Monthly Archives: December 2014

SIDEWALK SUPER an AGE OLD TRADITION

An idea dating back to the depression era which encouraged laymen to observe and offer critique of construction being performed throughout the country.

Be that as it may, modern contractors do recognize the value of having sidewalk superintendents on their jobs. Observers of construction work have, from time to time, offered worthwhile suggestions as to how difficult operations could be simplified.

Sidewalk superintendents perform an important function in spreading information concerning construction work of vital importance. Many times they build up the morale of workmen on the job who realize that their efforts are being viewed and appreciated.

Herald Statesman, Mar. 10, 1954. This jokey “Sidewalk Superintendents Club” thing dated to the 1930s, according to a story Jan Morris tells in Manhattan ’45. One day when Rockefeller Center was being built, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. decided to look in on the construction incognito. A foreman on the site saw him, did not recognize him, and ejected him. The incident gave Rockefeller the idea to build a viewer’s platform so that people could watch the construction. It was facetiously presented as a Sidewalk Superintendents Club, and in the very beginning, even had some of the trappings of a club. It was a viewing platform in front of a wall with peepholes, including peepholes close to the ground for future superintendents, children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88KSY3T-t2w

A New Idea
Hardly, this is an excerpt from an article from the “Official journal of the Division of Highways,
Department of Public Works, State of California” Volume 31 May-June 1952 Page 17 (link below will take you there)

http://libraryarchives.metro.net/DPGTL/Californiahighways/chpw_1952_mayjun.pdf

A year ago the Guy F. Atkinson Company, contractor on the $3,500,000 bridge over the Arroyo Seco for the Colorado Freeway, took a big step forward and built a sidewalk superintendents’ house at a vantage point on the job. This building measures 20 feet by 30 feet and has wide windows on all sides so that construction activities can be easily viewed. In the center there is a model of the bridge structure on a scale of 1 inch equals 20 feet so that sidewalk superintendents, after viewing disconnected units of construction out on the site, can look at the model and see how the various parts will fit together in the final product. Mr. Atkinson believes this model is of value not only to sidewalk superintendents but also to his own workmen who frequently come in to look at it in order to more easily interpret the plans. By visualizing the completed structure as shown by the model, they can then work out intricate details of form construction more easily.

KTTV, Channel 11 program “Sidewalk Superintendents,” 25 minutes of program time between 1 and 1.30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. The first broadcast was made on April 1, 1952 with Resident Engineer Ray Collins being interviewed by Producer Roy Maypole while the camera was showing’ construction scenes on the Hollywood Freeway.

Come on Wildomar, get out there and supervise away. Fun for all ages.

WHAT DROUGHT ?

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Posted are two pictures of the same spot in town. It is located on a major roadway. Many would consider it “THE ROADWAY” that defines Wildomar as it runs completely across it from southeast to northwest, spanning tract homes to rural estates, it is sometimes referred to by other names such as the emigrant trail, Old Highway 395, Highway 71, etc.

This section of roadway has a modern multi-use trail complete with a fence separating it from the sidewalk (No parkway) sidewalk butted up against a curb of a proposed future 6 lane scenic highway, a planted engineered hillside complete with waterfall.

It also has the distinction of being maintained by a landscape company contracted by the city of Wildomar through a Community Service Area (CSA) who’s responsibility it is to clean and weed the trail, maintain the fence in good repair, change out the filters in the storm drain along with reporting to the city public works department anything that may be in need of repair not in their contract all paid for with your tax dollar.
The difference between the two pictures in ONE MONTH AND A DAY.

This water leak has saturated one side of the trail and spilled across the sidewalk into a storm drain for a least that long.
This trail is used daily by walkers, joggers, horseback riders (a evidenced by the occasional clue left behind, from the behind)and for over a month not one call has been placed to the city officials or the water district by a resident or the landscaping company contracted to do so.

Notice the fence in need of repair. Hope there is not a fire as it appears this hydrant is the culprit of the leak.

Just maybe everyone is waiting to make the news when this vital roadway disappears into a giant sinkhole.

Is this the future

I guess as a resident living several miles from this section of road it will be up to me to report this water leak in time of a drought. (Why haven’t I done so as of yet, call it an experiment). If the leak had been larger I might have.
Interesting addition if one googles this spot it shows a picture from June 2014 where the wetness can be observed.

