Well, it all seemed to go without a hitch.

The ceremony part, held at Bell Mountain Middle School, was packed solid with people. All seats were filled, and many more were left standing. The local boy scout troop 444 was on hand to lead the audience in the pledge of allegiance. Eric Handy a Paloma Valley High School student belted out an impressive rendition of the National Anthem. His voice was so powerful and clear, the sound system couldn't handle his cantor and crackled with static.

Pastor Gary Galbraith from Revival Christian Fellowship gave an invocation.

Immediately following, the city council was sworn into office by 3rd District Supervisor Jeff Stone. That was followed by the city council doing its series of motions and votes to adopt county ordinances and the county's general plan. All council members voted to adopt everything without comment, except where councilman Twyman commented that the County's general plan was never fully explained to the council, and that he has reservations about adopting something that we don't have full knowledge of. But he voted to adopt it anyways with the understanding that we have the right change it as we see fit.

With all the formalities out the way, the council members gave speeches to the audience. For the most part, they were congratulatory speeches. Kuenzi named off several long time residents and advocates of cityhood and thanked them. Denver spoke about his involvement with the cityhood effort. Mann recounted his family history and his desire to serve. Twyman talked about why he ran for office.

Joe Daugherty, the guy who chaired the cityhood incorporation committee, named off the other members of the committee, all of whom received applause.

But what turned out to be the highlight of the evening was Mayor Edgerton's speech. The guy electrified the audience. He spoke with such great conviction, you could see the words drawing up from his chest. If the Mayor personifies Teddy Roosevelt's mantra of "speak softly and carry a big stick", then tonight we saw the big stick.

"Come Hell or Highwater we promise this city will maintain a surplus in its budget!!", were words he hammered out with authority to the roar of the audience. When he promised not to raise taxes and fees on the people, his intensity put George Bush Sr's "read my lips" speech to shame. He had total confidence when he reminded the audience that we have a conservative council who promised to not blow our money the way state and federal governments have done. Then he took on a more comforting tone with news that our police force had been boosted overnight, and threw credit to councilmen Mann and Denver for making it happen. But his fervent tone picked back up when he credited councilman Twyman for making sure the council listens to the people. I even saw Jeff Stone's head nodding with approval when the Mayor promised to build more parks and preserve the rural nature of Menifee so that "children will not have to grow up in a sea of asphalt!" All of which received rounds of applause. And finally he finished his speech with an interesting set of words, "I am proud to say that my name is Wallace Edgerton, and I am the mayor of Menifee!"

Then he called for the audience to congratulate itself on becoming a new city, and subsequently called for the meeting to adjourn.

But I didn't stick around for the aftermath. I exited right away, and found Mieke Jacobs from Menifee Live doing the same thing. We both wanted to check out the inauguration ballgame gathering nearby. I chatted with Dave Fokken, coach of the Menifee Mustangs. Mieke and I got ourselves a couple of In-N-Out burger combos (compliments of Jeff Stone) and watched a couple innings of the game.

I don't know who won the game, but I did witness one of the Mustangs belt a monster triple into center field.

Then we headed off for the inauguration party at Menifee Lakes Country Club. I got there around 8:15pm.

For the record, no one was checking for RSVPs, despite the instructions we were given of having to RSVP. I just walked right in, didn't check in with anyone, nobody said anything. I asked other people there if they were checked for RSVPs, and they weren't either. I later learned they were keeping a head count instead. I was told about 600-620 people were there.

The area around the food was congested, and the food was going about as fast as the staff could replenish. That In-N-Out burger looked like a good idea.

I met Rose Watkins, a friend of mine with Century 21. We talked. I met Cynthia Aina, who runs Menifee4Rent.com. We talked. I met Armand Blais, who had a trio of musicians playing. We talked. I saw Jim Semanek from the Computer Club of Menifee Valley. We talked.

The only city councilmembner I got to talk to was the mayor himself. We both ended up at the food table, trying to get some chow, but having to wait until they brought more over. I congratulated him as the new mayor, and complimented him on his speech. Otherwise, the other councilmembers were constantly being pulled left and right by every other attendee.

By 9:00pm, the event was starting to run its course, and I finished up by taking a few more photos for this blog, took my complimentary bottle of "City of Menifee Champagne", and headed home.

Here's some photos...


Our first official police car; if you get to sit in the back of this thing, let us know what it's like.


Getting sworn in


The sapling from the Pechangas - Note that councilman Twyman was the only guy in the room with a pink tie.


Lake Elsinore Storm mascot at the cityhood inauguration baseball game


Menifee Mustangs up to bat


The scene inside Menifee Lakes Country Club


Here's a better shot of that ice sculpture


A champagne toast led by Supervisor Marion Ashley


Armand Blais with a trio belting out tunes

Labels: Cityhood, Jeff-Stone, Menifee-Mustangs

I attended the county transition meeting this evening.

Much of what was stated was stuff that I think many of us already know, that the county will continue providing services to us up until October 1, when we incorporate officially.

