that bother to license their animal. The balance of $350K comes from the general fund which should have gone to parks. (Funny thing is this is the same amount collected by measure Z)
I am one vote in a little over 18,000,000 on a state level and one vote in just over 14,000 on a local level. Which do you think I have the most chance of influencing? One of the reasons people vote the way they do is because of misinformation such as the statement that "Jerry Brown set up the pension fund". The California State Employee Pension fund was established by the voters in 1931 by Constitutional Amendment and Jerry Brown wasn't born until 1938.
The real hard fact is Oviedo is furthering his carrer at the expense of the city of Wildomar. Terminate him today,promote Gary Nordquist, do not hire a replacement until April reassign the funds of Oviedo's (which would be nearly 100k) salary to help the parks. He will help the city more by leaving then he did in the past 3 yrs.
To answer your question about the number of dogs licensed in California you can go to http://saveourdogs.net/category/legislation/track-record/. The same information is available from the California Department of Public Health, Riverside County Department of Public Health as well as L.A, Orange County, San Diego, etc. People just don't license their dogs. Currently there are 2,239,620 people living in Riverside County using the federal census calculator this would give Riverside County 484,000 dogs. Riverside County as of June 2011 has 130,874 dogs licensed right around 27%.
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