Morongo Valley’s road improvement project dissolves due to lack of “positive simple majority” among opposed residents
The proposed Road Improvement Project for Morongo Valley between Big Morongo Canyon Road and Desert Willow has dissolved due to substantial opposition, despite the non-profit Rawson Road Improvement’s effort to get it passed through the San Bernardino County Department of Public Works.
Two years ago, a group of Morongo Valley residents formed the non-profit Rawson Road Improvement, seeking to form a Special Roads District through the San Bernardino County Department of Public Works to fix and maintain residential dirt roads and other roads partially paved. The project’s focus was on the north side of Hwy 62, between Big Morongo Canyon and Desert Willow and to the north at Panorama, Cheyenne, and Northridge. A pivotal meeting was held on July 16, 2024 where attendees (including the fire department) packed Covington Park’s multipurpose room to educate themselves on the lengthy process, and while it seemed like the large swathe of Morongo Valley was organizing in its potential favor, the project was halted in January by a substantial opposition.
Residents on Big Morongo Canyon removed themselves from the project, followed by residents on Desert Willow, leaving residents like Catherine Spruth to ask further questions of the project’s viability to Morongo Valley’s financially challenged demographic. When asked what the overall concerns of the opposition was, Spruth said, “A lot of it was the money – we couldn’t afford it. And that was just at $20 a month. When it went up to $600 a year, added on to your tax bill, that’s a lot of money!”
While it was originally presented at $408.00 annually per parcel by the end of a 13-year projection, the annual cost per parcel would have gone $547.29 for the first year, then increased to $629.84 by the 10th year, then slowly tapered down to $386.20 by the last year. Spruth, a resident of Navajo Trail, added that there would have been an unfair imbalance of funds measuring it by parcel on her densely packed road rather than square footage of parcel, with other spacious roads containing 5–10-acre properties. Navajo Trail and Rawson are two roads in particular ruin – poorly paved with areas potholed or washed away – that would require complete pulverization, and Spruth said that wasn’t considered in the already expensive budget.
“In the end, even though the County was trying to keep the money the same, they weren’t gonna tear up the road anymore. They weren’t gonna pulverize the stuff, they were just gonna bring dirt in… With our road, you take it away, all you’re leaving down there is rocks, and you put dirt on top, it’s just gonna blow away.”
Spruth says she is in favor of road improvements but would rather not involve the County, suggesting a more direct neighborhood effort of renting tractors and dumpsters to haul away the debris.
Tune in tomorrow for Part 2 of this story, where I talk to two of the road improvement project’s organizers about what went wrong and what they aim to do moving forward.
