By J.P. Crumrine
Water district directors
At its July 26 meeting, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors appointed qualified candidates to the boards of several local water districts. The Registrar of Voters recommended their appointment because there were an insufficient number of candidates to hold an election.
| District | Candidates’ names |
| Fern Valley | Diana Johnson |
| Trischa A. Clark | |
| Idyllwild | Allan Morphett |
| James Billman | |
| Pine Cove | Michael Esnard |
| Thomas McCullough |
Emergency medical aid dispatch
Although Riverside County Board of Supervisors Chair Bob Buster (1st District) deferred his proposal to evaluate the county’s dispatch system for medical aid, this may be a topic that attracts considerable attention this fall.
Buster wants county staff to examine the medical aid dispatch system. He would like to see computer-aided dispatch integrated more fully into the program and alerts. In addition, the discussion of more effective and cost-efficient emergency medical dispatch may result in fewer calls, including both an ambulance and a fire engine.
Nearly 10 years ago, San Bernardino County eliminated the automatic dispatch of both types of vehicles.
“Presently, Riverside County Fire Department deploys a full cadre of assets; fire engine, advanced life saving (ALS) equipment, two firefighters and a firefighter/paramedic responding with red lights and siren to all medical aid calls, whether or not there is a need to deploy significant resources. Additionally an ambulance staffed by a paramedic and EMT with ALS capacity is also deployed on each medical aid call. Responding with a full array of assets with red lights and siren to every medical aid call — many of which first responders call “band-aid calls” — takes emergency response units out of service unnecessarily and contributes to increased response time in life-threatening emergencies when units located farther away must be dispatched,” Buster wrote to his colleagues.
The topic will be on the Aug. 16 agenda for the board.
Ballots for Aug. 30 election mailed
The Registrar of Voters, Kari Verjil, announced that more than 62,000 ballots for the Aug. 30 election were mailed to voters on Monday, Aug. 1. The vote-by-mail ballots should be arriving this week, she said. Voted ballots must be received by the Registrar of Voters office by 8 p.m. Aug. 30 to be counted in the upcoming election
Only two districts, Idyllwild Fire Protection District and the Rancho California Water District, are conducting elections this month.
Vote-by-mail ballots can be returned through the postal service or deposited in a 24-hour drop box available outside the main entrance of the Registrar’s office at 2724 Gateway Drive in Riverside. Early voting at the Registrar of Voters office also began Monday and continues through Aug. 30.
The Aug. 30 election is conducted completely by mail ballot, which means there are no established polling places.
