Churches Set To ‘Makeover’ Wildomar Parks As City Attorney Refutes Brown Act Violation

The United Methodist Church has agreed to help Wildomar reopen its parks by volunteering to clean them up.

Church leaders approached the city about UMC’s Great Day of Service earlier this year, Wildomar City Councilwoman Bridgette Moore said during Wednesday night's city council meeting. As part of the nationwide annual event, the UMC selects community projects and recruits church members and volunteers to complete them.

Moore, who sits on the city’s Parks Subcommittee with Mayor Pro Tem Marsha Swanson, said the Great Day of Service would ready Wildomar parks for opening. The proposal would include cleaning up the parks and replanting them.

On March 12, the UMC's Tom Pilkington attended a Parks Subcommittee meeting to go over the Great Day of Service program. He came away from it wanting assurances that the city could maintain park improvements as part of a Great Day of Service makeover, according to City Manager Gary Nordquist. Mayor Tim Walker was tapped to attend a March 21 UMC meeting to provide church leaders with the requested promises.

That raised eyebrows with some in the community and prompted Wildomar resident Gil Rasmussen to file a complaint with the city alleging a Brown Act violation had occurred. A third city council member discussing the issue outside of a public hearing constituted a Brown Act violation, Rasmussen alleged.

Under the Brown Act, public matters that require action cannot be discussed by a quorum of council members outside of a public meeting.

Wildomar City Attorney Tom Jex weighed in on the issue Wednesday night. "While we don’t think a Brown Act violation has occurred,” the recommended “cure or correction” is to restart the whole process, he said.

During Wednesday night's meeting, Rasmussen admonished Moore, Swanson, Walker, Nordquist and Pilkington, but said he liked the city’s recommendation that council hold off on a June 1 Great Day of Service and instead shoot for a date later in the year. Nordquist said the timing would be more appropriate because fall is planting season and at that time the city will have begun collecting revenues from the Measure Z special tax assessment for the parks.

Rasmussen also supported staff's recommendation that council members hold off on appropriating $15,000 from the city’s general fund for non-recurring park repairs as part of the Great Day of Service effort.

Wednesday, the council members unanimously approved the Great Day of Service "in concept" for later in the year and they went with staff's recommendation that the Parks Subcommittee provide more details on how the city will maintain proposed landscaping improvements that are part of the Great Day of Service proposal. Rasmussen also supported that directive.