San Bernardino County opens board meetings to phone comment July 1
San Bernardino County: Residents get to weigh in on county business by phone for the first time — no drive to the Arrowhead Avenue chambers required.
Rialto approves a $3.1M Sycamore Avenue sewer line, about $2.4M under the original estimate
San Bernardino County rewrites flood design rules last set in 1983
San Bernardino County: First overhaul of the county's Hydrology Manual in 43 years; new post-wildfire flooding and debris-flow rules now shape how engineers and developers design drainage.
Riverside County opens 131 more vote centers Saturday for the June 2 primary
County of Riverside: Twenty-one centers are already open; 131 more — including five high-capacity Super Vote Centers, one per supervisorial district — come online Saturday, for 152 total ahead of the June 2 vote.
Riverside parks proposes $2.7M in cuts and would scrap the Latin Festival
The Raincross Gazette: The two-year plan kills the new Latin Festival, thins recreation and community-center security, and leaves two management jobs unfilled — all tied to closing the city's General Fund and Measure Z deficits.
Coachella weighs a data center moratorium after backlash over a 400-acre campus
NBC Palm Springs: Hundreds packed chambers to fight a six-building AI campus; the council may vote next week and could scrap the utility deal it signed with Stronghold in February.
Coachella data center returns to council after February pause
NBC Palm Springs: First council hearing since February on Stronghold Power's project. Opponents and the developer have each stood up rival websites; residents cite water, energy, and environmental concerns.
Newsom signs ballot-seizure ban after Bianco took 600,000 Riverside ballots
CalMatters: SB 73 takes effect immediately and makes it a crime for police to take cast ballots from a county registrar — the exact thing Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco did earlier this year. Lawmakers rushed the bill through ahead of the June 2 primary.
Perris voters decide a 1% sales tax increase June 2
The Riverside Record: Measure B would raise Perris's sales tax from 7.75% to 8.75% and bring in an estimated $18 million annually. The council voted 4-1 to send it to voters, citing rising public safety, infrastructure, and insurance costs.
Hundreds pack Temecula council against SDG&E's 500-kilovolt line through wine country
CBS Los Angeles: SDG&E's Golden Pacific Powerlink would cut a 150-mile, 500-kilovolt corridor from Imperial Valley to Camp Pendleton through Temecula Parkway, Temecula Creek, and the heart of the wine country. The CPUC has final say. Construction targets 2029.
AI clerks tested in Riverside Superior Court motions
CalMatters: Riverside Superior Court signed a $10,000 deal in February with Learned Hand, whose tool drafts orders and research memos using Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google models. CalMatters obtained emails suggesting eventual criminal-case applications.
New federal suit alleges Riverside jail medical lapses, 11 years into consent decree
NBC Palm Springs: Another deliberate-indifference suit against a jail system that's been under federal court oversight since 2015 and met only a fraction of the decree's provisions a decade in.
Riverside seeks $14M federal grant for street safety, AI traffic cameras
Raincross Gazette: Bike-lane upgrades, high-visibility crosswalks, and AI cameras at high-collision intersections, with a possible drone first-responder pilot tacked on.
300-unit infill clears Riverside Planning Commission on a 45-year scrap yard
Raincross Gazette: Brownfield cleanup, the historic Barley Mills Building preserved, and an AB 2097 parking exemption that lets the project skip 86 spaces because it's near transit.
Riverside picks up ~$150K in climate and clean-energy grants
City of Riverside: Three awards from Resilient Cities Catalyst, Bloomberg Philanthropies and ICLEI USA back the Northside Agriculture Innovation Center, youth climate work and clean-energy partnerships.
Riverside lands two CALED awards, launches business site
City of Riverside: Farm House Collective public-private partnership and Riverside Realized strategic plan picked up Awards of Merit; new RiversideBusiness.org goes live.
Riverside County opens early voting sites Saturday for June 2 primary
Riverside Superior Court is testing an AI clerk. It won't say whether plaintiffs are told.
CalMatters: Riverside has a $10,000 agreement with Learned Hand to test an AI clerk on civil and probate cases. Emails obtained by CalMatters show the company pitched faster expansion into criminal work, including Racial Justice Act petitions.
Coachella accepting council applications through Tuesday
The Riverside Record: Applications close 5 p.m. May 26. Council has until June 22 to either appoint a replacement or leave the seat open through November.
21 Riverside County vote centers open Saturday for June 2 primary
The Riverside Record: Another 131 vote centers, including five super centers, open May 30. As of Friday, about 132,000 of roughly 1.46 million mail-in ballots had been returned and verified.