Foothills Sentry April 2023

Foothills Sentry Page 6 April 2023 Family. Friends. Community. We’re all in this together. State Farm, Bloomington, IL 1801073 Ron Esparza, Agent Insurance Lic#: 0C79663 827 S. Tustin Ave Orange, CA 92866 Bus: 714-505-3400 ron@ronesparza.com (714) 832-0750 462 El Camino Real • Tustin, CA 92780 WWW.IVYS.COM IMPROVE HEALTH NATURALLY! • Iridology Consults • Wellness Tips • Awesome Lunches • Organic Cofee & Tea Old Town Tustin $10.00 OFF* Iridology Consult *NEW CUSTOMERS ONLY WELLNESS SEMINARS 2 ND SATURDAY OF EACH MONTH Happy Easter! dan@DanSlater.com 714-744-2219 MAYOR DAN SLATER ICL SMRPD DIY TLC GSOB LIONHEART PRIDE REAL ESTATE - MANAGEMENT - INVESTMENT Jeremy Wayland, Broker - DRE #01388205 WWW.LIONHEARTPRIDE.COM For over 100 years, my family has been proud to call Orange home. I founded Lionheart Pride to bring a new experience in Property Manage- ment and Real Estate. We pride ourselves on giving the best in Real Estate Service to our Owners, Tenants, Sellers, and Buyers. Lionheart Pride is about you, not us. Taking care of you and your financial well being by putting you and your property first. Respect, Integrity, Loyalty are our hallmarks. A friendly smile and a solution to your Real Estate needs by offering you a better Real Estate Experience. We would love to speak with you about your Real Estate needs- be it Buying/ Selling or Property Management; give us a call. Experience the difference, you will be glad you did. Thank You, and I look forward to hearing form you soon. Jeremy & Sabrina Wayland Sabrina Wayland, Realtor-Manager DRE #02156909 949-689-7713 cell sabrina@lionheartpride.com ‘Experience you can Trust, Loyalty you can depend on’ Jeremy Wayland, Broker, CEO DRE #01388205 714-745-7318 cell jeremy@lionheartpride.com In like a lion It’s been cold, and it snowed. One Santiago Peak webcam was off for weeks. Weather-related damage. Parking on canyon throughways was jammed by snow seekers and under-dressed (shivering) and over-dressed (staggering) hikers, some visiting last month to see poppies. Mountain biking in four inches of powder is fun; more so, in the mud a day later. It’s been the cold- est winter in decades, with emer- gency responses by our propane provider to fill tanks, and a cord of wood burned in days. Clever residents turned off sprinklers in January so at least low IRWD wa- ter bills ease the pain of electric- ity and propane costs. Up a creek Rich Pfeiffer, a Silverado block captain, reports on the success of bigtime improvements at the Anderson Creek site. Lots of grading, cleaned-out culverts, and stacked riprap kept the water away, courtesy of the County and National Resources Conservation Services. Facilitation by Supervi- sor Don Wagner led to OC’s 25% contribution, the balance of to- tal $1.25 million covered by the feds. Pfeiffer thanks Francesca Duff for coordination and cel- ebrates locals who brought work- ers coffee and snacks. He hopes to organize a proactive clean-up day toward maintaining the wa- terway. Never boring “Don’t Move Oak Firewood” and “GSOP Kills Oaks.” Look for these unshy signs at key can- yon locations. Vinyl, weather- proof, produced by the Inter-Can- yon League, Sarah researching visibility and ICL President Geoff Sarkissian doing graphics. Mike Boeck organized a March 27 community meeting at the library on the anti-gold spotted oak borer (GSOB) defense campaign. It's important to treat or remove trees before this year's adult beetles emerge in April. So say experts and arborists from UC Extension and OC Fire Authority. Pickleball! Silverado Modjeska Parks and Recreation District (SMRPD) reinstated children’s art program- ming (see below), jettisoned by the previous board over concerns about insurance and liability. Rental fees normally charged pre- senters were also waived, a ges- ture of support for teachers. SMRPD lately hosts a pickle- ball round-robin every other Sat- urday from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. (Show up with or without paddle.) Though the Community Center grounds will be closed April 16- 30, visitors can park, enter build- ings, and play pickleball on the court. New