Editor:
The members of the Mountain Community Patrol, Idyllwild, are a group of senior volunteers ranging in age from 65 to 81-plus. As volunteers for the Riverside County Sheriff, we all are vetted for background security, are fingerprinted and fulfill the requirements for Red Cross emergency medical training.
For the past 20 years, our annual yard sale, the Hill’s biggest, is our fund raiser, and the proceeds pay for our annual expenses, including rent, utilities, two-way radios, uniforms and vehicle expenses.
We volunteer our services throughout the year for Idyllwild events, including concerts, parades and races. In addition, we patrol Idyllwild businesses and streets, and we remove graffiti along Highway 243 from Banning to Mountain Center.
MCP members also actively belong to numerous other Idyllwild organizations, so we are thoroughly immersed in supporting and volunteering for our beloved mountain communities.
Why did Cal Trans choose this year, on Friday, Aug. 29, to remove all signs for yard and estate sales in Idyllwild? We were not given prior notification of new rules, especially after 20 years.
The Caltrans person I spoke with on the telephone would not give us the name of the new Caltrans supervisor. On Friday afternoon, two MCP members had to meet a Caltrans employee down in Mountain Center to retrieve our three sandwich-board wooden signs.
The lack of signage directing people to our new, Franklin Drive, Pine Cove location negatively affected our yard sale. MCP members are very disappointed.
Marlene Pierce
Pine Cove
Editor’s note: On March 21, 1972, Highway 243 (28.2 miles) was designated a California scenic highway. In order to preserve the highway as scenic, outdoor advertising is limited. One of the benefits of the designation, according to the Caltrans website, is to “Prohibit billboards and regulate on-site signs so that they do not detract from scenic views.”
