The Morongo Valley Community Services District Board of Directors held a last-minute special meeting last night in Covington Park’s multipurpose room.
With last night’s meeting beginning in closed session for continued performance evaluation for fire chief and general manager with no reportable action, the Board returned to open session to tackle two action items.
The first: a proposed spending freeze for the district, since approximately $130,000 of unbudgeted funds have been spent addressing storm damage while awaiting the pending FEMA reimbursement. With no indication when they would receive the reimbursement, Finance Director Tolbert estimated it could be July or August, reminding the Board that the government’s fiscal year runs parallel to the district. Tolbert said that currently the district runs with daily spending limits at $5000 for general manager and fire chief with $25,000 for emergencies. Tolbert made a motion that those limits be cut to $2500 and $10,000. The motion passed 5/0.
The second action item to be addressed was newly discovered water damage to the walls of Donna Munoz’s conference room at Covington Park. President Gorke had two different contractors assess the damage, but not much could be revealed until they committed to tearing into the wall to investigate. With the spending freeze freshly passed, General Manager Brittany Chavez volunteered her father, a general contractor, who told her this week he would open up the wall for free and provide an itemized bid to include with a grant Park Commissioner Steve Hayden is currently pursuing. A motion was passed 5/0 authorizing Chavez’s father to go forth with the work that would yield the estimate.