From October 1 thereafter, the county will continue to provide services for free, but only up until June 30, 2009. After that point, any services the county provides will be billed to the city.

Beginning October 1, the city must adopt all existing county ordinances as its own. From there, it can modify those laws, eliminate them, or create new ones. Based on that, the city may wean itself away from county services and provide its own.

Jeff Stone Speaks

Supervisor spent some considerable time speaking, much of it was congratulating the new city council, and talking about how much of a good thing cityhood is. He also handed out certificates of appreciation to Menifee MAC members and Quail Valley MAC members. Menifee MAC officially dissolves today, while Quail Valley MAC will continue up until September 30.

Stone also mentioned that the county is right now filling positions for some 1,500 new Sheriff's deputies. The county is also building several new prisons. Being that inadequate police presence is one reason why we incorporated, it's nice to know the county is now beefing this up. It makes me wonder if contracting out its deputies is a big revenue source for the county.

He also said that they're building a new animal shelter facility in San Jacinto, costing $12 million, and should be open by the end of this year.

Lastly, he said that on October 1, just as Menifee incorporates, the county will be holding an "Autumn Festival", where clubs, groups, non-profits, businesses, and everyone is invited to celebrate. He invited the Menifee city council to establish a committee to decide how it plans to participate.


Public Comments

One person asked about will the new city pay for county services. Gary Thompson, who is acting as our city's financial advisor, and was the guy who performed the Menifee's fiscal analysis, talked in detail about where Menifee will gets its funds from. While he named several types of fees and taxes, he said some of those fees will come into the city's funds immediately as of October 1, but others will take several months to trickle in.

Another person asked about how the county and city will coordinate on what to do with Audie Murphy Ranch and the Newport Road realignment. Juan Perez, who represents the county transportation department, said it's a very difficult question to answer. But that he'll be speaking specifically about this topic at a city council meeting on July 23, which I presume is the next council meeting on Wednesday.

Someone asked how many people could possibly live in Menifee. Jeff Stone spoke up and said this city has a potential for 250,000 residents. However, that's only if the county were to continue building at its pace. He went on to explain that now that we've become a city, we can decide how many homes to build. Had we not incorporated, then that quarter-of-a-million people would likely happen.

George Wentz

Interim City Manager, George Wentz, spoke up a bit. He mostly said that he's hard at work putting the pieces together, and urged everyone to attend the city council meetings, where he gives a status report on what he's accomplished.

He went on to add that he's now working on getting a website created that will provide information for us all. He also said that each city council member will have e-mail addresses. All this info to come out later.

Scott Mann, who is acting as Menifee's city clerk, gave out his e-mail address (menifeecityclerk@mchsi.com) again, and mentioned that he has received a "plethora" of e-mail from folks wanting to volunteer, what they want done in the new city, and their comments.

Jeff Stone also spoke up and said that he'll create a special section on his website just for Menifee cityhood info.

Summary

While it was nice listening to Jeff Stone talk about some of things their working on doing, I found that much of this meeting was congratulatory in nature. I think much of what the county spoke about in terms of transitioning its services was stuff most of us knew.

I am, however, looking forward to hearing Juan Perez speak about the Newport Road realignment next week.

Labels: Cityhood, Jeff-Stone

While the cityhood debate has been the hot topic in Menifee Valley, there is in fact a race for the 3rd District Supervisor seat.

Incumbent Jeff Stone is being challenged by Deane Foote.

Therese Daniels of Menifee Valley Talk Radio announced that Deane Foote will be a guest on the show for Monday, June 2, at 8:00pm (an evening show). Here's your chance call in and ask Mr. Foote why he thinks he'll make a better Supervisor.

Labels: Elections, Jeff-Stone

3rd District Supervisor Jeff Stone will be holding "demolition party" on Wednesday, November 28, 2007, from 1:00pm to 3:00pm.

He'll be demolishing the old gas station on the corner of Cherry Hills Blvd & Bradley Rd. The land that it sits on now belongs to the Sun City Library, and the demolition will make way for library expansion.

There will be free refreshments and giveways.

Labels: Jeff-Stone, Library, Sun-City

Supervisor Jeff Stone will host the Fall meeting of the Menifee Valley Municipal Advisory Council (MAC) as it presents a public forum on the issue of cityhood for Menifee Valley.

Featured speakers include representatives from the Riverside County Auditor's office, talking about tax revenues to the new city and from the Assessor's Office of the Assessor to answer questions about property evaluation.

The forum will be held on Wednesday night, October 24 at the Kay Ceniceros Senior Center, 29995 Evans Road at Newport Rd., beginning at 7:00 PM.

Conrad Melton, Presiding Officer of the MAC says "Bring your Questions". The forum is open to all and admission is free.

Labels: Cityhood, Jeff-Stone, Menifee-MAC

There's more developments in the fallout of Friday's news that Menifee cityhood would run into financial problems. Supervisor Jeff Stone, along with fellow Supervisor Bob Buster, are planning a proposal to help defray the costs of supporting additional fire houses.

