JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 2015 Our Local Hospital, Hi-Desert Medical Center, is in Jeopardy ! SAY NO ! BIG SOLAR Targets Landers ! A public input meeting at the SBd Government Center in Joshua Tree Jan. 6. starts at 10 am until all speak-3 min. limit. Come say NO! to declining property values, blowing dust, visual blight, environmental degradation, loss of habitat loss for tortoise and other desert animals, loss of tourism and more. For more info call 760-705-1943 or email [email protected] ****CELEBRATING 2 YRS.**** HIGH DESERT POULTRY ASSOC. High Desert Medical Center (HDMC) has been operated by Hi-Desert Memorial Health Care District as a community-owned public entity since its inception in the late 1950s. Facing serious financial challenges, physician recruitment and keeping pace with rapidly changing technologies, the District can no longer operate on its own and is at a major crossroads. Thousands of community hospitals across the United States have been closing in the last few years leaving rural areas without adequate medical care. HDMC’s Board of Directors is in negotiations with Tenet Healthcare and Strategic Global Management, both of whom own numerous hospitals and are interested in acquiring HDMC. HDMC is a general medical and surgical hospital with 179 beds. Over 25,000 patients yearly visit the hospital's emergency room Located on White Feather Rd. in Joshua Tree, this hospital serves the communities of Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, Twentynine Palms including the Marine Base, Morongo Valley, Pioneertown, Landers and Johnson Valley. A representative from HDMC will speak at the YMIA potluck at 6 PM on FEBRUARY 27 about how these upcoming changes will affect Mesa residents and the Hi-Desert community at large. For more information visit www.hdmc.org High Desert Homegrown Poultry Association’s next quarterly meeting will be at 6 PM on Wednesday, January 28 at YMIA. Founder Charla Shamhart will bring samples of many poultry feeds available locally and talk about nutritional content that chickens and other poultry need to grow properly and lay eggs. There will also be a demonstration in sprouting grains for green forage for poultry (and other animals). Meetings are always lively and everyone learns something new. All are welcome including children. While there is no charge for the meeting, a hat is passed to cover donations for use of the YMIA Community Center. They are on Facebook at High Desert Homegrown Poultry Association or join Raising Homegrown Poultry on FB for poultry discussion and questions. For more information call Charla at 760-401-0689 ~ Rick Sayers 2015 Happy New Year members, friends and neighbors! I hope finds everyone in good spirits and good health. We kicked the holiday season off with a successful Holiday Open House on December 14th where we had 10 new members join our association. I want to welcome all the new folks! Thanks to everyone who helped, especially Barbara Harris for food, support and her famous gift baskets!! Thanks to Dominique and Rodrigo Gonzalez, Manuel Borgia and Paula Carter who helped me decorate. Paula brought food and assisted with clean-up afterwards. And a Big thanks to Bob Garcia who brought his guitar and sang the afternoon away. While I am in the thanking mode, I want to thank Nancy Sammons for her many years of service to our community center, and a thank you to Dominique for taking over the Secretary position. Also, thanks to previous YMIA President Ed Cronin and Tim Gililan, because I think of both of them every time I look at the Simi Dabah sculpture they installed. This has now become our brand. We are trying some new things this year, so I am hoping everyone on the Mesa comes out to enjoy these new community activities. One of our ideas is to have a monthly catered dinner. For those of you that came to Starry Nights and ate tacos, burritos or fry bread, we are having the same caterers Danny and Gina Eheverria for our first dinner on Fiesta Friday, January 30th. Now to more serious business. Ever since I have lived here there have been people or companies wanting to impose their will on our neighbors, the residents of the Homestead Valley. The first battle that I was involved with was in opposition to the annexation of Yucca Mesa by the town of Yucca Valley. The dust had not settled when Green Path North reared its head and the overwhelming opposition to the high power transmission lines was victorious. Then in 2011 we had The Lava Buttes wind turbine project. Cherry Good of Pioneertown started the coalition called Save Our Desert. People from all over the area joined the community effort and we were able to have the Black Buttes project stopped before damage was done, which now brings us to our friends to the north in Landers. At this moment there are three massive solar fields being proposed to be built in Landers. Some people call them solar farms but these are not traditional farms, as farms are places where things grow and thrive. After all this land is scraped clean nothing will grow there for hundreds of years. These projects are the result of ignorant politicians in Washington and Sacramento who think the desert is 'barren' and that 'nothing lives there'. We have tried in vain to engage our elected representatives to help us resist the invasion of these misguided projects in the high desert, but our pleas for help have gone unanswered. If you want a glimpse of what Yucca Mesa could look like in the future drive down Highway 62 toward the I-10 and when you get to Pierson Road look to your left and you see the future of the Morongo Basin. If you do don’t want to look out your living room window and see acres of solar panels, now is the time to vocally let your elected representatives know. Beginning at 10AM on January 6 in the San Bernardino County Government Center concerned citizens will each be given 3 minutes to tell our county supervisors exactly what is on their minds. I am guessing there are going to be many people in attendance so this meeting