WILDOMAR CITY COUNCIL OFFICIALS CONTINUE TO DREAM

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THIS IS IN RESPONSE TO A RECENT ARTICLE IN THE CANYON LAKE FRIDAY FLYER.
December 19, 2014 Edition
Teen Talk: Teens rally to clean up small Wildomar park
By BLAKE ECHT, Teen Reporter
http://www.fridayflyer.com/2014/12/19/teen-talk-teens-rally-to-clean-up-small-wildomar-p

An recent article talks of a group of teens that recently performed their community service requirements by approaching “wildomar city council officials” for permission to clean up Heritage Park in Wildomar. Once again city officials bury their heads where the sun don’t shine, like they did with the Eagle Scout Project that re-constructed a dog park in the middle of a storm water channel.

Although one has to applaud the individuals for completing the requirements needed to graduate high school this group also needs a big dose of reality. This group should be able to “Handle The Truth” as they are members of what is considered to be an elite group from the Temescal Canyon High School IB Program (International Baccalaureate Diploma Program) who according to their website is all about “Preparing Students for Success in Higher Education and Life in a Global Society”. The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

First thing is to correct several misstatements in this article. (Statements in article are italicized.)
1. Furthermore, this park is often overlooked in Wildomar for other larger parks, which bring in much more revenue due to their services, such as snack bars and baseball fields and the like.
Wildomar Parks do not generate revenue for the city. The city collects in excess of 300 thousand dollars annually in taxes specifically to maintain these parks and programs for the public use.
(Snack bar revenue goes to the group operating it at the time its in use)
(Sports teams are supposed to be charged monies required to provide the extra maintenance required to keep those specific facilities usable for all, these same sports team are also supposed to pay a subsidized share of the cost of field lights which allows them to play after dark when the general public is banned from the park as they close at dusk).

Very top states clearly parks close at dusk which is 30 minutes after sunset.

2. The poor little park has been neglected by the city, and is in a serious state of disrepair because of recent floods.
Nothing is recent about the damage that occurs with every rain event, big or small.

This is after 3/4 of an inch fell overnight.

After 1/4 of an inch, notice damage to banks in the background

The above is the aftermath of a major rain event in September which left the bark in the Tot-Lot floating. This is the same area in which the teens are sitting on the equipment.
For a more visual look at this park during the storm videos are available on
http://wildomarrap.blogspot.com/2014/09/flooding-on-video.html

This park has since its inception been subject to flooding. Over the years with approval by the County of Riverside more and more water was directed to this property from surrounding developments including Marna O’Brien Park.

The rabbit hole that leads back to Marna O’Brien

In a rain storm this channel is capable of channeling up to 1000 cfs of water thru the park from the surrounding area

3. The statement “I saw that it wasn’t being cleaned regularly and it looked pretty bad already, so I decided I should do something about it instead of waiting to see what the city would do.”
This statement should make the cities employee responsible for park maintenance feel like crap. This person prides himself in visiting each an every park on a daily basis, it’s the first thing he does daily, to insure that trash and dog poop left behind by inconsiderate slobs in picked up.

4. You see, the city has to find ways to make money off of the local populations, and so naturally they’ll focus on the larger parks to ensure a steady flow of income. A smaller park then, would receive less attention from the city, and so it is up to the community around the park to see what they would like to do with the public space.
For what is supposed to be a smart group of young people they have a jaded view of how governments operate. This city has been approached in the past about allowing a group of citizens to operate as a parks commission in order to ascertain the wishes of the people, rather than being told what they need by council members.

No amount of student or volunteer effort will ever correct this.

This was a mild rain event.

A LITTLE OLD DUMP ? IN WILDOMAR ?

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Although closed in October of 1953 this site is formerly known as the Bundy Canyon Sanitary III Landfill. It is unknown how long this site operated as a dump but aerial photos from 1938 show a relatively undisturbed area.

