More than 80 people attended the May 8 meeting of the Temescal Valley Municipal Advisory Council meeting and heard updates from Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Chief John Hawkins, Lee Lake Water District General Manager Jeff Pape and Riverside County Code Enforcement Officer Mano Molina.

But the big draw for the evening was a visit by Riverside County First District Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, who talked about his first five months in office since his election to the post last November and January swearing-in ceremony.

Jeffries said that he, too, lives in an unincorporated Riverside County area — Lakeland Village, within the city of Lake Elsinore sphere of influence. He said that as the First District supervisor and an appointed commissioner to the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo), he has to remain fair and impartial in publicly speaking about the annexation. But he again reiterated that last year while campaigning door-to-door in Temescal Valley, he found no one that favored annexation and many people who opposed it.

A termed-out, six-year state assemblyman, Jeffires said those six years were the most frustrating in his life. He said he was happy to leave Sacramento where currently there are more than 100 bills pending that would make it much harder to do business in California.

He said that while the county — the fourth largest in the state, is slowly recovering from the recent bad economy, the recovery will be slow and the county faces some tough times ahead. State programs such as prison early-release to ease over-crowding, is placing a burden on the county. He also noted that of the county’s $5 billion annual budget, only $500 million is discretionary — the remainder going to augment state- and federal-mandated programs.

He talked about the wild land fire tax paid by several people in Temescal Valley and said the state legislature might be doing away with it. He said he opposed the tax and unsuccessfully authored legislation to kill it while he served as our assemblyman. He said the tax does not buy one piece of fire equipment nor hires any additional firefighting personnel, and only can be used for fire prevention. He also said it’s questionable whether the amount of tax dollars paid by Riverside County residents will ever be used here.

Fire Chief Hawkins reviewed the brush fires experienced by Cal Fire over the weekend and asked everyone in attendance to create “defensible space” in getting rid of landscaping and overgrown weeds too close to their homes. He said this fire season is expected to be a rough one. “You bring the defense; we’ll bring the offense,” Hawkins said. (Learn more about Defensible Space HERE)

Pape told the crowd that the Lee Lake Water District board was working on budgets. He said the cost of MWD water was getting expensive — $1,000 an acre foot, and that the local district has no control over these costs. Pape said that possible, well-planned budget cuts would offset the cost of a rate increase.

He talked about the district project that would mix groundwater with nonpotable water and pipe it along Temescal Canyon Road to Sycamore Creek to be used for landscape irrigation. Pape said the district’s construction plans — there are many underground pipes and lines now along Temescal Canyon Road, and the concern about preserving the oak trees that grow along the roadway, must meet county approval. He said while awaiting approval, the district plans to begin other phases of the project by midsummer. He said the district will endeavor to keep traffic flowing with little disruption.

Molina said code enforcement calls in Temescal Valley for illegal dumping have slowed down, averaging two calls per week. He said 1,700 tires recently were removed from an illegal dump site in the Valley and it took 75 trips to clean up the area.