Moreno Valley had the area's largest increase in violent crime, posting a 28 percent jump. Reports of violent crime in the city went up in all categories, including homicide, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. The largest increase was in robberies at 28 percent....... Riverside Press Pravda

So, what it's all about is a huge increase in people coming from Orange and L.A. Counties to get away from crime, but they bring their gang-banger kids with them and that adds to our crime rate. It happened in the 80s and 90s that way too.

On the brighter side, our new Jefe de Policia put together an anti-burglary team that is bragging some pretty serious success. With all the crime here, I wonder if it's a lot like shooting fish in a barrel.  Even the blind pig finds the occasional acorn  Last I heard they made their 100th arrest since they started.  We'll be more impressed with 100 convictions and the property getting back to the rightful owners.

 Now that I think about it, I'm still waiting for the return of several hundred dollars worth of merch that was recovered by L.A. County Sheriffs in 1986.  I've yet to give up hope though. (choke!)

That's the story the moval overlords are selling, but the poor fellow who owns this wall waited TWO MONTHS to get it cleaned up.

Utility Tax Reduction?

Mentioned at the moval city council meeting? Don't get your hopes up! That will happen about the same time as George Washington's TEMPORARY tax on alcohol to pay for the revolutionary war is repealed. Sounds like someone on the council is hoping for higher office (aren't they all?) and an assembly seat will be open soon.

The last time they changed the historic names on the south side from classic aviation names like Vultee to hopeful names like Courage and Success. It worked great then. The drug dealers in that area are more courageous and successful than ever. This time it's the high roller developers that want to change the name of their area to avoid the stigma of the name Moreno Valley. Rancho Bella Lagos. Doesn't that sound nice? Bella Pendejos would be more fitting, but the city always does what the developers tell them. It's our tax money that they will use to do that, and it's obvious they have too much of that.

They will never learn that the name has no effect on a street or an area. Has there ever been a rodeo on Rodeo Drive? Or even a horse?

Didn't Shakespeare discover this a couple of centuries ago?

FLASH, I just got a call from city hall carefully explaining to me that I'm wrong and that the name change is a great idea. I take it all back! (I think they are going to buy my beach front property in Cabazon too)

It didn't happen in moval, but it could have. Check the P.E. for the story about the Alcoholic Beverage Control Nazis citing some old ladies in Elsinore for running a sports pool at the local elks lodge. Now's the time for our new District Attorney to show some intiative and send these wannabe cops packing along with their C.S. complaint!!! Common Rod! Show some class!

Yea, only 750,000 was budgeted, but if you think it's not going to go over a mil, I still have that beach front property in Cabazon available.

You'd think that naming a park after a desert storm soldier and being right next to the March Airfield museum and national cemetary would be quite enough in the memorials to war but not in moron valley, and a free war surplus cannon or citizen sponsored memorial is not enough. Seven figures has to be taken from our park fund to erect this Orwellian windmill, whilst the city bureaucrats explain to the children why there aren't enough sports fields to go around.

More.......

"We're not targeting people who have a legitimate need, who have a prescription, for marijuana," she said. "We're concerned about businesses that have more than the legal amount. We're concerned about those that are selling marijuana under the guise of a dispensary for profit-making reasons."

On Friday December 15th over 2000 cars were stopped and over 100 towed at the Police Checkpoint. Think it's a good idea, or bad? An abuse of government power? The Moreno Valley City Council wants to hear from you. Drop them a note with your thoughts.

Here are their e-mail addresses....

New Moreno Valley Park Named For Mervins...

Did ya ever notice how when the guvment wants a law it's enforced immediately, like making money on fines for minor violations, but when they don't want something they have to study it to death. That's the case here in moval. Proposition 215 has been the law for over ten years, and Senate Bill 420 has for three, yet the only action in moval is to send it to the city attorney for study. What A CROCK

This from the Valley Times. Some folks just don't like it when you speak your mind. Yes, that's me, after my commentary on the way park fees were spent back in the 1990s

Like many of the big cities, Moval has gone into the business of selling electricity. Is this the proper role for government? This is a logo I made to illustrate their folly.

In the January 17 04 Press it was reported that Redlands police terminated with extreme prejudice, one each kitty cat, with no apology to the owner. The response of the department was to issue binoculars to the officers. Let's hope that they provided more training in the use of the binoculars than they did in the use of firearms and wildlife identification, because if the binoculars are turned backwards everything appears smaller and an unsuspecting citizen may be terminated having been mistaken for a space invader.

MLK Day 2000, Dark Valley, California
In yesterday's Riverside Press Enterprise.... In the Travel Section (G)..... On the front page..... At the bottom..... Be sure to read the article by Bob Dart, Getting there was half the fun. It features a part of a display of paintings of road side attractions now on display in the Washington D.C. National Building Museum. The article features a color rendering of the dinosaurs at Cabazon, just a few miles to the East of Dark Valley.
This article brought back memories the many interesting architectural wonders that I saw growing up in the Los Angeles area. In Huntington Park there was the Owl Cafe, shaped like an owl, diners made from railroad dining cars, restaurants shaped like blimps, and the many doughnut shops adorned with massive plaster doughnuts.
One of the most interesting structures could be seen near the Pacific Electric railroad tracks in Watts, was later to be named The Watts Towers. At the time, I knew not what they were, and being a curious child, I'm sure that I asked and received no answers. I later learned that they were built by the Italian immigrant Simon Rodia. He called the towers "Our Town" and it was his homage to the city of Los Angeles and The United States of America. Here the words of Simon Rodia.

"I have
nobody to help me out. I was a poor man. Had
little to do at a time. Nobody helped me. I
think if I hire a man he don't know what to do.
A million times I don't know what to do myself.
I never had a single helper. Some of the people
say What was he doing...some of the people think
I was crazy and some people said I was going to
do something. I wanted to do something in the
United States because I was raised here you
understand. I wanted to do something for the
United States because there are nice people in
this country."

Simon Rodia moved away in 1955 and shortly after his monument to America became the target of city bureaucrats, the Los Angeles department of building and safety, who ordered the towers demolished. Fortunately a group of determined people joined together and successfully stopped the onslaught of the bureaucrats and the structure stands today and is being preserved by the Getty Institute.

The Watts Towers is one of the very few surviving monuments of California's colorful past. So many of the rest have fallen victim to tunnel visioned government androids, and all upcoming visionaries, those who would do something different, like Mr. Rodia are banned by the government from fulfilling their dreams.

As I look around Moreno Valley I see houses that are almost identical. Rectangular things with red tile roofs. The Denny's Restaurant here is the same as the ones I've patronized in Phoenix and Tulsa. The McDonalds is the same as the ones in Pennsylvania and Taiwan.

Moreno Valley is little different from other parts of the country in the year 2000. Imagination and individuality are discouraged from the cradle to the grave and mediocrity has become the anointed goal.

We've lost something since the days of Simon Rodia, and even Martin Luther King. It's OK to have a dream so long as that dream is within the boundaries carved in stone by the building and safety Nazis. It's just enough to make a person use the "F" word, and I will here.
F-R-E-E-D-O-M!!!!!!!