Since that time it has been used primarily as decomposed granite borrow pit for the Riverside County Transportation Department.
(“Borrow pit” means any place on a lot or parcel of land where dirt, soil, clay, decomposed granite or other similar material is removed by excavation or otherwise for any purpose other than surface mining operations or a grading project with off-site transport. (www.codepublishing.com/CA/SantaClarita/html/…/SantaClarita1711.html )

Anyone who has driven Bundy Canyon Road has more than like seen this facility as it has been there for years behind the locked gates where one on occasion sees the orange trucks owned by the County of Riverside.

Front Gate off of Bundy

On March 13, 2013 the city of Wildomar, by 5-0 vote of the city council, leased a portion of this facility, for a period of 5 years, to be used as a municipal corporate yard and for special events for a sum of $1.00 per year.

One of the Rotary BBQ’s was held here in April of 2013.

A birds eye view.

It’s kind of funny how in the lease agreement, the County of Riverside description of this property, it is claimed, that the County of Riverside Transportation Department owns a 40 acre parcel along Bundy Canyon Road within the City of Wildomar which is utilized for a materials and storage yard. (See Legal Description below) There is no mention of its former life as a local dump. There is also no mention of this fact in the staff report prepared by City of Wildomar Staff when this item went before the City Council.

The parcel in question is 366-300-079 located at 22800 Bundy Canyon Road. In the County of Riverside LEGAL DESCRIPTION: RECORDED BOOK/PAGE: MB 10/58
SUBDIVISION NAME: SEDCO TRACT 1
LOT/PARCEL: 174
The size of this parcel is listed as 85.78 acres not the 40 acres stated by the County of Riverside in its staff report presented the Board of Supervisors on March 20, 2013.
Looking further into the history of this site one finds that in an “Initial Assessment Report for the widening of Bundy Canyon Road completed in June of 2007, a regulatory records search was conducted during which it was determined the location of this facility was incorrectly noted.
(The closed landfill is located within the boundaries of the currently existing Bundy Canyon surface mine. The location of the landfill is approximately 700 east of Canyon Ranch Road and 700 feet north of Bundy Canyon Road as noted in a state database.)

For those interested in seeing an excellent photographic history of Bundy Canyon Road including the first hint of a freeway starting as early as 1967 you can visit http://www.cityofwildomar.org/uploads/files/environmental/Bundy-Canyon-Phase-I-061507.pdf

Page 69 is the beginning of the historical photographs starting in 1994 going back to 1938. The first photograph of each year contains the site of the former dump as well as the location of the 15 freeway.

THEIR BACK ? PRAIRIE ROAD SAGA CONTINUES

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Day Twenty-Two: January 21, 2015 This is the end, my friend, break out the bottle, I’ll set up the table.

Some one found a new place to wine and dine.

Day Twenty-One: January 20, 2015 The end for this portion of the job is in sight.

Day Twenty: January 19, 2015 Saw the guys draining water from the sludge containers so that the sediment could be removed to a proper disposal sight.

Day Nineteen: January 17, 2015 A Saturday no less and these gentlemen are hard at work. The neighbors will be happy when the constant noise is gone.

Day Eighteen: January 16, 2015 The city has brought in an excavator to dig out the channel leading down to the creek. First picture shows what it looked like with roots in front of drain

Notice the step down into the pipe.

Second Picture shows roots removed and a channel cut to the creek.

Hopefully the city will fix this properly.

A proper fix for this would include a grate and guardrail like pictured below.

At the very least it should have a grate.

Day Seventeen: January 15, 2015 Going to have to find something else to do shortly as this job is almost finished, for now.

Day Sixteen: January 14, 2015 Started out behind schedule as the tree trimmers got in a hurry and got stuck. Much progress was made anyhow.

To the left is intelligence and to the right ?

Day Fifteen: January 13, 2015 resulted in much progress being made.

Getting closer to meeting up with where they stopped from the other direction

Day Fourteen: January 10, 2015 brought a day where another route into the tunnel became necessary. The previous route became so long that vacuum pressure was no more.

This require a carefully planned route into the park

The far end of the run.

Day Thirteen: January 9, 2015 crews run into difficulty with a network of roots slowing down the progress. The light can be seen but it will be a few more days before the light can shine fully.

Day Twelve: January 8, 2015 brings a day where the light at the end of the tunnel can finally be seen from both inside and outside.

