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I have decided to post this as a story in response to Mark Nuaimi’s comment, instead of my response comment that may eventually be buried in the archives and possibly not read by our readers.Dear Mark,
Thank you for taking the time to write your comment which was posted as a story by Cactus Thorns. It looked like great progress was being made in civil discourse except for the last paragraph. Please be advised two out of three links you posted were the wrong URL. I will assume at this point it was an error. Kindly repost the correct links since you were using them as your backup reference. If you are not able to repost the correct links, I will have learned something from you. Touche.
1. I guess you can’t help yourself when you resort to labels and name calling in your last paragraph. It is starting to look like it is part of your personality, a possible side effect of jousting at windmills as a defense mechanism, or plain bully tactics. I am even sensing it could be a gender issue, not sure. Time will tell.
2. As for your 1 inch thick background check to include newspaper articles and various blogging, my question is, were all the articles included and which Yucca Valley Council member actually read it? It should have been a 2-3 inch file if it included the Flash Reports, letter to the Editors and John Weeks ”kind” articles about you.
3. The Yucca Valley Town Council members were not aware of your controversial background before hiring you and they did not do a Google search on the final candidates. I STAND ON MY STORY.
4. As for Mr. John Tooker, he is a fine man and will always have the City of Beaumont Yucaipi as his legacy of his great leadership before his retirement. Beaumont’s infrastructure is in place and development impact fees assure their future. While the City recently reduced the DIF’s, the fees were not completely wiped off the table. Beaumont turned things around when they moved to outsource some of their staff with bloated salaries and pensions with contracted efficient employees.
Any normal reader of my commentary will note that I observed Tooker as the common link in the hiring process of two town managers, nothing more, nothing less:
My story was not an attack on his character or abilities. That was your assertion that you added for good measure with your jab below the belt to John Tooker in your last paragraph.
5. As for your past and the continued unfolding controversy in Colton and Fontana, what would have been accomplished to post the articles, links and blogs about you when you were hired? It was a done deal when the Yucca Valley Town Council held all negotiations in closed session. Besides, it is my policy to accept everyone with a clean slate without any discriminations or prejudice, pretty much like a Juror, until the facts prove otherwise. This includes your statements and actions towards me.
6. I will re-confirm 100% you are to be praised for your intellect, skills, and talents especially in problem solving resulting in the ability to get the job done. My concerns are your methods and tactics that “the end justifies the means.”
(Inside to you, assuring different agencies, individually, the others were on board and proposing cemetery acreage that did not belong to the “City” to mitigate the “fly in your ointment” is just one example.)
7. I will not change my position to stay alert for any possible harm that may come to Yucca Valley’s future, her citizens, especially the low-income and Seniors that have no voice. It bothers me to see the volunteer citizen connections severed by you as volunteers are the backbone of this community. Our population is 25,000 with the average income of $30,000 per year. This is not Fontana.
Placing our Town in great debt with government or private bonds will only add to the struggle, especially if you design most of the payments to kick in five years down the road. Are you going someplace? ”First Do No Harm To Yucca Valley.”
Like it or not, your recent track record is Colton and Fontana.
(Beaumont-Author has corrected Mr. Tooker’s city of employment to Yucaipa instead of Beaumont. I apologize for this error.)
I wouldn’t stand too firm on your story. John Tooker worked for the city of Yucaipa for all of those years. Are you not informed or lying Margaret. If you can’t get basic facts straight how can anyone believe anything you wright. All of your articles should disclose they you are writen for entertainment purposes only.
@Isaac Hagerman, Here is my source for the Tooker connection from Beaumont:
http://www.vote29.com/newmyblog/archives/10643
If there was a mistake, it will be corrected.
We do not “lie” on Cactus Thorns, using your favorite word.
Oh that’s right, that is the limit of your vocabulary.
Maybe someone will help you write a story about John Tooker and his background to inform the readers. Show us YOUR knowledge of Mr.Tooker, to set the record straight.
Thanks for your loyal readership of Cactus Thorns.
I Googled John Tooker + Yucaipa and discovered many links regarding his employment as Town Manager.
I stand corrected.
He is still a nice person and Tooker’s legacy is YUCAIPA not Beaumont.
I hope Hagerman will write a story about John Tooker from Yucaipa.I do not know anything about Yucaipa.
Wright? Really? Come on now…
It was a joke old fella keep up.
To me it didn’t come across as a joke. It seemed to me that you were attempting to be condesending. Just my opinion.
