As the Idyllwild Fire Protection District moves forward with its plan to offer a ballot measure to increase its parcel (unit) fee, several readers have asked questions about how the mutual aid revenue is generated. “Mutual aid” is the reimbursement that goes to departments that respond to dispatch calls to send crews to fires outside…

Our readers must decide On June 28, 2013, our small, close corporation purchased the Town Crier, which had not made any money during the previous four-and-one-half years. We had one objective: to save the newspaper on our Hill. We could not imagine our community without one. Three weeks later, our online coverage of the Mountain…

Effective Wednesday, Aug. 1, Shawn C. Newman will serve as the Cal Fire Riverside Unit and Riverside County Fire Department fire chief. Newman began his career with Cal Fire in 1989, as a seasonal firefighter in the San Bernardino Unit and In 1994, promoted to Firefighter II in the Riverside Unit, working in West Riverside….