JP Crumrine, long-time respected news editor and reporter for the Town Crier, retired last week and will be heading back East soon. He is adamant that he wants no party and no feature story in the paper, and we have honored his wishes — as best we could, anyway. But JP’s friends have talked with…
The public information officer of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles has now confirmed at least part of the “new evidence” that resulted in the United States’ dismissal of the 2013 Mountain Fire lawsuit against Dr. Tarek M. Al-Shawaf and his Mountain Center property caretakers, the Nowlins. “The new evidence does include statements from…
A self-representing Mountain Fire victim unraveled the $30-million federal case and put the state’s $5-million findings into question. Lawrence Goda, a homeowner-plaintiff in the state-court action that settled last year for nearly $5 million to Cal Fire, and other plaintiffs, confirmed James Nowlin’s information reported in the Town Crier’s Aug. 1 issue regarding the two…
The Town Crier’s Membership model — and the resultant increased advertising by businesses and nonprofits — have saved your hill newspaper from the fate suffered by many community papers throughout our country. The New York Times just recently published a sad story about a small-town newspaper in Warroad, Minnesota — the Warroad Pioneer — which…
There could be many reasons the federal court lawsuit stemming from the 2013 Mountain Fire was dismissed. Some of those reasons would be legitimate — “new evidence” justifying its dismissal in the interests of justice would be one. That’s the U.S. Attorney’s/Department of Justice (DOJ) full comment. We have no reason to doubt that it’s…
Brendan Steele could post only a 5-over-70-75 — 145 to miss the cut by nine strokes in last week’s Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina. After scoring an even-par 70 in the first round, the 36-year-old Idyllwild native opened the second round with five straight over-par holes, including two doubles, which led to a devastating…
Town Crier to request documents from Cal Fire Still no call-backs from any public officials with information as to nature of the “new evidence” that was cited by the DOJ/U.S. Attorney’s office as the reason for dismissing the federal civil lawsuit stemming from the 2013 Mountain Fire. James Nowlin, one of the defendants in the dismissed…
Last week the Town Crier reported that the federal lawsuit stemming from the 2013 Mountain Fire, by which court action the United States sought to recover some $24 million in fire suppression costs and damage to federal wildlands, had been dismissed by the DOJ/U.S. Attorney’s Office without any monetary recovery to U.S. taxpayers. The DOJ/U.S….
Brendan Steele scored 27 Modified Stableford points at Reno last week in the Barracuda Championship to finish in a tie for 39th place. Modified Stableford is a scoring system that rewards aggressive play: A player scores 0 points for pars, but he scores 2 points for each birdie, 5 points for each eagle, and 8…
Three years after its last-minute filing of the United State’s lawsuit against Mountain Center property owner, Dr. Tarek M.A. Al-Shawaf, and his employees seeking some $24 million in costs of fire suppression and damage to federal forest lands, the Department of Justice (DOJ), United States Attorney’s Office has filed to dismiss the case. The Idyllwild…