Day Eleven: January 7, 2015 was another day of a lot of water an some sand and gravel. Workers report being able to see daylight at the end of a very crooked line.

Day Ten: Would have been on Wednesday December 31, 2014 had it not been for the serious amount of snow that fell on Wildomar. Day Nine was cut short due to rain and day Ten was rescheduled to January 6, 2015.
(I went into the creek to see how much water was flowing from the snow melt and found absolutely no water flowing out of the line. Wonder where it is going?)

Day Nine December 30th: The crew is on the look out for possible rain. Even without it the line has had some serious amounts of water to deal with. Apparently lawns are still being over-watered in town.

Day Eight December 29th: Making good progress, this day was a very good day according to the job boss as they advanced about 45 feet rather than the usual 20 feet. This places the crew around the sweeping curve and onto the “straight-away across the park. (“Straight-away” because apparently this has turned out to be rather snakey or meandering)

Day Seven December 27th: After taking off a couple of days to enjoy Christmas these gentlemen are back at it on a Saturday no less.

Day Six December 24th: Another day into a extremely tedious job.

Day Five December 23rd: Another full day planned.

Getting started for the day

Day Four December 22nd: Another full day put them about 60 feet in and up to a curve. (For a map of system see previous story about Prairie Street.

http://www.wildomarconnected.com/prairie-road-drainage-system-and-its-rehabilitation/

Day Three December 20th: Yes a Saturday had this crew putting in a half a day. Looks like the City may be serious about cleaning this situation up.

Day Two December 19th has arrived and the work continues.
It looks like once again the City of Wildomar will attempt to clean out one of the Prairie Road Storm Drains.

Day One December 18th: It’s been one month and a day that the last attempt was made.

A new company from a little closer distance.

One can only hope this company completes the job that a company from City of Industry started before abruptly leaving. Along with mother nature an a VacTor truck (this one is called a super sucker) just maybe this situation will be resolved by spring.
I will check on the progress daily and let everyone know how its going.

As a side note: I am still looking for the light poles the city paid to have installed at Windsong Park, as this storm drain work is being done next to the park I will look for them each an every day until they can be located or the city confesses they didn’t by anything, yet.

SO WHAT IF ITS IN THE CONTRACT

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13. CLEARING AND GRUBBING
Technical Specification Page 39 (883 of 980 Wildomar City Council Agenda Packet for September 10, 2014)
Contractor shall remove all objectionable material from within the area required for resurfacing.
Objectionable material shall include, but not limited to roots, brush, grass, weeds, pavement
material and debris and other related materials. Objectionable material shall be removed from the
right-of-way and shall be transported and properly disposed of off-site. All cost charges and fees
shall be the responsibility of the Contractor.

Preparation of Surface Technical Specification Page 50 – 53(894 – 897 of 980 Wildomar City Council Agenda Packet for September 10, 2014)
Immediately prior to applying the slurry, the Contractor shall clean the street surface and lip of
gutter joints of all loose material, silt spots, vegetation, and any other matter, which may
adversely affect the adherence of the slurry to the existing pavement.

The Contractor shall be responsible for sweeping all streets with a mechanical power broom
immediately prior to sealing. The Engineer may require particularly dirty streets to be flushed
with water. The Engineer must approve all flushing operations. The Contractor shall be
responsible for cleaning sidewalks and driveways soiled by flushing operations.

Hopefully this was stopped for a second time.

This portion of roadway is supposed to be left undone until after the Prairie Road storm drain is cleared.

This residue from the limit line was also on citizens lawn.

Placing Technical Specification Page 54 (898 of 980 Wildomar City Council Agenda Packet for September 10, 2014)
The joint between the pavement and the PCC gutter shall be sealed with slurry seal.
A straight-line cut-off shall be obtained by laying down a strip of building paper or other
approved material. The Contractor shall remove such paper and any excess slurry after
application of the slurry. Edge limits of the slurry on both sides of the street shall be maintained
in a neat and uniform line.

If you hold your mouth just right and squint you can make this straight.

IS THIS THE FUTURE OF WILDOMAR ?

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Bikeway hanging out from the edge.

Or this

Thanks to a short sighted city council and staff a project was approved that will result in an important transportation route being incomplete.

