A long Twentynine Palms City Council meeting Tuesday night covered a wide range of topics. Reporter Dan Stork breaks his report into three parts. Today: An expected CALTRANS action, a joint action with the Water District to gain access to grants, and an action to safeguard a Federal grant…
During Council comment time, Jim Harris reported that in response to the rash of fatalities on Route 62 in Morongo Valley this year, a District 8 CALTRANS official asserted that he will divert $160,000 in available funds to erect a temporary divider on the highway in Morongo Valley, and not wait for the state to deliver the $13 million that a permanent measure will cost. The issue of a blockage on Diamond Bar Road went away, as the property owner has remedied the situation. Approval of the assessment for Lighting and Landscape District #1 passed quickly and unanimously. The Council voted to join with supporting an expected action by the Water District to opt-in to the Mojave Integrated Regional Water Management planning area, in order to be eligible for potentially large grants, if and when the need to build waste water treatment facilities arises. City Manager Joe Guzetta and Water District General Manager Tamara Alaniz were at pains to assure the Council that this would not obligate either the Water District or the Mojave Water Agency to give the other any water. Up against a use-it-or-lose-it deadline, Council reassigned a quarter-million dollars in HUD grant funds to projects on National Park Drive which staff has determined to be eligible for them. In its final business items of the evening, the Council set October 24 as the date for a day-long Strategic Planning Workshop, and selected Dan Mintz to be the principal delegate to the League of California Cities’ Annual Conference. Following the open session, the Council returned to closed session to attend to discussions it hadn’t been able to finish in the closed session that preceded the main meeting.
TWENTYNINE PALMS CITY COUNCIL PART 2 OF 3: CALTRANS, WASTEWATER AND HUD GRANTS
