SAN JACINTO, CA — A woman killed in a four-vehicle crash in San Jacinto that injured a total of five people was identified Friday as a 36-year- old resident of the city.

Venus Angel Aguilar was fatally injured shortly before 8 a.m. Thursday in the collision near the intersection of the Ramona Expressway and San Jacinto Avenue, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

Sgt. Patrick Lynch said the vehicle the victim was in, along with three others, impacted for reasons still under investigation, leaving all of them “heavily damaged.”

County fire crews reached the location within minutes and immediately set up a triage and initiated an extrication operation because two of the victims had to be pulled from the wreckage, officials said.

Aguilar was one of the trapped parties and was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to the fire department, two people were seriously injured, while two others suffered minor injuries. All were taken to a regional trauma center for treatment.

Three other people were evaluated by paramedics but did not require hospitalization.

The cause of the crash was under investigation.

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Some rather reliable sources are telling me that the Hemet City Council may place a ballot initiative on the upcoming March 2024 Primary Election that would, at long last, allow the citizens of Hemet to determine who serves as their Mayor. It is about time. This popular move by the council has been talked about for years, but the prior City Council egos have never been able to give up the practice of selecting among themselves. Egos, I guess. I don’t have to tell those who followed the antics of the Hemet City Council that the annual chair-changing exercise every December has resulted in some very strange and disappointing choices.

Let the calls or emails to the City Council begin. We only need three City Council votes by December 8th to get this on the March Primary ballot. A special meeting will also be needed, but if the council can hold such a meeting to purchase some city vehicles (as was done quite recently), it can certainly hold one to place this very important initiative on the March ballot.

If passed by the voters, citizens of Hemet would then have their first opportunity to elect a “people’s Mayor” during the November 24 Presidential General election. From the conversations I’ve had with any number who have patiently waited for an at-large elected Mayor in Hemet, there is little doubt that the voters will pass this initiative by an overwhelming margin. More democracy and transparency will always prevail over less. And, you don’t have to look far to see how such a system works in other communities. The City of Menifee operates with an at-large elected Mayor, and it has worked very well for them.

Moving to a system where all the voters elect the Mayor will necessitate a reconfiguration of the existing council districts. Instead of five, there will only be a need for four. For voting purposes, the elected Mayor will serve as an at-large Councilmember. Not that districts have meant much to Hemet anyway. Hemet is far too small for individual districts to make much of a difference in how our City Council should be voting. The best solution for which district gets merged into the other four is to use the district of the Mayor selected by the City Council majority when they undertake their annual self-election process in December. If passed by the voters in March, there will be plenty of time to reconfigure the voting districts before the November 2024 election. The voters will also decide if the Mayor should serve a two or four-term. I’m all for four years. We need some stability at the helm of government in Hemet, and choosing our Mayor to coincide with the President of the United States every four years would make for a nice symmetry at the local level.

Kudos to the Councilmembers who champion this initiative. They show their unselfish leadership when they vote to let the people have this very important position. I’d rather you didn’t argue with me. You know how I hate fighting. Just sayin’.

rustystrait@gmail.com

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 “I’ve always felt a sense of duty to others.  It seems to be a part of who I am.,”   She says. “While operating the optical business in Hemet, I decided to go back to school in 1996 after my sons were grown to pursue a  Dr. Of Optometry degree. With all the other things I had going on in my life, although eleven units short of obtaining my Bachelor’s Degree, and working in the optics field for many years, the School of Optometry in Fullerton was willing to accept me as a student, allowing me to fulfill the last few units of my Bachelor’s.

I considered going back to school to satisfy the requirements. However, about the same time, HMOs were taking over in the medical industry and providing much fewer reimbursements for services. That makes me decided to let that wait for a while. In retrospect, I wish I had done so.”

 In addition to the business, she joined Kiwanis and was on the board for many years, including two terms as president and received the Kiwanis Distinguished President Award.” Among her other many appointments over the ensuing years, she was Chairman of the Hemet Valley Chamber of Commerce and chosen as Citizen of the Year in 2000. She was involved in the Valley Economic Development Corporation and THE Center as a board member for eleven years and counting.  Served as a board member during the inception of The Children’s Museum, and in Soroptimists for a short time. Citizen of the year, Kiwanis Distinguished Person Award at Kiwanis.