The route is called Monte Vista Drive which the City of Wildomar will allow to be modified from its current designation of a Secondary Highway Standard 94 which includes a 100 foot right away. The new look will be a Major Frontage Road Standard 109 (should be 97 foot right of way) modified to all of 82 feet wide without any sidewalks or landscaping along its west side which borders Interstate 15 as it slices along the eastern hills thru Wildomar along with a reduce width sidewalks on the east side.

The County of Riverside Standard Ordinance 461 which are what the City of Wildomar adopted upon incorporation call for a multi-use trail to be 26 feet in width from the curb face, but alas, the City of Wildomar feels we only deserve 14 with no fence separating the trail from the sidewalk.

Below is all the City of Wildomar was willing to fight for, its citizens will pay the price in the future with traffic delays, unwalkable trails which are not horse friendly along with bikeways that are dangerous to all but the most experienced riders.

Mind you the speed limit on this stretch of roadway is currently 55 mile per hour.

The claim from the dais or throne if you wish is that cities all over Riverside County are not putting sidewalks on the freeway sides of their frontage roads.
But guess what, we aren’t everyone else. This is Wildomar and we have an enviable situation with having a frontage road that has a view.

The pictures below were taken standing next to the Caltrans fence in front of the project sight along Monte Vista Drive.

Much of this stretch of roadway is elevated above the freeway.

By setting a precedence in allowing this to occur on this project most of the elevated portions of roadways with a view are subject to the same abuses of power by the City of Wildomar in the future.
This city will lose all of its unique features to development and end up looking like so many other communities, slabs of boring concrete with no character.

Around here they call this a river or creek.

CALL THE POLICE WE’VE BEEN ROBBED

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In the most recent City Council Agenda Packet one finds a check written in the amount of $1,661.32 entitled (INSTALL (3) POLE LIGHTS AT WINDSONG). (If you would like your own copy contact city hall and ask for a copy of Voucher #204061 issued on November 20, 2014 for Purchase Order #0000127)
Those lights seem to have gone missing as they can not be found anywhere in Windsong Park.

The above picture shows what the three lights at Windsong Park would look like (The city attempted to keep everything the same for serviceability purposes). If you see 3 new lights somewhere in town call to report them. Not sure who you would call, maybe park security. There number can be found on the white plastic signs at the entrances.

AND NO WHERE ELSE Not the parks website, not the city website. Only on the cheap plastic white signs for as long as they are present, if missing look behind the park along the creek as they have spotted there before.

Wildomar Assisted Living Facility in the upper right corner of picture

For those of you that think this was an easy task here are some figures to show what it took.
0.5235 cubic yards of concrete was needed for the base support to hold these light standards, the approximate weight would be around 2,100 pounds. This does not include the weight of the threaded steel rods or the rebar shown on the drawing below.

Its to bad someone hasn’t taken the ones at Marna O’Brien Park. Especially the one so prominently displayed on page one, with a close up on page five of the Parks Master Plan currently being floated around.

WILDOMAR’S ELECTED ELITIST ELECT

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Once again the elitist elected to “RUN” the City of Wildomar have pretty much chosen the path of Nirvana.
By jumping to the finish line they hope to fool the masses into believing all is well in river city.

An opportunity has once again come to make a decision on where to temporarily house
CITY HALL
and the elitist have decided temporary trailers in the middle of reality is not the answer,

We must have either a sparkling new stick building on the outskirts of town closer to the unseen enemy that feared the voters into making this community something it isn’t

or we can go just as far the opposite direction to a series of buildings that are literally falling down around themselves surrounded by what has become a broken field of asphalt an a jungle called a playground all located next to a newly formed river called Lemon St.

After watching this city bring back from the ashes and re-habilitate a parks program that the County of Riverside spent multi-millions of dollars on just before turning them over to a small group with the I wants.

What was turned over to the city of Wildomar in July 2009

As it looks in December of 2014

Not a very good job was done I might add as we have one park that continues behave much like a storm drain,

After a rainfall in 2014

an addition to the parks in which the elitist have chosen to destroy the “Tot Lot” by ripping out the only ADA access ramp and replacing it with a device that turned out to be inappropriate for a public park with no full time staff resulting in an eyesore being left behind.

