Editor:

Idyllwild Fire Protection District is inferior to Cal Fire, including objectivity, training, the economy of size and crew muster volume, not to mention that Cal Fire already has a county contract in place to replace IFPD at no Idyllwild charge, provided IFPD is dissolved.

Outrageous IFPD taxes continue to rise because of uncontrolled overtime, and unfunded liability spread across just a few parcels while its service model is heavily dependent on Cal Fire. Blind emotional support of IFPD is stupid, if not dangerous. Cal Fire and American Medical Response crews are lovable, too.

Long ago, I argued consolidating the water districts, thinking diverse water production would stabilize Hill water resources. Bad mistake.

Idyllwild Water is an unrepentant pig. It unfairly caters to tourism at homeowner expense, injecting in my opinion unreliable, poor quality, high-volume water with little regard to proper/safe well development/management.

Idyllwild Community Center proponents are no different. They want a footprint that rivals many in Southern California: heated indoor lap pool, multi-story, glass-lined building, meeting rooms, art gallery, large-group cooking facilities, multi-level decking and outdoor multilevel amphitheater included. If current recreation funding barely maintains an antiquated infrastructure, I can only call the ICC committee extremely careless and leeches, expecting a benefactor to flip the bill against what its own PR firm explicitly cites as a sustainable community funding level. We have yet to hear what first-phase startup and operation costs are. Wanna bet a new tax-dollar funded county service area is pushed after the fact?

Talk about bad conduct. To boot, I suspect they expect Pine Cove property owners to fund these unknown, if not unsustainable, footprints without consideration to our own infrastructure funding needs.

Vision needs more than just a pretty video and the words “trust me.” Wake up, Idyllwild. Eliminate IFPD. Compel IWD to switch to responsible and sustainable groundwater production, abandon surface-water production, abandon the sewer water recycle plant, abandon the uranium-laced well and force ICC to responsibly pare down its unsustainable, multi-million-dollar footprint.

I’ll support this model, if implemented. Otherwise, as a Pine Cove property owner, I will use the press and every legal venue advocating against its funding.

Jeff Smith

Pine Cove