Temecula red, white, blue and green

By PAUL JACOBS - For The Californian | Sunday, July 27, 2008 12:18 AM PDT ∞

Last week, I wrote of the benefits of going green with solar electric panels, but my wires were crossed concerning electrical rates. Edison charges residential customers the same rate regardless of time of day, but commercial accounts are discounted for off-peak usage. The minutiae on the road to being green are not so easy, but still it is a worthwhile journey.

On the subject of roads and being green, the city of Temecula is stepping up to the plate. Cities generally don't design and build freeway interchanges because that's the job of bigger governmental agencies. Once again, Temecula does things differently.

It's no easy task for a city to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops to get the necessary approvals to build a new Interstate-15/215 interchange, but after years of work and thousands of hours of city staff time, on June 26, Temecula received the green light from the ruling federal official to build the $140 million French Valley Parkway interchange. The money for the project is already in the bank.

Temecula's approach to issues reminds me of the Angels baseball team, frequently described as "scrappy." There isn't a core of big hitters that accounts for the Angels' leading position in all of baseball, but every player on the roster contributes to the results.

Scrappy is part of Temecula's tradition from becoming a stop on the Butterfield Stage route in the 1800s to incorporating as a city in December 1989. From having one park in the beginning, the city added three dozen more, one bloop single at a time. It was a scrappy bunch of local leaders who chased away Wal-Mart years ago, and today, where the Wal-Mart was proposed to be built, we have a regional shopping mall that contributes considerably to the city's sales tax revenue.

Temecula has a history of investing those tax dollars back into the community in the way of amenities and infrastructure. This is very perplexing, because I have been led to believe that this is a conservative community. I thought government was supposed to be broken? President Ronald Reagan said the nine most terrifying words in the English language were, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

As a slap in the face to Reagan, in less than 20 years, Temecula's government has built a community theater, children's museum, a library and all kinds of things "for the people." We even have movies in the park for free family entertainment.

What kind of socialist nonsense is going on here? It is no wonder a liberal like me is so content here in Temecula. Next, we'll probably have a street corner called Haight-Ashbury in Old Town. OK, probably not.

Last Tuesday, the hippies ---- I mean ---- the members of the City Council unanimously endorsed the California Green Builder Program. Maybe there is something about a Wine Country that can mellow the staunchest of Republicans into acting like low-emission flaming liberals? Whatever it is, I'm not complaining!

I attended a city meeting on property foreclosures the morning of the council meeting, and the conversation drifted from dealing with abandoned properties to building and retrofitting our lives for a greener future.

The issues our nation faces transcend politics. Temecula seems to be the epicenter of doing not what is right or left, but what is the correct course of action.

It turns out being green, red, white and blue comes before being left or right.

Paul Jacobs is a regular columnist for The Californian. E-mail him at TemeculaPaul@aol.com.