Canyon Lake to Annex Meadowbrook

The Friday Flyer, a newspaper that serves Canyon Lake, published an eye-opening report in its pages today, basically saying, "I told yo...

The Friday Flyer, a newspaper that serves Canyon Lake, published an eye-opening report in its pages today, basically saying, "I told you so", in regards to creating a sphere of influence decades ago...
Seventeen years ago, when the fledgling city of Canyon Lake was undertaking a mandated sphere of influence study, Jeff Butzlaff, then City Manager, was quoted in The Friday Flyer as saying, "We never want to be placed in the position of having to say someday "Oh, if we'd only known" or "If we hadn't been so short-sighted."

It seems that day has come, and the current City Council is bemoaning the fact that its counterpart in 1991 voted against establishing a sphere of influence outside its original boundaries.
Here's a link to the report...
http://www.thefridayflyer.com/FF-2008-3-28/FFS-8978.htm

It wouldn't be an issue if not for the fact that the City of Canyon Lake is having financial problems. Basically, the city is built out. The only place it could possibly expand is northward towards Hwy 74, and into the unincorporated area of Meadowbrook.

Meadowbrook is the community that sits on Hwy 74 between Perris and Lake Elsinore. It's a place known for its boulders, mobile homes, farm animals and meth labs. There is already committee of Meadowbrook residents trying to fight an annexation bid by Canyon Lake.

Obviously Canyon Lake doesn't want Meadowbrook residents in its borders, they just want the land to build some tax-generating commercial centers.

Canyon Lake's financial woes is largely due to the fact that they can't expand to build commercial development. They don't have any land to do so, and hence why they are now haunted by the decision not to create a sphere of influence.

A "sphere of influence" is an area of land adjacent to a city, but not actually incorporated into the city. It gives the city a way of saying, "We don't need this land right now, but we might need it someday, so we want to prevent other cities from having it".

Another reason why Canyon Lake is having financial problems is the same old foreclosure phenomenon and general weak economy. They don't even have enough money to maintain Railroad Canyon Rd, asking private organizations to come in and do volunteer cleanup.

The new Countryside Marketplace under construction in Menifee will also hurt Canyon Lake. It'll give their residents more reasons to spend their dollars outside of the city's boundaries, and at the same time, fewer Menifee residents will bother going to Pepe's for dinner.

Last year, I opined in an article here on Menifee 24/7 that Canyon Lake may very well find itself being annexed into Menifee. If the new City of Menifee is successful in building up a lucrative tax base, and assuming Canyon Lake continues to get squeezed into suffocation, Canyon Lakers may run out of options and sell out to Menifee or Lake Elsinore.

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  1. Why anyone would want to eat at Pepe's is beyond me. The food is bland at best.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The new city of Menifee Valley or Lake Elsinore may not want to annex an area like Canyon Lake that is exclusively residential and does not have a sales tax base to help pay for services. Cities want to annex an area that will bring in tax revenue, and not an area that is going to be a drain on their annual budgets. Canyon Lake can turn to the California League of Cities for suggestions and they can contact other small residential cities like Villa Park in Orange County to find out how they are surviving. They may have already. If they can not afford to be a city they may have to unincorporate and become a county area again. Oh, and about Pepe's, I've had better but I've had a lot worse.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like Pepe's meatball soup, but in regard to Meadowbrook and Canyon lake, I think the two communities could help each other. The irony is that the very people trying to 'save' Meadowbrook are also the land owners who have taken advantage of the lose oversight that comes with an unincorporated area to turn what was once beautiful countryside into a community of junk yards.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think that if we bought land in Meadowbrook and we like the way we live with our mobile homes and animals, we should be left alone. Many of the Canyon Lake residents are just a bunch of snobs.Who stick their noses where they don't belong. Who think they are better than anyone else. Well since they are so better than everyone else, they can fix their problems, with out Meadowbrook. The choices they made many years ago, was stupid but that is not our problem NOW.

    ReplyDelete

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