OMG wrote on Oct 5, 2007 5:22 AM:Please tell me it's not true. The Golden Triangle following in the footsteps of Village Walk and The Orchards, preceded by saying elite restaurants, shopping and recreation. Is this Murrieta Mayor on drugs?-

Interested wrote on Oct 5, 2007 5:27 AM:Certainly Murrieta is making great progress, helped a lot by the extra efforts hours of work and dedication of Doug McAllister. Few cities have been challenged by such fast growth in such a short period. With population now over 92,000 while only several years ago it was 40,000 there have been many problems to deal with. There are many more problems to keep working on. One of the small but important problems is for Murrieta and Temecula to manage to get some meaningful new business and industry magazines into their nice new libraries like "Aviation Week and Space Technology", and "Engineering News Record". Many towns much smaller have them. There is a lack of this kind of information in both libraries despite having nearly 200 magazine titles. With the new larger libraries there is room available on the racks for them. The city says they want to attract higher paying engineering and manufacturing jobs to Murrieta. This would be one more small way to show they are serious about it.-

o brother wrote on Oct 5, 2007 7:26 AM:the mayor should be able to help interested... somebody bettr get busy with business retention or they are gonna have a problem paying their new city manager. more big going out of business sales at furniture row this week. thousands of vacant homes etc. meltdown time.-

Put em down! wrote on Oct 5, 2007 9:18 AM:Put down those rose-colored glasses. The business and development environment that has been created by this group is abysmal to say the least. It seems the number one item on the agenda is to give the public the perception that they all "get along". Well, that's great, but in the meanwhile, the city is falling down around their ears. "getting along" at the expense of the community isn't strong leadership. I'll take real progress over "getting along" any day.

Concerned-1 wrote on Oct 5, 2007 10:36 AM:It's interesting to hear politicians talk about economic development. Ironically, as the video tape played yesterday, at least one major business it showed is currently going out of business. It's not a big surprise to the consuming public. What were they thinking when they put up furniture row? How about all that new development on South Jefferson? Do they really think retail businesses are going to flock to those areas? I remember back in the early 90s when they built a new big shopping center at Los Alamos and 215. When I heard about it I wondered why. Three new shopping centers had just opened. There was no need for the new Vons and purported Thrifty. Guess what? Vons closed in less than a year and the drug store never opened. It's now a post office! The brain trust in Murrieta's economic development circles think that if you build it they will come. Sorry folks, this is no Field of Dreams.

Laughable wrote on Oct 5, 2007 11:16 AM:Does the mayor live in the same city as the rest of us? As far as I can tell the Orchard center is failing. I wouldn't call another Subway and Starbucks a success. What was a nice city is changing for the worst, because we have an inexperienced council, without fore sight. They continue to approve ugly strip malls that are going vacant. On top of that the city let developers of the hook when it came to fees. Now the city is going broke paying for roads that the cheap development's didnt pay for. I think the old council was better than the new one.

matt wrote on Oct 5, 2007 4:51 PM:i still think the "golden triangle" would be a nice place for a Central Park area it would attract people from all over, plus be a nice place for nature but it wouldnt bring in as many tax dollars and all the city cares about is money and greed

Off the Hook? wrote on Oct 5, 2007 7:22 PM:If laughable thinks the city let developers off the hook with respect to development fees, they are sadly misinformed. Murrieta has had some of the highest development impact fees in the county for almost 10 years. Every road improvement to date was largely paid for by development fees. Also, most of the money for the roads you see being built or improved today comes from development fees. If what laughable suggests was true, there wouldn't have been any roads built in the last 16 years. What is laughable is how uninformed some people really are. People like laughable just have no understanding what-so-ever of the economics and laws involved in collecting money for road fees and then they pass along their ignorance with comments like those above.

Murrieta Mom wrote on Oct 5, 2007 8:05 PM:I agree with Matt - the Golden Triangle would make a nice park - maybe put in a small city zoo, like the Santa Ana zoo. We have enough RD&E space that is not filled or even close to filling up. The furniture row will soon be close to vacant. Why not?

To Laughable wrote on Oct 5, 2007 9:04 PM:What old council are you referring to? What you see today actually happened yesterday, as in yesterday' council, not today's. The Orchard's approved by van Haaster, Seyarto and McAllister, all stating "optimistically, the Clinton Keith bridge would be OPEN in early 2008". Village Walk, the same Trio. Furniture row. The same Trio.