Basically, they propose to give the new city of Menifee the money it plans to save after cityhood. In other words, the County of Riverside expects to save more money by the fact that Menifee will be supporting itself. Hence, giving Menifee that amount of saved money will help it build the fire houses, without really impacting the County negatively.

You can read more about this from The Californian...

http://www.nctimes.com/..../23_20_217_27_07.txt

Another thing I'd like to add is that Menifee as a city can develop its commercial and retail centers more quickly than the County can, simply because developers can work with the city council instead of dealing with the County.

Labels: Cityhood, Jeff-Stone

I went to a lunch sponsered by the Chamber a couple of weeks ago where Jeff Stone was the speaker. He gave out alot of good information. He is pushing to get an emergency lane put in on the 215 freeway to ease the congestion. Although, there is lots of red tape with the Transportaion department he has to break through. He talked about the Sheriff Dept. and how we have more police patrolling the area. I have noticed an increase of Sheriff cars on the roads.
We are supposed to be getting a large sports park put in on Newport Road, East of Bradley.
This Town needs more parks, but not little neighborhood parks. We need large sports complexes to house Football, Soccer, Baseball, Softball and Basketball Leagues. Jeff Stone mentioned putting lights at all the Schools, I don't think he realizes that the schools aren't that easy to work with. The Leagues have to pay for using these facilities,they have to be done by a certain time so the Janitor can lock up, etc...
The baseball and softball leagues would like to utilize the snack bar at Wheatfield Park, we can't do it, somehow the Women's Club of Menifee is the sole group that can run a snack bar there. How is this possible? They don't own Valley Wide. It is a battle we at the Menifee Valley Little League has been battling for years.
We should be getting large anchor stores and around 15+ restaurants at the Haun and Newport Road intersections.
Off of Ethanac Road in Sun City, a large shopping complex, with Home Depot as an anchor store is coming.

Labels: Jeff-Stone, Lake-Menifee-Women's-Club

Third District Supervisor Jeff Stone will discuss "Community Issues, Today and Tomorrow" at Webb Hall in the Sun City Civic Association Center, 26850 Sun City Blvd., Sun City, tonight, February 8, 2006, beginning at 7:00 p.m.

Supervisors Stone's remarks will be followed by a question and answer period. All are welcome, there is no charge for the event.

Labels: Jeff-Stone

The Menifee-Sun City Chamber sent this to its members in response to the recent negative articles. I thought that the community deserved a response too.

As you may know, we are in the news! Headlines from local newspapers include Conflict Erupts Over Funding and Stone Rebuked For Choosing One Group Over Another. It’s unfortunate that we have to spend time on this but your involvement and continued support in the Menifee-Sun City Chamber is important and we want to be sure that we are communicating with you.

All of this coverage in the newspapers stems from a request from Supervisor Stones’ office for funds to be donated to our Chamber at the recent Board of Supervisors meeting of August 23, 2005.
(Visit www.boardofsupervisors.co.riverside.ca.us for details of the request. Follow the link below to the complete request: http://www.clerkoftheboard.co.riverside.ca.us Look under 8/23/05 Item 3.107.

Please note there were 15 other individual organizations under consideration for funding including the Idyllwild Chamber of Commerce.

As noted in the articles, there were opponents to the donation at the meeting. We will not spend time commenting on their efforts, but you can safely say that we are one of the two groups that simply don’t agree. We will mention that asking for the funds or having the Supervisor give us funds as designated in the proposed 3.107 Agenda item was NOT improper by any means.

While the $30,000 would be very much appreciated, we are not, as pointed out by one newspaper, "a fledgling" chamber of commerce. We are solvent and have contingency plans in motion.

"Fledgling"? I took time to look up the definition. The word "new" sounds much better than fledgling!
Main Entry: fledg·ling
Pronunciation: 'flej-li[ng]
Function: noun
1 : a young bird just fledged
2 : an immature or inexperienced person
3 : one that is new

Technically we are a new company but we are not immature and we are certainly not inexperienced!

It is our cumulative experience that enable us to meet our goals and weather any storm. Remember, we have grown to almost 200 members in a very short period of time. We are drawing on that knowledge and maintain a positive approach that keeps the focus on our members, their growth and developing our community. We refuse to be distracted from our mission.

Please contact us if you have any questions or comments regarding this note or other items. As always, your membership is the reason why we exist and we always look forward to hearing from you.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has" – Margaret Mead

Now, let's get down to business!
Have a great Menifee-Sun City Day!
Julie Johnson, Pres./CEO,
Menifee-Sun City Chamber of Commerce

Labels: Chamber-of-Commerce, Jeff-Stone

For all those who visit Menifee 24/7 regularly, here is an invitation to hear Supervisor Stone speak at the Menifee-Sun City Chamber Luncheon this Wed, August 17, Noon at Boston Billies Restaurant in Sun City. The cost to attend is $15.00/pp. Here's your chance to ask about crime, economic development, traffic and sex offenders! Bring your questions and appetites. Call the Chamber to reserve your seat at 951-723-8511. You do not have to be a chamber member to attend.

Labels: Jeff-Stone