Who Do You Call?
Floods, Freeway Interchange, and Poor Paving
By Karen Robertson
When your house floods, who do you turn to? If the traffic is backed up and you can’t get to Albertson’s, whose problem is it? When the roads need repaving, who do you call? It’s an interesting dilemma in Bear Creek.
If the flood comes off the hills to the west, then it’s the county you need to call. If it’s your home office that is flooding within Bear Creek, then it’s the City of Murrieta that needs to take a look at the problem. If you can’t get across the I-15 interchange, then it’s all about the City of Wildomar.
Mike Kashiwagi, Director of Public Works and City Engineer for the City of Wildomar, gave a recent update on some issues that will affect our readers.
In the recent storm that lasted for five days, our area received more rain than we’d had all together in the preceding two years. According to newscasters, January 21st was the lowest barometer reading ever recorded in California.
Major flooding problems Wildomar city officials hopping all week. With the help of an outside maintenance firm, they were out patrolling, cleaning out flood channels, putting up signs, monitoring, and clearing debris from culverts and inlets.
According to Mr. Kashiwagi, the project that has the highest priority now is widening the existing freeway interchange at Clinton Keith and I-15 from two to six lanes.
The 95% submittal design has gone to Cal Trans. It needs to be reviewed and approved. The city is presently getting appraisals and preparing to acquire the right-of-way. The project should be ready to go out to bid by summer, and with the sagging economy, the bids should be more favorable. The actual construction will be a 12- to 18-month project.
The county started the process before Wildomar became a city. They are still involved, but the City of Wildomar staff is overseeing the project.
Most recently, the slurry project on Clinton Keith and many other streets in the area have left homeowners dissatisfied. The process is an asphalt emulsion with little rocks that puts another wearing course on the roadway. The emulsion is supposed to bind the rocks. Unfortunately, in many areas the emulsion was not correctly formulated and the results were less than satisfactory. It was brushed away by the street cleaner. The Riverside County administrator has assured us that the contractor will return to redo the job in the spring.
Retarded Grandparents
(This was actually reported by a teacher)
After Christmas, a teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their holiday away from school.
One child wrote the following:
We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to
live in a big brick house but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Arizona. Now they live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass. They ride around on their bicycles and wear name tags because they don't know who they are anymore.
They go to a building called a wreck center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now. They do exercises there, but they don't do them very well. There is a swimming pool too, but they all jump up and down in it with hats on.
At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out and go cruising in their golf carts.
Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And they eat the same thing every night ― early birds.
Some of the people can’t get out past the man in the doll house. The ones who do get out bring food back to the wrecked center for pot luck.
My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded some day too.