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Successful Wildomar parks vote triggers lawsuit

The fate of locked parks in Wildomar rested in the check marks of the voters during a ballot count on August 30. The final tally of 891 votes against the assessment and 1,129 votes in favor of a parks maintenance fee provided the key.

Less than a month after the successful vote, a lawsuit was filed in Riverside County Superior Court by Wildomar resident Steve Beutz on September 20 questioning the legality of the mail-in vote and the procedures followed by county officials to re-open parks in Wildomar. He filed the action as a “pro se” litigant, or representing himself without an attorney.

Wildomar residential property owners were asked in a mail-in election from July 12 to August 29 to decide whether to approve a residential property assessment within a proposed Wildomar Landscape Maintenance District (LMD) in order to re-open the community parks. Voters rejected a $25 annual assessment in 1999 to fund the troubled Ortega Trails Recreation and Park District in response to allegations of financial mismanagement.

The County of Riverside Board of Supervisors took over the assets of the defunct parks district in 2000 including Windsong, Heritage Regency, Marna O’Brien in Wildomar and Lakeland Village’s Perret Park, which were closed for lack of maintenance funding. The county used RDA block grant funds to purchase the old park district and in 2004, the Riverside County Regional Park and Open-Space District transferred funds from Ortega Parks to the Economic Development Agency (EDA), according to county documents.

New residents joined longtime residents to form the Wildomar Parks Formation Committee (WPFC) over six years ago in efforts to unlock the parks. Supervisor Bob Buster presented a plan at a July 2004 Wildomar Municipal Advisory Council (WMAC) meeting to use the community block grant funds to pay off the Ortega debt and use a reserve of property tax money to refurbish the parks. It would be enough to get the parks up and running and gain support for a necessary parks maintenance fee in the future, he said at the time.

After the successful parks vote in August when voters approved a $28-a-year assessment for the first two years until a fourth park is completed and the assessment is increased to $45 annually, the next step appeared to be a celebration at the parks’ rebirth next spring, according to the timeline of county representatives.

The Executive Office of the County of Riverside confirmed the county had been served. According to Public Information Officer Ray Smith, the lawsuit will be reviewed by the office of county counsel to determine a course of action.

WPFC member Bridgette Moore is optimistic that Wildomar parks will open on schedule while litigation begins its long process.

Beutz, who moved to Wildomar from Murrieta three years ago, has a 3-year-old child and says he is not against parks, per se.

“I want to stop an illegal assessment on my property,” he said by phone. “Marna O’Brien is over five miles away from my house.” He said he contacted a real estate agent to determine if his residential property received a benefit from the parks. The agent calculated that it was a detriment instead, he said.

Beutz has been involved in other Wildomar issues. He organized the “No on Measure G” opposition on the June ballot measure asking for voter approval of a $720 million bond to fund aging facilities and proposed new campus sites for the Mt. San Jacinto Community (MSJC) College District. Besides the prospective satellite site in Banning, the college district had negotiated options on a site in Wildomar which was formerly slated for a regional park in Beutz’ east Wildomar neighborhood. Some residents living in the nearby residential development called “Parkside Estates” say they bought their homes under the impression that a park would be built in their neighborhoods. With a proposed community college complex anticipated on land which once held the promise of a county regional park, one resident lamented the tracts should be renamed “Parking Lot Estates,” predicting students would be parking on their residential streets. Others have countered that residents’ grief should be directed at the developer, and not the county, for the failure to build a park in the area.

When he began his “Stop the Money Grab – No on Measure G” drive, polls showed voter support at 60 percent, but by the election in June, the measure had failed to garner the necessary 55-percent voter approval and instead plummeted 15 points to 45 percent in support.

“MSJC gave notice to take a regional park in my neighborhood,” he said in a previous interview. “That got me involved into what the college is all about.”

“My motivation is definitely what I view as the illegal sale of park land,” he said before the election.

He also assisted a computer business colleague and fellow east Wildomar resident Gerard Ste. Marie by personally serving Ste. Marie’s pro se lawsuit to several defendants in 2004, according to court records. Ste. Marie successfully sued to block the Riverside County Regional Park and Open Space District’s sale of the 80-acre “regional park” land to MSJC college district. A recent court ruling by Judge Gloria Connor Trask in June agreed with Ste. Marie’s argument that the county of Riverside did not follow necessary procedures for the sale of the designated open-space property.

Beutz’ lawsuit alleges a violation of Proposition 218, or the Right to Vote on Taxes Act, which was passed by voters in November 1996. The measure mandates a “neighborhood” park assessment must be proportioned according to an individual property’s proximity to the special benefit, or in this case, a park. The Wildomar parks are considered “neighborhood” parks since they are less than 15 acres in size. At 11 acres, Marna O’Brien is the largest park in the LMD.

He alleges the service area for the “neighborhood” park is designated at a half-mile radius from each park. Parcels, including the Beutz’ residence, falling outside of the half-mile service area parameters should either not be assessed or pay a reduced assessment in relation to the distance from the park. Instead, the lawsuit maintains all parcels in the LMD are assessed equally regardless of their location.

Beutz also alleges the publicly owned lands within the LMD are exempt from the assessment without evidence that the parcels do not receive a special benefit from their inclusion. In addition, he alleges certain mandatory deadlines in the formation of the LMD were ignored in violation of state law. Another criticism cites the failure to assess all parcels within the district, not just residential property.

The lawsuit seeks a determination from the court that the LMD is invalid and a permanent injunction to prevent the county of Riverside from collecting, spending or using the new assessments and refunding any monies back to the property owners.

Beutz says he wants parks in the community but wants the laws to be followed. “I’m not for closing parks,” he said. “I’m for what’s on the record.” He cites the county of Riverside’s original proposal to create ball fields on the regional park land, the metamorphosis of the idea into a regional park and the subsequent change in plans to sell the land to MSJC college district for a satellite campus after Wildomar voters rejected the maintenance of the Ortega park district. He also points to the Board of Supervisor’s vote to hire contractors to start working on the parks even before the ballots were counted. “They were going to open them [the parks] anyways,” he said.

He says all of the attention was on the positive aspects of opening the parks including information from the county and local newspapers without any critical analysis of the property tax being proposed. He said he realized he would have to follow the path of the assessment himself. “Nobody cares to hear another side,” he said. “Nobody else is going to do this.” He said he spoke before the Board of Supervisors twice to voice his objections but didn’t feel he was heard. “They didn’t want to consider my remarks at all but I put my comments on the record,” he said.

He also believes the promise to construct a new 10-acre parcel near his neighborhood was a ruse to get more votes. “I’ve been to that property and people are living on it,” he said. “There is no evidence that the park will ever be built.”

WPFC chairman John Lloyd disputes Beutz’ charges. In an e-mail addressing the issues he said, “Defining a park plan that the majority of the community agrees with takes time. While it may be looked at as many starts and stops, there are several separate things that must occur to open a Park District. As each phase is completed it may seem like a false start but having been involved with the process, all the way through, the Parks Formation Committee worked through each of these steps and slowly advanced through the process to completion.”

Both Moore and Lloyd dismiss the notion that a park will not be built on the east side of Wildomar and the promise was just an election ploy. In an e-mail with attachments chronicling the history of parks in Wildomar, Moore, who along with other WPFC members, has seen the design plans for the newest park, says, “a park will be built there.”

She also wondered why Beutz never approached the WPFC with suggestions or concerns. “WPFC has had monthly meetings for years and Steve didn’t show up until the last few before the vote. We could have addressed his concerns at any time. He never called, never e-mailed the WPFC,” she said.

 

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