WILDOMAR: City Hall open for business
City's interim staff answering questions, working on new development projects
By AARON CLAVERIE - Staff Writer | ∞
Wildomar's City Hall is open for business at 23873 Clinton Keith Road, in the Oak Creek shopping center. WILDOMAR ---- The phone rings and it's a Wildomar resident calling to offer congratulations on the city's incorporation.
It rings again and it's someone looking for a job with the new city.
It rings again and it's a developer wondering where to take a new set of plans.
The city of Wildomar has had a phone number since late June but there was no phone and no one to answer a phone until City Hall opened July 1.
Since the doors swung open last Tuesday morning, the person picking up the phone has been Denise Wilfinger, a certified permit technician who has been answering questions, passing along messages to the city's interim staff members and trying to find out what to do about a squirrel infestation at a Wildomar resident's home.
That was one of the quirkier calls, Wilfinger said during a phone interview Friday, the last day of the first business week for the city of Wildomar.
Wildomar's City Hall, Wilfinger's home base, is inside office space in a building in the southeastern corner of the Oak Creek Shopping Center on Clinton Keith.
The desk Wilfinger uses was donated by the county of Riverside. All of the other furniture inside Wildomar's City Hall also was donated: the cubicles, the filing cabinets and the shelves.
The county made a deal with the city: if it took some of the used office equipment it had to take it all. The city, grateful for the free equipment, gladly accepted.
On the walls of the office there are pictures of the five-member City Council, elected in February during the same election that saw voters approve the formation of the city and its division into five electoral districts. There's a map of Wildomar that details the city's boundaries. There are chairs and magazines for someone waiting for an appointment and there are fresh flowers.
Since incorporation, the walls have been getting crowded with all of the proclamations and plaques given to the city by neighboring cities and elected officials, Wilfinger said.
Inside the cubicles, interim city staff members, including at times the finance director and the planning director, are working on the budget and the large stack of development projects that had been in some stage of the county's approval process.
Wilfinger said the city is starting to take over responsibility for providing the services that had been provided by the county but there are still some big gaps.
For instance, the city hasn't yet developed a fee structure that lists how much a developer will be charged to submit plans, pull permits and so on.
Also, the county is still handling the issuing of business licenses because the city doesn't have a tracking system set up for that kind of information.
To help with the transition, the county has been providing training to Wilfinger and the city's other new employees, who are being paid as part of the contract the council approved with InterWest, a public works and engineering firm.
"We're taking over a little bit at a time and we're going to do it (the training) every day until we get it," she said.
Councilman Scott Farnam, a member of the council's facilities committee, said he is pleased with the new City Hall and that an empty office next door could become a site for future council meetings.
The owner of the building has said he would offer the city use of the office until it is leased out, Farnam said.
Having a regular meeting place will be a boon for the council, which has been nomadic during its first months of existence: meeting inside a church, the lobby of a financial services building, a middle school, a high school and a football stadium.
Mayor Bob Cashman said it was amazing to stop by the office and see everyone working on city business, months after there was doubt in some quarters if incorporation would even be approved.
A corner of the office has been set aside for the council members and Cashman said he has stopped by to check his e-mail and get some work done.
Contact staff writer Aaron Claverie at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2624, or aclaverie@californian.com.
City of Wildomar contact information
-- Address: 23873 Clinton Keith Road,Suite 201, Wildomar, CA 92595
-- Phone: (951) 677-7751
-- Web site: www.cityofwildomar.org
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Observer wrote on Jul 15, 2008 6:21 AM:I suppose this article’s aim is to convince the public that Wildomar leaders suffered a singular, momentary pang of thriftiness in accepting the used furnishings from the county, and that should somehow make up for their spending sprees in most other areas.
It doesn't wash! Too much money is being committed to expenditures before Wildomar comes up with an honest, updated budget with realistic estimates of their adjusted revenue streams instead of the pie-in-the-sky figures in the CFA.
Woe Is The Observer wrote on Jul 15, 2008 10:31 AM:Whhaaaaa, whaaaaa. Wildo-Whine-Babies. Can you ever say anything positive? About anything? You need a hug or sumthin'? Take a walk. Watch a sunset. Smell a flower. Take some time to enjoy life a little bit, will ya'? Your outlook will no doubt improve.
Markie wrote on Jul 15, 2008 1:04 PM:To Woe, how rude, can a person not make and observation without being called a whining baby.
Not all of the area incorparated into the city of Wildomar wanted to be. Because we could see the big picture of the economy and where it has been heading.
Just where is this money coming from the cash strapped tax payers. Who are trying to just trying to keep their heads afloat with the cost of food and gas.
To Markie wrote on Jul 15, 2008 3:13 PM:What do you think your the only one with $ issues,get over your big bad self, look around, ALL are in the same boat even the rich pick up your heads, dust your self off and get on with it. It's the way the world is. try and get a positive attitude, things may go a little better.Or stay home and just complain like good old Observer.
To Markie wrote on Jul 15, 2008 4:04 PM:When people have no solid arguments or logic to defend their contrary point of view they often resort to using rudeness, cynicism and ridicule as their verbal weapons of choice. I’m not going to let it get to me, and you shouldn’t either.
There are a great number of people who have objections to the way our new city is being run. Many of these people are long time residents who truly love Wildomar, and would like nothing more than to feel positive about the future. But we can’t honestly profess to love our community while sticking our heads in the sand and failing to see what is going wrong and try to correct it.
If you read Kennedy’s "Profiles in Courage", you will understand that it is often unpopular to speak out against things that are wrong, but future generations will be grateful someone had the courage to do so.
WeRHurting wrote on Jul 15, 2008 10:02 PM:So the whole idea of getting away from the county was for better services?? But we still rely on the county for everything. Not to mention that there is not going to be any increas in services either just a lot of red on the financial sheets. Not to mention the flawed financial report that was done in favor of the pro city hood folk. We really should of been annexed by the City of Murrieta. We would of had three fire stations and a lot better law enforcement. Just my two cents. I hope someone leaves our infant city a huge amount of money in their will!!
ModernRock wrote on Jul 15, 2008 10:04 PM:The Majority voted for this. I bet Observer didn't even vote. I wish Wildomar luck, it's a nice place.
To ModernRock wrote on Jul 16, 2008 6:27 AM:You’d lose your bet as this Observer did vote…and has done so consistently for many years.
Indeed, the majority of people who voted did vote for incorporation. However, that doesn’t mean they voted for the way the city is now being run. These are two separate issues, but it’s hard to draw a distinction between them when you’re dealing with someone who tries to make points with nasty one-line zingers.
The council is not addressing essential tasks; key city positions aren’t being filled appropriately, laws are being circumvented, and members of the council and city staffers aren’t following accepted good business practices.
Concerned citizens not only have a right, but an obligation to speak out on these issues. That’s what makes democracy work.
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