Menifee mobile home owners assured in a new city rent stabilization ordinance

Tony Ault Staff Writer

The Menifee City Hall Council Chambers was packed with many senior mobile home owners anxious to hear the city council’s approval of its own Mobile Home Park Rent Stabilization Ordinance at the Feb. 15 meeting.

Ordinance No. 760, as amended, takes away the original Riverside County mobile home rent stabilization ordinance the city followed on its incorporation and makes it an official city ordinance. It was the residents of the four senior mobile home communities in the city who made the request in April 2021. Since then, the staff researched the request and brought forward the requested county ordinance change for its first reading that evening. Mobile home residents asked the city to create their own ordinance keeping most of the county tenets intact to assure there would not be changes that would increase their monthly rents in the future.

The residents wanted to make sure the city would encourage fair bargaining between mobile home residents and mobile home park owners to preserve the value of the residents’ mobile homes and the park value as a whole. Especially keeping the annual rent increases at a low percentage rate rather than the constantly changing national Cost of Living increases that at that time was almost reaching 10%, the county consumer price index showed. With those considerations in mind, the city staff and city attorney forwarded an outline of the changes for a city Mobile Home Rent Stabilization Ordinance to the council for their consideration on first reading. The key factor in the new city ordinance notes the annual mobile home rent increase would be 5% or the lower COLA percentage, which brought favor from the mobile home owners. They saw that any higher increase would be almost impossible to pay if they are on a fixed income as many senior residents are. All the mobile home parks in Menifee are for those 55 years and older.

A representative of the Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners Association spoke to the Council that the homeowners generally favored the city ordinance, but were concerned about any rent increases to new homeowners if they moved into an open space or home in the park.

That issue was not put into the city ordinance. While the current owners wanted to be assured the new owners would only assume the park’s rental rate would not be higher than the average of the three highest rent spaces. The Council agreed with their request and said they will have that placed in the ordinance for approval on the second reading and public hearing.

City Manager Armando Villa was called on by the Council to give a report on his and the city’s progress during the past year. He summarized the city’s accomplishments saying in that time, the city staff got $10 million in Federal funding, saw the city social services increase, processed 668 requests answered by the city clerk, granted 5,200 building permits, added more sports facilities, reported the success of Citizens Academy, issued 3,924 business licenses, confirmed the upcoming Quail Valley Fire Station, added more paramedics in Sun City, welcomed 128 new employees to the city, implemented a faster technology system, lauded the police department for answering over 75,000 calls for service with 22,000 office visits, added six new Capital Improvements including financing the Holland Road Overpass and achieved many financial quality awards. He reported that the city’s achievements are successful, thanks to his highly qualified staff and the Council’s foresight. The full Council heard the annual financial report from the auditors and finance staff. The audit for the city was seen as without problems and praised by the auditors for the city staff’s outstanding cooperation that has brought many national awards.

It was reported the city received $123,395,404 in government funds with its expenditures at $97,831,000. The General Fund was set at $80,608,886 with expenditures at $70,825,625. The reserves are where they should be, unlike many other cities around them. The city’s Capital Assets were up by $23 million.

Early in the meeting, presentations were made of outgoing Planning Commissioner Thomas Giedroyce for his outstanding seven years of service to the commission. Anne-Marie Novak was named Citizen of the Month for her help with seniors and others in the community. Baron’s Market was under the city’s business spotlight for the month as an individually owned healthy food store in the community.

A dozen other consent items were approved with few questions.

Tony Ault can be reached at tault@reedermedia.com.

Murrieta Police Department partners to enhance public safety communication in Murrieta

In a continued effort to provide the highest quality police service to the citizens of Murrieta, the Murrieta Police Department is proud to announce that the new Public Safety Enterprise Communication Hollingsworth Tower is now in use and fully functional. This means areas in southwest Riverside County, including Murrieta, that previously lacked radio service for first responders now have 100% communication coverage, supporting the safety of both law enforcement personnel and residents. While getting to this point took many years, the importance of having timely, reliable countywide interoperable communications for all Riverside County public safety agencies and emergency management partners throughout Murrieta remained a priority. The Murrieta Police Department

4.75 joined the Public Safety Enterprise Communication system in 2015. PSEC was commissioned by the County of Riverside in 2007 and went live in 2014. It was built as a countywide, highly redundant, open standard based radio system with a mission to establish a broad network of jurisdictions that could communicate seamlessly with each other, increasing efficiency and safety in the region.

As the first municipal police department in southwest Riverside County to join PSEC, Murrieta PD staff almost immediately detected some coverage issues in the Copper Canyon/Bear Creek area. After multiple attempts to correct the issues with radio upgrades and reviewing the engineering, it was determined that the issues were directly related to the region’s unique topography. With coverage gaps related to the PSEC towers in place at the time, it became clear that complete coverage was only possible with a significant investment in an additional tower on Hollingsworth Hill. At that time, the city did not have a budget to address the concern, yet the Murrieta City Council decided that 100% coverage was necessary for officer safety. The arduous process of building a second PSEC Tower in Murrieta began in 2018, and the City of Murrieta set aside $800,000 to help resolve the issue. Throughout 2019 and 2020, negotiations began with Motorola, Riverside County and the Hollingsworth family, who owned property where the tower would sit. Cost-sharing agreements were drafted between the city and the County of Riverside, memorandums of understanding were drafted, entitlements were set, and contractor selection was completed in 2021. Elected officials from the county and city gave final approval for the tower construction at a cost of $1.6 million. The Hollingsworth PSEC Tower was constructed in the fall of 2022, and power was supplied to the site in mid-November. The tower has a direct line of sight to the Elsinore Peak PSEC Tower and is focused on Bear Creek, Copper Canyon and La Cresta.

This January, Murrieta PD completed testing with PSEC engineers and the city is happy to report that the tower is meeting expectations. After years of effort, first responders and residents can now be assured that first responder communications are exceptional in Murrieta.

Murrieta Police Chief Tony Conrad emphasized the priority placed on law enforcement safety when the City of Murrieta decided to move forward with adding a new PSEC tower. “Riverside County is 7,000 square miles and has a population of 2.5 million people. Building and maintaining a robust communication system, with the topography challenges and the considerable investment required, is certainly a heavy lift for any government agency. Despite those challenges, I feel confident saying Riverside County first responders, both law and fire, have one of the best communication systems in the country. The investment by the City of Murrieta and the county into the Hollingsworth site shows the exceptional partnership we have with our law and fire partner agencies, as well as our elected officials. The Hollingsworth Tower ensures that our Murrieta residents will have public safety communication 100% coverage into the future,” Conrad said.

Murrieta PD has been an active member of the PSEC Steering Committee since 2015, and Chief Conrad currently serves on the PSEC Steering Committee as the Chairperson. City of Murrieta Fire and Rescue has recently signed agreements to join PSEC and will be one of the first Riverside County municipal fire agencies on the system.