Residents are urged to attend Supervisor's meeting and wear white.
Posted: November 4, 2018
An extremely important vote impacting the future of
Newberry Springs will be coming before the county's Board of Supervisors
this Tuesday, November 6, 2018.
A special regional pre-Board of Supervisors meeting was held by
citizens in Lucerne Valley in preparation of the hearing dealing with the Renewable Energy
and Conservation Element (RECE) Policy 4.10. If adopted by the Board, the Policy
will limit industrial-scale solar development in the county controlled rural areas.
How it will impact projects with pending applications isn't known.
Should the Board refuse to adopt the policy, many residential areas,
including Newberry Springs, will be negatively impacted for decades.
The Lucerne Valley meeting on November 1, 2018, was attended
by 108 people. From Newberry Springs, Ted Stimpfel with the Newberry Springs
Community Alliance listened to keynote speakers Steve Mills speak on Policy 4.10
and Shawn Wade on the
Fire Protection Zone-5
(FP-5) issue.
Policy 4.10
The Board of Supervisors' Policy 4.10 public
hearing
(agenda item 79) on the matter will be this Tuesday, November 6, 2018, at the Covington Chambers,
County Government Center, 385 North Arrowhead Avenue, First Floor, San Bernardino, California,
at 10 A.M.
Video conferencing will be available at the High Desert
Government Center • 15900 Smoketree Street, Hesperia, CA 92345.
Newberry residents who are interested in participating are highly
encouraged to attend in person in San Bernardino and preferably wear
a white shirt as a pro-Policy 4.10 supporter. Those wishing to speak to the
Supervisors will be allowed 3-minutes.
FP-5
Fire Protection Zone-5 (FP-5) is a fire tax that is being extended
to most county parcels. Ted Stimpfel at the November 2018 monthly Newberry CSD board
meeting attempted twice to speak on FP-5 to have the CSD either write a letter
or prepare a resolution in opposition to the tax. The tax appears to be
unconstitutional.
The tax, initially $157.26 per parcel, does not currently impact the
vast majority of Newberry Springs parcels because communities that have their own
fire department are currently exempt. As a result, the matter hasn't generated
much attention in Newberry Springs.
At one point, Director Paula Deel interfered with Stimpfel's opportunity
to speak at the CSD meeting and later President Robert Springer dismissed Stimpfel's
concern apparently believing that the tax process was legal.
Under constitutional law, FP-5 appears to be
illegal and
under state law, the tax requires passage by a 2/3 voter approval.
That legal requirement was never properly done.
A local expert on FP-5 believes that if FP-5 is not challenged
and is allowed, it could lead to the eventual county replacement of the Newberry CSD's
fire department. The county service would most likely provide a much
lower level of service than the community is currently receiving.
While the Newberry CSD sleeps blissfully ignoring the matter, the
county is evolving the issue. This information shouldn't be coming from a
resident but from the CSD board that is responsible for the local fire department.
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