Murrieta Historic Downtown

The heartbeat of a city is most often its historic downtown. The Old Town section of a city may serve as its porthole to the region's history, while offering attractive restaurants, and a vibrant shopping district, complete with tourist attractions, and "things to do." An attractive, well designed historic old town promotes a city, serving as a point of interest that draws visitors, new businesses, and new residents who desire to live in a city that maintains its historical roots, and displays those roots in a way that promotes the city, and reveals the personality of a lively, involved community.

Murrieta's historic downtown has more potential than the old town sections of other cities. We have many more older structures still standing, a rich history rooted in the Old West and Mexican Rancheros from which to draw our theme, and we have plenty of room to grow.

While our current city government leaders give away $200,000 to Temecula for a project they won't tell you about, and wastefully spend our tax dollars on properties they plan to use for low income housing, the current Murrieta City Council has ignored Murrieta's historic downtown along Washington Avenue. Rather than spend money to increase the value of our city, and make it more attractive to new, and existing, residents and businesses (which can lead to an increase in revenue), the current city council is spending your tax dollars to buy property around Murrieta's historic district for the purpose of building low income housing, which will attract a population that will provide little, or no, benefit to the City of Murrieta.

Fifteen years ago, when the last General Plan was drawn up (something that should happen every five years), we were shown an exciting glimpse into the future of Murrieta. Unfortunately, our city council, and the numerous city planners, did not follow the General Plan, and the Murrieta of today looks nothing like what they intended. A new General Plan is currently in the works, and it is supposed to be a roadmap for a vibrant future Murrieta. If the same old folks, with the same old policies, remain in office, spending will continue to increase faster than revenue, and Murrieta will lose value as a community.

Murrieta's future needs to be navigated with fresh eyes, exciting new ideas, and by someone who is willing to not only follow the path designed to lead to a vibrant historic old town, but to eliminate wasteful spending, and stop the pursuit of placing low income housing around our beloved historic district.

In November, voting for the incumbents ensures Murrieta will cease to be the Gem of the Valley, and instead our city will become just another Los Angeles suburb.

Douglas V. Gibbs, as your Murrieta City Council member, will help ensure a bright future for Murrieta.

Oh, by the way, those lights in the trees along Washington Avenue have been removed, supposedly to save a few dollars in energy costs so that the city officials can take that same money and waste it on things that do not benefit the city.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary