Listen here:
At this week’s regular session meeting, the Morongo Valley Community Services District Board of Directors met to address substantial issues related to the Morongo Valley Fire Department and to receive and respond to a multitude of accusations and insults from members of the Morongo Valley Community.
At what was undoubtedly one of their longest meetings, after more than four hours of public session on Wednesday night (March 15) and only less than half of the meeting’s agenda covered, the Morongo Valley CSD Board of Directors decided to continue their meeting Thursday night (March 16) at what became another five and a half hour meeting.
Morongo Valley Fire Dept. Updates
The Board of Directors, working with Morongo Valley Fire Department Chief and CSD General Manager James Brakebill, was able to address an urgent toxic mold issue in the Fire House, allotting more $30,000 for remediation services and equipment to keep operations running smoothly during the removal of the mold. Chief Brakebill also proposed repurposing an obsolete fire engine as a maintenance vehicle, to be reassigned to the Parks Department, in a cost-saving move that was enthusiastically endorsed by the Board and attendees. Also directly addressed was the CSD’s budget, which will be discussed in public workshops later in the month.
At this combined regular session meeting, which totaled nearly ten hours over two consecutive evenings, much of the time was given over to a back and forth between defensive board members and an unhappy public. On Thursday night, nearly half of the meeting’s running time was spent either by community members providing feedback in the form of criticism, calling for resignation, unfounded speculation, and simple insults, or by the board Directors responding in great detail to remarks made during the meeting, at previous meetings, or on social media.
Hurled Insults and Expletives
The standing room only crowd, most of whom had been at the Wednesday night meeting, took advantage of open comments scheduled to question the integrity, mock, insult and hurl expletives at members of board, specifically President Jennifer Henning, Vice President James Whitney, and Director Michael Emory.
A scheduled discussion over the Board’s process for hiring new legal counsel devolved into a heated back and forth, with Board members disagreeing with each other and members of the public. Interjections from the public were received by Board Directors in an inconsistent fashion, and became so uncontained that President Henning adjourned the meeting for a recess.
During the final scheduled section of the meeting, scheduled for Director reports, Directors Henning, Whitney, and Emory spent the last hour of the five and half-hour meeting responding directly to the community’s concerns and calls for resignation with prepared statements that were read over the interjections of what remained of the rowdy late night crowd. Reiterating and responding to some of the more outrageous remarks made against them, including racist and homophobic slurs made during meetings, on social media, and printed material that has appeared in Morongo Valley. Some of the counterpoints made by Directors during these lengthy statements were repeated comments that they had made during earlier portions of the meeting.
Though the meeting was never less than contentious, at times chaotic, and long, members of the CSD Board, CSD staff, and the public worked together when the agenda items were focused on providing support to the Morongo Valley Fire Department.
