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Civic
Land use, public finance, housing, public safety, elections — the governance of California's Inland corridor.
Riverside County: Supervisors adopted the FY2026-27 plan June 9, leaning on a discretionary-funded hiring freeze and reserve draws to close a structural deficit as costs outrun revenue.
The Raincross Gazette: One proposal would hand board appointments to the future inspector general — and make the board harder for a future council to dissolve.
UCR News: A pointed academic read on the council's rejected Homekey+ grant — and what it says about who actually shows up to local land-use fights.
Riverside Record: Preliminary injunction denied June 3; the wrestlers' attorney says reinstatement for 2026-27 is now highly unlikely, though an appeal is planned.
Land Use & Planning
The Raincross Gazette: A conditional use permit legalizes a campus that has run without city approval since 2015, and caps enrollment at 450.
NBC Palm Springs: Council approves a 45-day moratorium — extendable to two years — and terminates the utility agreement behind a massive eastern-corridor project, accepting a high risk of litigation.
RCTC: A $33M pilot meters three on-ramps and posts real-time speeds on 8 miles of northbound I-15 — no new lanes, two years to prove it works.
Valley News: Visit Temecula Valley and the Winegrowers Association jointly oppose a 500-kV line routed through wine country, citing tourism damage and wildfire risk in high-severity fire zones.
Public Finance
Riverside County: Applications run June 1 to July 1; the nine-member committee is the county's first standing body to seat residents alongside supervisors and the CEO for financial oversight.
The Riverside Record: District plans to spend $846M against $29M less in revenue, with another $3.8M pulled from reserves for welfare settlements and a new office building — the projected last year of deficit spending.
Riverside County: Supervisors adopted the FY2026-27 plan June 9, leaning on a discretionary-funded hiring freeze and reserve draws to close a structural deficit as costs outrun revenue.
California Air Resources Board: The Manufacturing Decarbonization Incentive Fund grows to $4 billion, with $800 million in added compliance support for industry; changes take effect September 1.
Housing & Homlessness
UCR News: A pointed academic read on the council's rejected Homekey+ grant — and what it says about who actually shows up to local land-use fights.
The Citrus Belt Review: San Bernardino County's count fell for a second straight year while Riverside's most recent full count rose 7% — but underneath the opposite headlines, both counties show the same shift: more people in shelters, fewer on the street.
City of Montclair: The city was the only IE jurisdiction on the state's March 24 noncompliance list. An urgency ordinance adopted April 20 — three days before the state deadline — is the city's answer.
City of Victorville: Per the 2026 Point-in-Time Count, the city's unsheltered population dropped from 326 in 2024 to 104 in 2026. Total homelessness is at a six-year low.
Public Safety
NBC Palm Springs: Five-year, $3.2M agreement keeps Moreno Valley College's law-enforcement and firefighting courses running at the county's public-safety academy near March Air Reserve Base.
Raincross Gazette: Five-year contract replaces the department's full body-worn camera fleet and upgrades storage — the prior contract expired in September 2025.
Citrus Belt Review: Residents across the corridor keep spotting new license plate readers — on city streets, county roads, and inside their own gated neighborhoods. What they can't find is a straight answer about who installed them or why.
Community Forward Redlands: Settlement pushes the city's payouts tied to allegations involving former Deputy Chief Michael Reiss to about $4.25 million across four cases.
Elections & Governance
Riverside County: Applications run June 1 to July 1; the nine-member committee is the county's first standing body to seat residents alongside supervisors and the CEO for financial oversight.
The Raincross Gazette: One proposal would hand board appointments to the future inspector general — and make the board harder for a future council to dissolve.
The Raincross Gazette: The watchdog post pays $161,000 to $217,000 and reports to the mayor and council — the structure critics say undercuts its independence.
Champion Newspapers: WM trucks will photograph contaminated and overfilled carts; fines of $17.89 and $29.81 follow a two-month warning period.
From the Long Read
Citrus Belt Review: The city is a coin-flip between owners and renters while the county around it stays two-thirds owned. That gap isn't drift — it's what the 2008 crash left behind, and state law is now locking it in.
Citrus Belt Review: The national story is that cities and states are putting their own money into affordable housing to close financing gaps. In the Inland Empire it's true — but it takes a California shape, and the tax-abatement lever doing the work elsewhere isn't available here.
What happened at the meeting you skipped.
Council fights, budgets, ballots, and land-use battles across the Inland Empire — in your inbox Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Free.
Civic Archives
Riverside Unified faces a $33.1M deficit heading into budget adoption
The Riverside Record: District plans to spend $846M against $29M less in revenue, with another $3.8M pulled from reserves for welfare settlements and a new office building — the projected last year of deficit spending.
Federal judge clears CBU to cut wrestling
Riverside Record: Preliminary injunction denied June 3; the wrestlers' attorney says reinstatement for 2026-27 is now highly unlikely, though an appeal is planned.