Assembly Bill (AB) 257, the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act or FAST Recovery Act, enacted in September 2022, is on hold until the November 2024 election. AB 257 creates a 10-person council to set rules for chains with 100 or more restaurants nationally. It can set the minimum wage for fast-food workers with…

By Stephanie YostContributed This year has posed numerous challenges for local nonprofit and community events, and this year’s annual Christmas Tree Lighting and Harvest Festival are, unfortunately, no exception. The good news, however, is that both events are not entirely canceled. Although the Idyllwild Community Center (ICC) cannot, due to COVID-19 restrictions, shut down the…

The Riverside County budget doesn’t play fair. The fiscal year 2016-17 budget, which the Riverside County Board of Supervisors adopted this fall, was very tight and there was agreement for minimal increases next year while awaiting revenues to grow. However, rather than slowly balancing revenues and expenditures, the budget is rapidly turning red, bright red,…