I was invited to speak today at the Homestead Valley Community Council meeting in the Flamingo Heights Community Center. The HVCC is a union of four historic homestead communities:

• Yucca Mesa
• Landers
• Flamingo Heights (where we live)
• Johnson Valley

I spoke about our road dedication issues and the desire to change the rules to allow property owners to block public access to the dedicated road until such time as the county decides to actually build a road. I had a mildly mixed reaction to my specific issue, but a stronger one to the idea that government in general is out of control.

One example of this is a recent ruling by San Bernardino County that denies permits for new construction or remodels to property owners who depend on hauled water. Since large areas of Johnson Valley don't have water service, this is an important issue. A lot of people in this area have depended on hauled water for years. Sometimes this is because they are weekend or seasonal residents, but lately it might also be due to the high cost of hooking up to the Bighorn-High Desert water system, which jumped from $2500 to $5000 early this year.

You can read more about HVCC and this ruling at the HVCC web site.

At the end of the meeting I was invited to attend the HVCC Open Government Workshop next week.