On April 19, Ira Robert Ellis, 37, of Poppet Flats, had two hearings before Judge Becky Dugan in Department 41, Riverside, of the Riverside County Superior Court. The first was a Marsden/Sanchez hearing in which Ellis, who was represented by a deputy public defender, asserted that he had been denied his right to effective counsel….

Dr. Frank Vernon, research seismologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and University of California, San Diego, spoke in Anza about seismic monitoring in the Anza Valley. Vernon spoke last Friday at Hamilton High School Library about field arrays that have been placed throughout the Anza Valley to monitor seismic activity on the San Jacinto Fault….

  The Idyllwild Water District lost two of its five directors in September. Former President James Billman and Director Mike Frietas resigned unexpectedly within the same week. The remaining directors have not be able to appoint replacements because Vice President John Cook prefers to wait and hold an election in March 2017. Regardless of the…

You may have noticed an unnamed black and gold helicopter flying for 30 to 45 minutes over Idyllwild last Friday afternoon. The helicopter is leased by WaveRider Helicopters of Oceanside from November Alpha LLC. Kurt Dawson, owner/pilot of WaveRider, said his company was contracted by a surveyor to survey the power grid in our area. “The surveyor was probably hired by SCE,” he said, and Dawson and an employee were given a map to survey problems in the grid such things as trees in the power lines.