will probably go late into the afternoon. What I have learned since I have lived here is that you cannot trust any politicians to do what is in your best interest. Your MUST make your opinions known, as you cannot trust your elected representatives to do the right thing. I hope to see you on January 6th in Joshua Tree to speak against the mega-solar projects! PRIMATIVE BOWMAKING TALK @JANUARY POTLUCK As a youngster in Massachusetts, Manuel Borges , YMIA’s new Treasurer (replacing Paula Carter) began building small bows out of rose bushes and elm tree branches. It was after he found a piece of live oak in a fire pit that he began more serious efforts at real bow making. He discovered that making authentic bows is time consuming and often produces a broken bow when it was almost finished. He has built about 30 customized bows and dozens of arrows and even knapped some stone points from obsidian. At the January 23 YMIA potluck, Manuel will be the featured speaker and will explain bowmaking to the group. Don’t miss this informative talk! YUCCA MESA COMMUNITY CENTER By Donation YMIA is a 501 (c) 4 non-profit HOURLY DAILY WEEKLY MONTHLY Call or email Rick Sayers 760-574-6598 [email protected] Solar hearing JT 10 amall day Board meeting 5:30 pm YMIA Potluck 6 pm Poultry Assn. 6 pm Fiesta Friday 6-8 pm February 11 Board Meeting MORONGO BASIN AMATEUR RADIO CLUB Meeting 3rd Thursday of each month St. Christopher of the Desert, Joshua Tree 7 PM Membership $15 Individual $20 Family Contact Manuel Borges 760-365-2652 ARES Amateur Radio Emergency Service Meeting 1st Thursday of each month Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucca Valley 7 PM NO CHARGE Contact Manuel Borges 760-365-2652 27 YMIA Potluck + hospital speaker Proud Spirit no Borders Cooking — Chefs Gena and Danny Echeverria who catered the recent Starry Nights Festival are cooking at YMIA on January 30. The menu is a Mexican dinner of 3 authentic street taco’s, rice, beans, chips and salsa as well as a dessert and music of Old Mexico! PRE-SALE tickets are $10.00 for adults ($13 at the door) and $7.00 for children under 10. Hours will be from 6-8 PM. Tickets at YMIA’s monthly potluck on Jan. 23 or call. Christmas at YMIA Community Center Merry Christmas to ALL While the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors meeting is held in San Bernardino, locals can attend an interactive video teleconferencing session where the Board members may see as well as hear speakers at the Bob Burke Joshua Tree Government Center, located at 63665 Twentynine Palms Highway, Joshua Tree, CA 92252. The public input time begins at 10am but is expected to continue for many hours, so come on over even if you cannot arrive at the start! NEWSLETTER DECEMBER 2014 Linda Willgues lived in Landers for 10 years and was a dedicated communityminded volunteer, serving as an officer of the Landers Association, correspondent to the Hi-Desert Star and newsletter editor. She was known to all the bargain hunters who love the Landers Thrift Store, as she and her helpers worked very hard to reorganize and improve it. She was Landers delegate to the HVCC for several years. Even though she was forced by ill health to discontinue attending meetings, she faithfully continued to be the information pipeline, distributing e-mails and the HVCC Newsletter. Newsletter photos show her during our 2010 Poker Run fundraiser, and at the presentation of the flag that flew in Afghanistan over one of the Marine units HVCC sponsored. Linda lost her long fight with cancer on October 23. She was only 60 years old. L anders residents whose homes lie within 1,000 feet of the Bowman Solar development were indignant that they did not receive the required notification by mail that this 35acre project was to go in just up-slope from them. They also missed legal notices in the Hi-Desert Star and various radio announcements. So it came as a bombshell to hear the County Planning Commission had ok’d the permit for s-Power to proceed with construction...and there were only days to appeal...and the fee would be almost $1200. An emergency meeting at Belfield Hall on Saturday, December 13, drew about 80 people from Landers and other Homestead Valley communities. A representative from s-Power was on hand to explain the project and answer questions. Too late. he 1000-foot notification rule is ridiculous in the sparsely-populated desert where most parcels are 5 acres and neighbors are few and far between. The closest resident complained of construction noise, trespass and vulgar language by workers in the hearing of her kids. It turns out this was not s-Power jumping the gun on the permit, but an SC Edison contractor trenching in the Bowman Trail right-of-way to tie into existing underground cables connected to the transmission lines along Reche Rd. The protesters raised the money to pay the appeal fee, and filed the appeal before the deadline–which was the following Monday. he Homestead Valley Community Council is on record since the days of the battle against the LADWP Green Path North transmission lines: The better way to utilize renewable energy is solar generation on rooftops and parking lots in already built environments, at the point of use. The system the County now uses permits industrial projects on private property and fails to protect County residents and their property values. The Planning Commission ignores County General Plan requirements for development compatible with the character of desert neighborhoods. This has now resulted in what looks to be the first of many private property is being leased and sold for industrial projects. The cumulative effect is “upgrades” of power poles and transmission lines. Those already in place are not scenic. Who wants them? No one. Is it any wonder the County, SCE and the developers are called sneaky? First Industrial Solar in Homestead Valley T T www.hvccsite.org HVCC Projects and Issues • The 4 Communities • One-Click Donations with PayPal Yucca Mesa + Flamingo Heights + Landers + Johnson Valley = HVCC New Years Eve Snow !