Between 2000 and 2001 she took a position with Golden Village RV Resort in Hemet as Events Director. “I had been in the optical business for 26 years, and it was time to make a change. The business climate at the time was somewhat uncertain. However, right after the terrorist attack on New York’s Twin Towers, I had the opportunity that changed my life. I had never been interested in politics when I started working in the offices of Congresswoman Mary Bono. I developed the utmost respect for her and loved the work. It was difficult to leave her and the position I loved and his position. I loved our ability to help people, to be working at something so much larger than myself. 

When I could make a difference in someone else’s life, it made the efforts worthwhile. When we were able to cut through the red tape and help veterans to obtain their benefits in a couple of months, it meant everything to me. Politics had little or no appeal to me before that.” After seven years, she began to consider the possibilities that a member of Congress had no assurance of employment beyond their current two-year term. That gave her pause to think about her future. “I decided to move on because of my security. Even so, it was a tough decision because I was leaving an employer that I respected and admired.”

She voted with her gut feelings, even when staff may have had other ideas, which wasn’t often. She always did her research before coming to any decisions. It impressed me that she placed the right thing above any political goal. That had a significant influence on me.

 What motivated her to run for political office? “If anyone had told me that I would run for City Council, I would have told them they were a little bit off. But one should never say never because circumstances change and we are all motivated by a cause. I am a staunch believer of home rule, so when certain elements wanted to eliminate our fire department and hire the county to fight our fires, it was time to stand up for the right cause. When responsibilities are placed in the hands of an outside organization, the city loses and no longer has any say-so over its destiny. I believe that is the wrong way to operate a city. I did not want us to lose control of one of our most important safety organizations. I knew I could fight for it and knew that once committed I would not back away. More importantly.”

 And that was her reason to run for office.  She ran for a seat being vacated by Councilman Foreman.  Rick Crimeni ran for the same position and seemed to be leading and was thought to win. “On election night Rick, myself and several others were hanging out at The Brickyard on Harvard Street waiting for the returns. Rick was running ahead of me. The final vote count was not available for two or three weeks. We were all certain he had beat me, and I was congratulating him. As a nobody from nowhere, I was astonished that I survived and found myself as a City Council Woman.”

Since that time, she has been re-elected and served as Mayor twice. As to whether she will run again next year, she is the typical politician. “I don’t know,” she says with enough hesitation to make suspect that she will.  Once again, as she aims her arrows into the future, she adds, “It is becoming harder and harder to stay in California.” She also believes people have the wrong impression as to how much authority as a  rotating mayor has. “The only thing that I do differently is to run the meeting and have more ceremonial duties. It is not like an elected mayor who answers to the voters individually. It takes 3 out of 5 votes to get anything done under a city manager form such as we have in Hemet.”

I gathered that she would prefer an elected mayor rather than a ceremonial one. In conclusion, I asked what she saw for herself up to the road. “I’ve always enjoyed painting during my leisure time. I haven’t had much of in several years. I love working with oils and acrylics and also portraits.  Something I thoroughly enjoy and certainly miss.”

She did mention that retirement would help her do that as well as having more time to spend with her granddaughters and family.  However, I got the impression that retirement is an alien vista for this lady who has devotion to others written in her persona. I came away from my interview with the distinct impression that Ms. Wright will be foraging about seeking new ways to be of service to others. Amazing the opinions, we have people until we sit down and have one on one conversation with them.

The Chronicle and this reporter are pleased to honor her with this week’s Profile in Service. rustystrait@gmail.com

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I almost laughed. You see, Gary has Cerebral Palsy, and his stance was not exactly stable. Then he smiled and said, “Some people don’t believe me.” Then I realized that Gary Oakley was extremely serious…and an incredibly positive person.

Gary, his wife Cheryl and I met again at the Tuesday’s Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at The Destination Coffeehouse (see that story elsewhere in today’s edition). “I was born with CP as a 3-pound premature baby in 1950. Far from holding me back, my parents did more than ignore my physical challenge…to them, it didn’t matter. They truly made me realize that everyone has challenges…and I’m no different. In that, I’m just like everyone else.”
If you need to laugh or get a daily dose of positive thinking, look up Gary Oakley.

