The Idyllwild Chamber of Commerce offices were ransacked on Saturday night, Feb. 16.
Vandals gained entrance through a back sliding door. File drawers were opened and files were scattered throughout the office. One particular file in a file drawer that normally contains the Chamber cash box was the only one with papers jutting out of it, as if pulled. It contained records pertaining to lawsuits against the Chamber, including a current one David Roy filed in August, dismissed and refiled last month.
Papers, check records, and other documents were strewn on the floor when a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department deputy and Chamber directors Mimi Lamp and David Jerome arrived. Files containing records of the Chamber’s checks were also opened. A check register that included carbon copies of checks written from the Chamber Monument Maintenance account was part of the papers that had been scattered or dropped.
The Chamber cash box was found behind the nearby bakery Honey Bunns & Joe.
Jerome said it appeared the only things taken were the Chamber’s check deposit slips and the last replica of the Jonathan LaBenne tree monument that had long been a tourist attraction in the Idyllwild town center. David Roy’s carving of Harmony replaced the LaBenne monument that had deteriorated and had to be removed.
