5th annual Reality Rally charity event set for April, A-7
VALLEY
Holiday Hoop fests: Local teams compete against nation’s best, B-1
Local woman who lost 109 pounds shares her experience, B-12
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Section
NEWS
January 9 – 15, 2015
www.myvalleynews.com
Local
Menifee gives go-ahead for Parks, Trails, Open space and Recreation Master Plan
Volume 15, Issue 2
Communities pull together to weather rare snow storm
MENIFEE—Menifee City Council approved a $220,000 contract with RJM Design Group to create the Parks, Trails, Open Space and Recreation Master Plan at its Dec. 17 meeting. The master plan will serve as a 10-year guide that prioritizes goals and projects for the community’s outdoor amenities. see page A-3
Education
Students provide holiday cheer to those less fortunate Kim Harris Staff Writer Students at Chaparral High School recently held its 10th annual Operation Holiday Cheer, providing 186 gifts for 68 less fortunate children at the Valley Restart Center in Hemet. see page B-8
Sports
Injured Whitaker travels with team to Holiday Bowl Joe Naiman Valley News Correspondent A knee injury prevented Corey Whitaker from playing in the National University Holiday Bowl game Dec. 27 at Qualcomm Stadium, but the University of Nebraska football program allowed the 2012 Vista Murrieta High School graduate to travel to San Diego with the team.
VALLEY NEWS
PRSRT STD US POSTAGE PAID FALLBROOK, CA PERMIT #499
see page B-11
Wyatt Copp, 3, (left) and his brother Jakob Copp, 8, play in the snow in Temecula’s wine country on Dec. 31, 2014.
Michelle Mears-Gerst Writer A rare snowstorm that hit the valley on New Year’s Eve affected communities in varying degrees. Wildomar’s City Manager Gary Nordquist was woken in middle of
the night on Dec. 31 from the fire department informing him of an influx of emergency calls pouring in from local residents stranded in cars as well as flooding. “It was two in the morning when the public works superintendent and I headed down to station 61,” said Nordquist.
A command center was set up at Fire Station 61 by Peter Lent, the Cal Fire deputy director of the Office of Emergency Services for Riverside County. Emergency Services helped Wildomar organize and prioritize their emergency response efforts. “We drove (through) the com-
Shane Gibson photo
munity and found we had 14 emergency impacted locations,” said Nordquist. City and county crews spent the night in blizzard like conditions removing fallen trees from the roadways, and helping people who
see SNOW, page A-4
Woman recounts experience of being trapped on the Ortega Daniel Lane Multimedia Journalist A woman who was trapped on Ortega Highway, along with more than three dozen others during last week’s snow storm, said the experience was scary and preventable. Dyana Ferris, 46, of Temecula was trapped for more than 14 hours in her Lexus with nearly no fuel, no water and only two granola bars with freezing temperatures as snow slowly buried her car. Ferris says she left work in Mission Viejo sometime around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 30 to head to her Temecula home by using State Route 74 known as Ortega Highway. According to Ferris, there were no signs posted warning of snow or icy conditions on the highway even though reports on a California Highway Patrol log reported snow around 8:30 p.m. on the state route. According to other witnesses, snow was falling on the mountain road by around 7 p.m. that cold night. “I had no idea it was going to be snowing... I got to Ortega and it was raining,” Ferris said, during an
exclusive interview with The Valley News. “When I got to Nichols Road it was still raining... got up past the bridge, it was turning to snow. Near the Candy Store it was more of a light snow and it was not really sticking on the road.” While Ferris and countless others continued up the mountain the snow was getting thicker and thicker by the minute. “Out of nowhere it was almost like blizzard type weather,” Ferris said, noting that motorists were losing control of their vehicles. “People were swerving and sliding on ice... I was too scared to drive.” That was when Ferris and many others became trapped in their cars with no place to go and no one to help them … essentially, they were on their own for the time being. Sometime around 11:30 p.m. is when they first saw a CalTrans plow head eastbound on the mountain road, but the truck soon disappeared in the whiteout. “I’m concerned because I’m low on fuel,” Ferris said. Emergency officials advised us to turn (our) car on and off... this is scary.”
see ORTEGA, page A-6
Cars trapped on Ortega Highway over night on New Year’s Eve line the shoulder of the road early Thursday, Jan. 1. More than three dozen vehicles were forced to park along the road overnight after it was closed around 10:30 p.m. due to snow. Courtesy photo
Salary Comparison shows how local government shapes up Kim Harris Staff Writer Editor’s note: The following is a year-end review and comparison of the Temecula Valley cities’ employee salaries. Since each city varies in size, the Valley News has determined the best way to give an accurate comparison is by taking the salary for each individual position and dividing that number by the city’s population to determine which employees are highest paid
in the region. Population numbers are 2013 estimates provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. All information in this story was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and is protected by the California Supreme Court, which has held that names and salaries of individual public employees are required to be made public. The public’s right to know how money is being spent is a fundamental component of public access law.
The City of Murrieta has the most employees at 356 and the largest population with just over 107,000 people according to the U.S. Census Bureau, but the best paid city official per resident actually comes from the region’s smallest city, Wildomar. Wildomar, with a projected population of 32,176, pays its City Manager Gary Nordquist just over $195,000 a year, which translates to a cost of $6.06 per resident. Compared to Murrieta, Lake Elsinore,
Menifee and Temecula, Nordquist is the highest paid official in the area per resident. Murrieta City Manager Rick Dudley is paid $229,812 annually or $2.14 per resident while Menifee’s City Manager Rob Johnson makes $175,000 a year or $2.09 a resident. Lake Elsinore City Manager Grant Yates is the second highest paid out of the area’s city managers at $180,000 a year or
see SALARIES, page A-9