To Matt & Murrieta Mom wrote on Oct 6, 2007 7:35 AM:The Central Parl idea is a nice fairy tale. That is private property. For the city to turn it into a park, they would have to buy it from the property owner - millions of dollars. Then the city would have to develop the park - millions of dollars. And then the city would have to maintain it - millions of dollars. Those millions of dollars would be paid by taxpayers - are you ready for a tax increase?

Lets see... wrote on Oct 6, 2007 9:01 PM:McAlister is playing to next years election already. "We're all getting along theme". He points to the Golden Triangle as the future. Why? What will go in their that will bring massive tax revenues? High end stores and restaurants? SW Riverside county residents can't pay their mortgage payments, where will they get an extra $100 for a steak? Build it and they will come? From where?? San Diego has high end restaurants and stores. LA and Orange County have the same. Why would anyone plan a trip to retail outlets in Murrieta? To the heat of the Inland Empire? Only for one reason would people of Riverside, Orange, San Diego county come to Murrieta at the 15/215. A massive water park, surrounded by a couple of hotels, some moderately priced stores and restaurants. Why would anyone come to the 100 degrees of Murrieta? To see the crowded streets and uncared for homes ungoing foreclosures? Think long and hard. Even those people in dire straits would pay 15 bucks to relieve themselves of the heat.

United for the Worst wrote on Oct 7, 2007 2:37 AM:People shouldn't get mad at comments like the one from "Laughable" for saying what they feel. I look around when I'm in Murrieta and see a road infastructure thats on a county level, which is bad. The city barley has money for Clinton Keith and all the other bridges they have to build. When is the Clinton Keith and Antelope intersection going to be fixed. There is a high school there and theres no side walks in some sections right off the freeway. Theres traffic on Clinton Keith, because the city wont pay to widden a small section in front of empty land. Their waiting for a who ever eventually builds on the land to widden it. So traffic whittles down to one lane on Clinton Keith and backs up. Then it opens up again to two lanes after you pass this property. It's in the cities interest to widden this few feet of road but they dont. Theres a portion of Jefferson like that, that was left out to after they widdened it, just before Kalmia. It doesnt make any sense. I moved to Temecula. I like Murrieta, but I have to say though not perfect Temecula is a better run city.

Thank goodness! wrote on Oct 7, 2007 9:30 AM:"to laughable" points out the various projects that were approved during the tenure of three councilmen in particular. Didn't the City's tax revenues increase tenfold during that time too? How did that happen? Is 'to laughable' suggesting that the City should shun businesses that want to come to town because some non-expert councilmember or NIMBY citizen thinks they won't be successful? That would be an interesting economic development strategy. We could sit around and beg for Nordstrom's to come for many, many years. If we followed the doom and gloom economic strategies of people like 'to laughable', this city wouldn't have any revenues at all and our community would certainly reflect that.

RE: laughable wrote on Oct 9, 2007 4:32 PM:Excuse for a minute. Mr. Mayor is not in control of that Orchard center failing us. He is trying to make your city a great place for you to live and all you people do is complain!!! I'm sick of it! Also...I'm sure you complain about traffic in Murrieta yet your part of the problem. You people moved here a couple of years ago and are adding to that "traffic" problem. AHH, some people I think just don't have brains.

RE: Laughable wrote on Oct 9, 2007 4:34 PM:Excuse for a minute. Mr. Mayor is not in control of that Orchard center failing us. He is trying to make your city a great place for you to live and all you people do is complain!!! I'm sick of it! Also...I'm sure you complain about traffic in Murrieta yet your part of the problem. You people moved here a couple of years ago and are adding to that "traffic" problem. AHH, some people I think just don't have brains.

Who Said it was failing us? wrote on Oct 10, 2007 8:12 AM:Since when is the Orchard failing us? The Orchard will do just fine when the pending improvements to Clinton Keith are done. Retailers are hesitant to commit to going there until the access is guaranteed, which is pretty much what the majority of the council said when they approved the project and there was all of this hand ringing about how the traffic generated from the center would cause a disaster. Dixieline is helping the center in the meanwhile. So, instead of the usual Murrieta badmouthing, why not just go have a sandwhich or coffee and support the retailers who have committed to being there, making all of your lives a little more convenient?-