To me it was a sarcastic way of dismissing the validity of the writer. Whether its a true or not is up to the reader. JMO
Why would I waste my time and write a story about a retired city manager from a city 50 miles from here? Being gainfully employed takes up most of my time.
Now I couldn’t let that one go….
We all most of the time are gainfully employed yet most of us regulars manage to pound out a couple of stories a week… Hell Mark Nuaimi as busy a man as he is, is able to pound out a couple of thousand words a week total to the blogs.
So by the end of the week you and I in one way or the other handle several hundred feet of wieners, it just so happens yours are in a old folks home and are still connected to the shriveled owners, but none the less I manage to pound out several thousand words a week. It is part of what we do to feed the Blog Beast……
So Come on brother get with the story writing, I know you can do it. Stop the blood clot crying. Write…. feed the Beast.
Placing our Town in great debt with government or private bonds will only add to the struggle, especially if you design most of the payments to kick in five years down the road. Are you going someplace?
What “great debt” is the “Town” being placed in? If you are referring to the proposed sales tax measure, I’d be more than happy to explain it once more (or you can watch the DVD)… The Town doesn’t go into debt — the Town is the LENDER to the HDWD (and ratepayers) and starts receiving PAYMENTS on that debt FROM THE RATEPAYERS in 2023. That date was selected to coincide with when the Mojave water line bond goes away ON THE RATEPAYERS.
As to the alleged error in the links, they were correct in my original posted comment and when that got “reposted” by your team it got screwed up. Take a look at the address I show and compare that to the hyperlink when you hover over the links.
So here are the addresses copied from the posting … copy and paste these in your Internet Explorer if the hyperlink doesn’t work:
http://www.vote29.com/newmyblog/archives/7025
http://www.vote29.com/newmyblog/archives/6977
Mark
Hi Mark, Thank you for the links. I have not seen those two posts for a long time nor do they pop attached to your name.
As you might remember, I explained DanO inserted the YouTubes to my post and you were a good sport about it. I am still laughing about DanO changing my headlines. Vapors? It is HIS blog.
Ok, now back to the issues.
Regarding the potential debt:
1. Animal Shelter JPA
2. Senior Housing-CORE may cost $2 million (RDA Funds)for Yucca Valley’s contribution to fill in the funding gap between grants, however, I anticipate some hidden future costs.
Please understand I think the project is beautifully planned out. As a builder-developer in the past, I started counting the corners on the structures which add up to a pretty penny and I was relieved to discover it was not going to be a Big Box structure. Not sure about the round center-piece building costs but it really makes the project pop out and is a great design accent.
Some hidden costs for the Town are the walkway improvements to provided safe passage for the Seniors to the community facilities.
There is no full time ladder fire truck available 24/7 for the Town of Yucca Valley. The one at the Joshua Tree Fire Station is only a 50ft ladder and for safety to our firefighters and seniors, there should be a 75-100 ft ladder. Approximate costs come in an $1 million for a new 75-100 ft ladder truck. Also, would need to house this ladder truck with full time crew. It is too expensive to roll this on out for each call and a regular truck would need to be kept there too. We need to build a larger station for these men which has been spelled out in several documents for Yucca Valley’s future.
Re:Sales tax-I have a request for public information to receive our total sales tax revenues for the past fiscal year and projected for the coming year.
Crunching the sales tax figures that I have, even increasing them by several large multiples will NOT bring in the figures that you had projected, as I see it.
My public information question asked, “Will this revenue stream be used to service a loan or bond to provide payments? Can you say for certain Yucca Valley will not go to bond or a loan to achieve the projected income?”
There has not been any response to this request, as of this date.
And finally, there is a question of the PERS/pensions that Chad Mayes has asked to review at two different meetings. This obligation will not go away and will continue to increase to unsustainable levels. I see this happening throughout the State of California.
Extra frosting on the Budget- Buster cake includes $350,000 a year estimated maintenance costs for the Brehm Youth Park and the “Golden Ring” of reviving the Golf Course as a future empty black hole of revenue.
I spent a four hour lunch with a representative of Nara Bank when they were trying to foreclose on the property. We discussed the costs to breathe any life to this course and they are out of range for Yucca Valley. Even if you formed an assessment district of the Country Club Estates it still will not pencil out.
It is time for me to sign off at this late hour. Yesterday, I spent 6 straight hours in a NEPA training class to comment specifically to the Marine Base expansion. It was very intense training compared to the class I took on reading EIR’s, Environmental Impact Reports.
Thanks again Mark for your time and I appreciate it when you address the issues.