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Author Archive for J.P. Crumrine

J.P. Crumrine is editor of the Town Crier. He can be reached at jp@towncrier.com.

Fire agencies prepare for fire season and beyond

Optimism and good news were prevalent at last week’s Mountain Area Safety Taskforce meeting. Fire officials from forest fire agencies — U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and CAL FIRE — discussed their preparations for the 2012 fire season that has already begun.

Bank of America offers two-day homeowner assistance event May 22 and May 23

Share/Bookmark What: A free, two-day event where customers will have the opportunity to meet face-to-face with a Bank of America home retention specialists to review their options for home loan modifications or other alternatives to foreclosure. Customers are strongly encouraged to bring a list of documents found at www.bankofamerica.com/homeownerevent. Where: Embassy Suites Palm Desert 700 [...]

A butterfly tent will be at this year's festival.

Idyllwild Earth Fair … friendly fun for all

Share/BookmarkIdyllwild’s 23rd Annual Earth Fair will be Saturday, May 19 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., at its traditional venue — Town Hall. This year the theme is “Sustain this!” The logo depicts a flower with five petals. Each petal suggesting how or where we might conserve our resources. The ocean and water is on [...]

Idyllwild School will suffer the loss of six long-time teachers next month. Here (from left) are Holly Guntermann, Diane D’Arcy, Vic Scavarda and Iva Botton.  Photos by J.P. Crumrine

Six Idyllwild School teachers retiring

Botton, Carratello, D’Arcy, Gray, Guntermann and Scavarda take with them a combined 125 years experience in schools …

CAL FIRE Director Ken Pimlott speaking at Friday’s open house at the Hemet Ryan Air Base. Behind Pimlott is 3rd District Supervisor Jeff Stone (white shirt), Chief Dale Hutchison, head of CAL FIRE’s southern operations, and to his right, Riverside County Fire Chief John Hawkins. Photos by J.P. Crumrine

State fire officials ready for intense fire season

Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. declared May 6 through May 12 as “Wildfire Awareness Week” …

Forestry board policy aims to control oak borer

Share/BookmarkLast month, the California State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection adopted a policy that allows CALFIRE to enter into agreements with both public and private landowners and governmental agencies, including the federal government, for controlling the spread of the goldspotted oak borer. This is a first step in adopting interdiction policies and regulations that [...]

Assemblyman wants to amend California’s fire fee

Share/BookmarkState Assemblyman Wesley Chesbro (D, Assembly District 1, North Coast) has submitted a bill to modify the state’s recently enacted fire prevention fee. Assembly Bill 2474 won approval from the Natural Resources Committee Monday, May 7. The bill is intended to make fire protection fees assessed to property owners in State Responsibility Areas more equitable, [...]

New General Educational Development tests in 2014

Share/BookmarkBeginning Jan. 1, 2014, GED Testing Service will release a new version of the General Educational Development test. This new version will be administered solely on the computer. All paper testing will be eliminated as of Jan. 1, 2014. Any applicants who have taken the GED between 2002 and Dec. 31, 2013, must complete all [...]

New virtual Idyllwild community watch launched

New virtual Idyllwild community watch launched

Share/Bookmark The Idyllwild Watch Network is now available for community comments, ideas and suggestions relating to the recent spate of crime incidents on the Hill. At Capt. Scott Collins’, Riverside County Sheriff’s Department Hemet Station commander, community meeting in March, Don Raridon heard some comments that suggested the community wanted a virtual site where it [...]

Frank Santana, a research technician with the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, prepares to make the first-ever release of endangered mountain yellow-legged frog tadpoles into a mountain stream.  They are among 36 of the Southern California population of mountain yellow-legged frogs reintroduced into a stream near Idyllwild, Calif., Tuesday.  There are believed to be less than 200 of the frogs living in the San Gabriel, San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains. Photo: Courtesy

Yellow-legged frog restoration slows, but positive signs show

Share/BookmarkThe restoration of the Hill’s mountain yellow-legged frog population is continuing although no new releases of eggs are planned for 2012, according to Adam R. Backlin, ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Ecological Research Center in Irvine. “It looks like our captive breeding program this year did not produce as many new frogs as [...]

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