“I wanted to play baseball…and my parents made sure I played baseball. I ran around the neighborhood with the other kids, just like every other kid. About the only thing that worried them is when I wanted to make some money by getting behind a gas-powered lawnmower,” he jokes.

When Oakley finally decided to ask his mom some personal questions about his physical challenge, he was in his mid-40s. “She said, “Gary, you’re the most amazing person I ever met. I know I’m your mom, but I mean it.” They told me that when I was born, they had two ways to look at this: they could’ve looked at it as “This is Gary, our disabled son, “or, “This is Gary, our son. They looked at me as their son…and so, I didn’t give a damn that I was a bit slower than the other kids. I just tried harder.”

As a child, Gary didn’t like school, and at age eight or nine, he found out that he could leave school at age 16. “Oh boy, that was for me,” says Oakley, adding, “but my parents asked, “How are you going to support yourself?” “What they were trying to show me is that, no matter what I wanted to do…I had to be self-sufficient. My dad told me I wasn’t cut out for diggin’ a ditch. He meant I had to go to school and excel.”

Oakley seriously pondered public service and even the Presidency. “My parents never once put a limitation on me…and I never have either. My parents encouraged anything that I wanted to do.” One day Gary walked into his chiropractor’s office and told the chiropractor he wanted to go rollerblading. “I usually don’t hear the word can’t very well, but he made me realize there’s a difference between “can’t” and “smart.” I chose to be smart, but, it has always seemed to me that a lot of times, people say can’t when what they really mean is “won’t” because they’re afraid of stepping out of your comfort zone.”

While Oakley has learned to be smart with his “challenges,” he never gives up stretching the boundaries of his mind and body. “When I went to medical specialists some years ago and told them that I wanted to get into distance running, they said to me, “What do you want to go and do that for? I felt like saying, “Why did you want to become a doctor?”

Since then, Oakley has run five full marathons, including 3 New York marathons. Yes, you read that right. “I could never have done that without Cheryl and the many others who have always supported anything I wanted to do,” says Oakley, adding, “I call those people my “supporting cast.”

Oakley calls his wife, Cheryl his “Sherpa.” “I carry the water, the toilet paper, and anything else he might need. He has a guide that runs with him, his “supporting cast” …but he does it all himself, and I’m there to be his support and cheerleader.”

Oakley’s last marathon was in 2010, “I could never have gotten through that without Cheryl.” Oakley never says he has a “disability.” “I’m just me. I’m at a point in my life where I can be thankful for every day and grateful to be able to give back to others. I’m also thankful that my parents set the bar so high.

Cheryl and I are a team, and we live our lives now trying to pay it forward. ” Oakley has a list of things he wants to finish before he’s done, but he doesn’t call it a “bucket list.” “I call it an “Opportunity list.” It’s all about creating opportunities, first for others …it’s about making a difference. We’ve been married for ten years, and that’s been the central theme of our lives. We’re very happy in sharing our lives, and we want others to come along the journey with us. We both believe strongly in giving back, and we believe it’s our purpose to give back. We’ve been through some interesting things together,” says Oakley, adding, “I want to run out of life before I run out of list.”

Oakley has been an inspirational speaker at many conferences, several of them as a keynote speaker at national conferences. Of their lives together and their mission, Cheryl Oakley says, “You never know the positive impact you may have. You might never know how you have positively impacted even one person, but, if that person impacts just one other person and they keep it going…you’ve reached hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of people. That’s what we do with our card business. It’s all about creating connections.”

The Oakley’s greeting card business, www.sendoutcards.com/yeahbaby has become “kind of, our ministry. With any cell phone, you can take a picture, and in 30 seconds you can have an order ready. The first card is free. You can send it anywhere in the world and then send it through the mail…and tell people that you’re thinking about them,” says Cheryl Oakley, adding, “First you think about them, and then, when they receive the card in the mail, they’re thinking about you. It’s beautiful.”

Of their lives together, Gary Oakley says, “We love being able to share our lives with other people, and that gives me…gives us, a sense of purpose.”
If you meet Gary or Cheryl Oakley once… you can tell right away that they live their purpose. And what a beautiful purpose it is.

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