Archive: Vol. 1, No. 18 — DECEMBER 2018
Sorry, readers, that there has been no little or news to report: MACA and the Chamber were dark during December, and the Chamber also did not meet in November. When MACA meetings resume in January, MM hopes that there will be something positive about having a school crossing guard on Crafton, like there is on Wabash. Also, your editor has been swamped with personal tasks and is still awaiting the completion of MentoneMatters. com.
Some readers may wonder where the fire tax [see lead story] came from, particularly for properties in the Valley. The Board of Supervisors sneakily took a 12-year-old vote in one territory and applied it to the whole County. We quote extensively from the complaint because it has so many important details: the excuses for taxing everyone, what is said will be done and what is really done, and so on. MM believed that readers would not want to wade through all 113 paragraphs of legalese, necessarily repetitious. Readers may note that one of the grounds of the lawsuit is CEQA; that was the point on which the Greenspot folks won; hopefully, if the Constitutional grounds are ignored, the Court will still look at the CEQA violations. In most Civil cases “discovery” is done, with each side being able to submit their questions and requests for evidence to the opposing side. It is not presently being conducted in this case but we would be interested to know exactly how many protests the County acknowledges receiving, out of the total number actually sent out.
Presumably the Chamber is getting a “free ride” as to the attorney fees and costs because, although MM attends its meetings, the lawsuit was only tangentially referenced in the October meeting and, to MM’s knowledge, no funds were voted to pay for Mentone’s participation. -MM