The third park has a welcome sign that should be the envy of any town, not.

This city has also taken on a roadway system that is falling apart faster than they can seal the cracks.

They have adopted a storm drain system that no one claims as their own which has resulted in countless failures an cost residents thousands of their own dollars to deal with.

The latest installment just a couple of days ago.

Now they are contemplating taking over an abandoned school sight (Closed since 2008).

As it looks now.

This sight was abandoned for a couple of reasons, one being a declining school age population in the area, another being a lack of available state resources as the Great State of California has decreed it will not dump funds into school located on an earthquake fault. (This school started out in controversy many years ago when it was built in the flight path of a local airport which was forced to abandon a secondary runway)
This school sight in my opinion is being foisted on us to satisfy the ego and future desires of one of the elitist. Helping the school district rid themselves of this liability will garner this person much accolades amongst that persons peers.
The school district has been hurt by a series of downgrades on its Mello Roos Bonds over the last few years an being able to rid themselves of this piece of property along with the Butterfield Elementary site to the county and now the Summerly site back to the developer as these sites are deemed no longer necessary, this move will temporarily alleviate the financial pain of their half a billion dollar plan an shore up their financial arm that manages the financing of many of the Mellos Roos Bonds in the valley.
Currently this city has a deal to extend the current lease in the retail center, taking away space for a tax collecting and taxpaying business.
They have several option such as staying the same size for more money or expanding for a lot more which they try to convince everyone is the better deal. In the end we have nothing to show for all that money spent. The four options on rent amount to $805 thousand over 5 years all the way up to 1.5 million over 7 years.

They will try and convince everyone that the idea of placing office trailers in Marna O’Brien park is totally out of the question because of what they claim are unanswered question about ownership of the parkland. If Quimby funds or dedications were used to purchase the property this would not be an option.
Marna O’Brien park was in fact purchased using both Certificates of Participation and Quimby funds. The original 7 acres (where the ball diamonds are) was a purchase with the Certificates, the last 2 acres (where the basketball courts are) added being Quimby Funds. The excuse that it would be two difficult to figure it all out is just that, an excuse. A State of California Audit done in 2002 shows that even if the County of Riverside had not paid off the Certificates of Participation and continued payments they would have run their course and been paid off in 2012 anyway.
I say cover up a ball diamond with office trailers it was only good for water polo after the last rains anyhow.

PRAIRIE ROAD ReDUX

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On Thursday morning December 4, 2014 I received an e-mail entitled “Another, Act of God” with an invitation to take a look at Prairie Road in the Windsong Tract. (The title was in reference to an answer received by a concerned citizen the last time this occurred)

Welcome to the way it used to be. Dirt!

This street has been the subject of a previous story covering the short-comings of the City of Wildomar.

The person should receive a car wash certificate for daring to park on one of our asphalt streets.

A few picture is all that is really needed to retell the story of a City Council that is too busy lassoing buses, jetting around the world on some else’s business, trying to get back something while precious resources are being frittered away on lavish to do’s, dreaming about what already exist somewhere else, barking an clapping like a trained seal at the concerns of various citizens.

It sure looks like the end of something.

Drainage maintained by neighbor.

Without maintenance this would still be full of water.

The last picture tells the larger story. Windsong Park has not had a doggie bag dispenser in about 6 years according to neighbors.

The outflow of the Prairie Road drain.

The blue and white bags are doggie poo bags. This gives one a look into the management of our infrastructure or lack thereof.

This same “off in the nether” world city council sits above a staff that continually disappoints because no one is paying attention.

Wildomar Connected

Bringing together the community through conversation

Monthly Archives: December 2014

SIDEWALK SUPER an AGE OLD TRADITION

WHAT DROUGHT ?

WILDOMAR CITY COUNCIL OFFICIALS CONTINUE TO DREAM

A LITTLE OLD DUMP ? IN WILDOMAR ?

THEIR BACK ? PRAIRIE ROAD SAGA CONTINUES

SO WHAT IF ITS IN THE CONTRACT

IS THIS THE FUTURE OF WILDOMAR ?

CALL THE POLICE WE’VE BEEN ROBBED

WILDOMAR’S ELECTED ELITIST ELECT

PRAIRIE ROAD ReDUX