Last night, the Morongo Valley Community Services District held their regular 6 PM meeting in Covington Park’s multipurpose room. On the action item of Preliminary Budget Options, the Board discussed the looming SB525, which has yet to be decided whether it will raise salaries of the Morongo Valley Firefighters June 1st. Vice President Lynn Watts reported the Labor Commission isn’t currently prioritizing the law and that even Governor Newsom has “taken a step back” as to when the law will…

This Friday, April 19th starting at noon, Joshua Tree’s Beatnik Lounge will be hosting a Book Fair, for writers, readers, and listeners alike. Starting at 12PM, local writers will be displaying their books for a meet and greet. At 2 PM there will be a writing workshop, open to all writers to read their work and receive feedback from the group. Followed by an open poetry and short story reading at 4 PM, then finally, there will be a happy hour accompanied with live entertainment.         For…

The Morongo Unified School District Board of Trustees will hold their regular 6 PM meeting tonight at Joshua Tree Elementary, after their special joint meeting with Copper Mountain College at 4 PM. For the special joint meeting, also held at JT Elementary, the 2024 CMC Greenleaf Scholarship recipient will be recognized, followed by updates on early college and dual enrollment, as well as a CMC Counseling update. For the regular 6 PM meeting, Assistant Superintendent of Instructional…

The Beatnik Lounge presents My Dead Girlfriend’s Art 2: Save Me from the Thrift Shop group art show at 5 PM. By popular demand, My Dead Girlfriend’s Art returns, featuring Barbara Austin’s posthumous work and other extremely talented local and invited artists, sharing their passions as a tribute to Austin, who, upon her death, pleaded to assure her work didn’t end up in the thrift shop. Hey There Projects presents Void Solutions, with silkscreens by …

The local veteran non-profit Mil Tree will be hosting a 6 PM reading tonight at the Joshua Tree VFW featuring the award-winning Brian O’Hare, the veteran author of the story collection Surrender, out now from Syracuse University Press. Born in Pittsburgh the son of a Marine pilot, O’Hare went into the Naval Academy from ’84-88 before going headfirst into the Marine Corps as a supply officer, doing stints in Camp Lejeune, Okinawa, and the Persian Gulf War. After leaving the service, O’Hare…