No bond measure will be on the November ballot for the Hemet Unified School District. At its Aug. 2 meeting, the trustee board voted 6-1 against putting a $165.3 million proposal in front of taxpayers. The funds would have been for constructing a new elementary school in the Winchester area, and repairs and improvements at…
Kimberly Saruwatari, director of the the Riverside County Emergency Management Department, was the featured speaker at the Mountain Emergency Service Committee meeting last Thursday at the library. She discussed the agency’s creation, its need and its goals over the next few years. In early 2014, County Executive Officer Jay Orr created a task force to…
Hearings and settlement conferences for Robert Pape, 28, and Cristin Smith, 27, continue to be re-scheduled. Pape’s latest court appearance was Aug. 5 when a new felony settlement conference was set for Aug. 26 and a possible preliminary hearing on Sept. 7. Pape has had several attorneys replaced and issues of conflict declared. The public…
Arrested twice, charges dropped once, nearly 10 years after the crime, 27-year-old Christin Smith’s defense in a triple-homicide case is much more aggressive than that of his co-defendant and friend Robert Pape, 28. Both men were re-arrested in June and charged with committing a 2006 triple homicide in Pinyon. The victims were Jon Hayward, Vicki…
Late Saturday afternoon, officials from the Idyllwild Fire Department were alerted to a body on the Butterfield Commons on Strawberry Creek, the future home of the Idyllwild Community Center, and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department confirmed the location where the body was found. Late Sunday, the Riverside County Coroner’s office released the following information: The…
In April, the Riverside County Grand Jury delivered a report critical of the county’s Registrar of Voters Office’s preparation and conduct of the November 2015 election. The grand jury visited seven different polling places in the county. In its response, which the Board of Supervisors approved in late July, the registrar agreed to change some…
Just after 6 a.m. Monday, Aug. 15, first responders, including fire personnel and California Highway Patrol deputies, arrived at the scene of an attempted suicide on Highway 243 just above Smith Creek Bridge. An as-yet unnamed 55-year-old male, who had earlier been reported missing from Orange County, had driven his white Toyota Tacoma into an…
On Monday, Aug. 15, the Idyllwild Town Crier informed IWD General Manager Thomas E. Lynch that the TC was going to publish a story saying that he had taken the exam for State Water Resources Control Board’s California Water Treatment Grade II Operator Certificate (“T2” certification) three times, had failed it all three times, and…
Because of strong gusty winds and low humidity, Cal Fire has issued a Red Flag Warning until 9 p.m. tonight for parts of Northern and Southern California tonight, including the San Jacinto Mountains. A Red Flag Warning is issued for weather events which may result in extreme fire behavior that will occur within 24 hours.
In February 2014, when the directors of the Idyllwild Water District hired General Manager Tom Lynch, they required him to “receive your State of California Water Treatment Grade II Operator Certificate” within six months. At the July 2016 board meeting, Lynch told the public his certificate was pending. Two weeks later, Vice President John Cook…