programming suggests that the board and President Ted Wright are making good on prom- ises to add recreational activities. They are preparing a survey fur- ther querying residents. The board reimbursed former director Jesse Bullis $3,106 of the $5,104 requested for bills resulting from attending confer- ences on running a park district. She’d incurred expenses, includ- ing air fare, lodging and per diem at Lake Tahoe and other locations without notifying or seeking ap- proval in advance. That $5,147 expense item would have represented about 5% of the total income the district receives as its share of property taxes. Happily, rules for incurring costs by directors were changed as a result of this learning experi- ence. Finally, Julie “Rusty” Morris resigned from her directorship due to medical reasons. John Nel- son, who placed fourth out of six SMRPD director candidates in the November election was ap- pointed. Thanks, John! Thanks, Rusty! She served, she said, to pay it forward. “While I was in the classroom, and rais- ing my kiddos, I wasn’t involved in the canyon community. It was about time I shouldered responsi- bility for a while. I was amazed at how much I learned about what looked like an effortless endeav- or. It’s actually a complicated and political organization. I’m hon- ored to have met and worked with residents, and believe the current board will provide thoughtful and skilled decision-making.” Fired up That first kids’ art workshop (ages 6-10) will be taught by Al- ice Phillips of Silverado Glass Studio. A longtime canyon resi- dent, Alice has worked with glass since 1979, first as a stained-glass artist, and now focused on glass fusing. She’s taught at Saddleback College and in Fullerton's "All the Arts for All the Kids" pro- gram, in addition to adult classes at her Silverado studio. The chil- dren will create a Mother's Day pin with glass pieces Alice pro- vides. They assemble, then Alice fires in her kiln, returning com- pleted work a week later. Satur- day, April 29, Community Center. Cost: $65.00; (714) 308-7545 or silveradoglass@cox.net . And ask Alice about the May 6 canyon art- ists’ studio tour in Modjeska and Silverado. Mo better Katie McKay, Historic Park Curator, reports that restoration is underway on the second story of the stone building at Arden, the oldest on the Modjeska property. It was built by Joseph Pleasants, who introduced Madame Mo and beau Bozenta to the canyon. Theodore Payne, pioneer of Cali- fornia native plant propagation, as Madame’s gardener, lived up- stairs in the 1890s. The county received a grant from the National Park Service (NPS) through the Save Amer- ica’s Treasure (SAT) program, funded through the Historic Pres- ervation Fund (NPF). KC Resto- ration is working on this project, scheduled for fall completion. Everybody likes acronyms. Orange utility rates went up Water and sewer rates in the City of Orange increased April 1 by 7% and 5%, respectively. The increases were needed to maintain the water and sewer in- frastructure, provide for capital improvements and sustain ade- quate reserves. Water and sanita- tion rates are set by the city every five years. The last planned rate increase was Jan. 1, 2022. With- out the proposed rate hikes, the city would face a deficit next year. The higher-than-usual rate in- creases are due to the rising cost of materials and inflation. Those percentage will decrease over the next five years, with water hikes coming in at 3% and sewer at 2% by 2027. Water customers pay a bi- monthly fixed service fee, plus a variable charge based on con- sumption. An average bill for a single-family home is approxi- mately $124.61; the April in- crease adds about $9.03. Multi- family customers will pay ap- proximately $25.95 more and commercial customers, $65.38. Sewer fees increased by $2.29 per bimonthly billing period for residential customers; $.37 for multi-family units and condos: and $.03 for commercial users. Commercial rates are not flat rate, but are based on volume. The city reports that despite the increases, Orange’s water rates are within the lower third of what other Orange County cities and water agencies charge.