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::: COMMUNITY NEWS
Vandals used condiments to trash the women's bathroom at Stonehouse Park. Security report: Quiet Halloween was followed by restroom vandalism Published Monday, November 7, 2005 While smashed pumpkins and overturned portable toilets were the extent of Halloween mischief this year, an incident of vandalism occurred at Stonehouse Park less than two days later. Early in the morning of Nov. 2, Rancho Murieta Association maintenance workers discovered that vandals had trashed the women’s restroom facility at the park and covered every surface with condiments apparently taken from a storage room used for the snack bar, Security Chief Greg Remson reported Friday. The storage room and snack bar are used by various sports groups. All the facilities are housed under the same roof at the park.
The storeroom door showed no signs of forced entry and it is unknown if it was left ajar or if a key was used to gain entry, Remson said in an e-mail. When the video surveillance system for the facility was accessed later in the day as part of the follow-up to the vandalism, Security found it wasn’t working and repaired it, according to a security log entry. Security said that although there was no permanent damage, RMA Maintenance Manager Rod Hart reported the entire restroom had to be pressure-washed. The Community Services District Security Committee received the following updates when it met Nov. 1 at the CSD Building. Citations and advisals Speeding advisals and citations were down for October, but only because RMA and CSD radar equipment was being repaired, Remson said. Stop sign advisals numbered 33, due in large part to the efforts of an off-duty sheriff’s deputy who was working in the community one Friday evening when he noticed a lot of people running the stop signs. Although the officer was able to stop the offenders, he was unable to issue tickets for the infractions because the motor vehicle code hasn’t been adopted for the community’s private streets. “He said hello to 30 of our locals and reminded them” to obey the stop signs, Remson said. CSD Security issued 10 stop sign citations and 13 speeding citations for the month. There were also 72 open garage door advisals, 46 driveway parking citations, and two unlicensed driver citations. Remson said a resident has been providing Security with lists of addresses where vehicles are being parked in the driveway. Patrol officers refer to the lists during the five hours a month they are paid by RMA to enforce driveway parking and overnight street parking rules. Golf cart plan CSD and RMA staff and the consultant who will prepare the community’s golf cart plan recently met with representatives of the county Department of Transportation, Caltrans, and the CHP to define the plan’s scope, CSD General Manager Ed Crouse said. The community has until January 2007 to put a plan in place that will allow golf carts to continue to legally cross Highway 16 at the North and South intersections. Crouse said a “narrow scope” is envisioned for the plan since the goal is to cross the highway, not drive on it, and private streets are involved. Crouse said the group decided to include language in the plan recognizing the potential for golf cart use on Stonehouse Road because of the proposed school, but it was agreed that specifics for using that road are beyond the plan’s scope. The RMA and
the CSD are acting in unison to develop the plan, and have agreed
to split the $18,000 cost. Safety center There’s now a truck for the use of the Volunteers in Partnership with the Sheriff, and an alarm system has been installed at the James L. Noller Safety Center, but it’s still not certain when the center will be open to the public. The center is located across the parking lot from the CSD Building. Local VIPS will staff the center, which has offices for Security, the Sheriff’s Department and the CHP. The goal of the center is to provide more law enforcement presence in the community. Bar code reader The $10,000 cost of a new bar code reader is expected to be paid by the insurance company for the truck driver who clipped it in late October, Remson said. Parts on a trailer attached to the truck caught the reader and snapped it off. The incident left the North Gate without a reader for the visitor lane, which is used by some residents. Traffic flow was slowed at the gate for a few days until a reader from one of the two resident lanes on the South was installed. The same day the reader met its untimely end, both gate arms at the North Gate were knocked off in unrelated incidents and reinstalled. The arms are designed to give way instead of breaking. Gate passes There are six types of visitor passes now being given out at the North Gate, and the CSD is working with an architect to remodel the South Gate so passes can be given out there also. The visitor passes are required under the gate policy approved by the RMA board in May and reaffirmed in August after changes were suggested by the Joint Security Committee. The RMA has budgeted about $18,000 in 2006 to pay for the passes. Crouse estimated the passes are being given out at the rate of 300 to 500 a day on the North. Joint Security Committee The Joint Security Committee has not set a date for its next meeting. The committee was restructured earlier this year with RMA and CSD directors and general managers as members and a quarterly meeting schedule. The restructured group’s only meeting to date was held in July, when it considered the gate policy.
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