About 50 residents of the Indian Cove area in Southwestern Twentynine Palms met in an informal meeting at City Hall Wednesday afternoon. The informational gathering was called by City Manager Frank Luckino to determine if there was enough interest in the community to begin the process to eventually bring in natural gas. Luckino explained that the city could facilitate the formation of assessment districts to first build the infrastructure to bring gas lines to property lines, then another to bring natural gas service into individual properties. Luckino’s proposal was to take the entire cost of the project, finance it through the assessment districts, and then amortize the costs for the vital infrastructure improvement out over 10-15 years to the 453 affected properties on their property tax bill. After a lively and civil question-and-answer session with Luckino and Debra McGarry of Southern California Gas, it was determined there was enough positive interest from Indian Cove property owners to gather more financial and engineering information to proceed. In other City of Twentynine Palms news, this morning at 8:30 a.m. Mayor Dan Mintz will formally hand over the Adobe Road Fire Station keys to County Fire. Significant improvements to the historic Fire Station have been completed as part of Project Phoenix, a major project designed to significantly improve the downtown area of the city.
