Elsinore Valley Cemetery District Flood Control

Elsinore Valley Cemetery District board members began an ongoing correspondence with their County Supervisor in August 2004, stating concerns regarding the failure of City and County authorities to address flood control issues in the cemetery area of the city. Copies of these letters were sent to the Lake Elsinore City Council. City and County officials took no documented responsive action to address the concerns of the cemetery district.

Municipal, county, and state agencies (City of Lake Elsinore, Riverside County Flood Control District, and Caltrans) exhibited lack of interagency communication, lack of coordination of responsibilities, and a lack of cooperative corrective action concerning flood mitigation in the Arroyo del Toro area.

Proposition F contained an allocation of monies for flood control mitigation in the Arroyo del Toro Channel area immediately adjacent to the Elsinore Valley Cemetery District. During our investigation witnesses stated that the planners of the 1986 Lake Elsinore Flood Control Bond Issue, by deliberately disregarding inflation, substantially underestimated the cost of completing the project. Of the eleven projects authorized, only four were completed at twice the initial estimates for the entire bond issue. Consequently, 18 years later, the taxpayers in Zone 3 are still paying for undelivered flood control improvements. 2