The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Original Murrieta leaders now far from city they helped plan
It started with a social media friend request from Freddie J. Mcready.
Hmm, I thought. What the heck, and I accepted.
A couple days later arrived a note from Fred Weishaupl, who sat on the first Murrieta City Council when the city incorporated in 1991. (He uses Mcready, a cartoon character from the 1960s, because he was getting weird friend requests with his real name. Problem solved.)
Weishaupl said he’s been meaning to get in touch, “but life keeps getting in the way.” Something we all can relate to.
“I figured that you are retired, so let me know if things are good or bad in good ol’ Murrieta,” he added.
Like many I know from that time, he’s left southwest Riverside County, mostly for less populated places. Murrieta was about 25,000 when it became a city.
Rapid City, South Dakota, is now Weishaupl’s home. He likes the four seasons.
“Southern California has only two seasons, cool and hot,” he noted.
Like I often do when I hear from locals, I sent him a link to a book I wrote of what I call the greatest hits of my newspaper column of 34 years, “From Two Lanes to the Fast Lane.”
I later mailed him a copy and he told another former Murrieta resident, Jerry Allen.
Yes, that Jerry Allen, the person with a street named after him in west Murrieta (no doubt many of today’s newcomers wonder as they drive by, “Who’s that guy?”) and the city’s first mayor.
Besides he and Weishaupl remaining friends, it said something that both have left the community they helped plan.
Murrieta today has about 115,000 people, different from when Weishaupl left in 2002. Allen has been in Brenham, Texas, for 23 years.
As to my impressions of Murrieta today, I told Weishaupl that the growth has mostly subsided, except for apartment projects that continue to pop up all over town.
“The tax base is decent
enough, though Temecula will always dominate,” I told him. “The traffic is good and public safety is fine, though I still wonder if the city might eventually have issues with the funding.”
Murrieta has always been big on public safety, back to that first council, when local firefighters Allen and Joe Peery, plus a CHP officer, Gary Smith, were elected. It helps explain why the city has its own police and fire departments.
Allen’s daughter, Jennifer, lives in Temecula. She is married to Scott Treadway, primary leader of Rancho Community Church.
“When I am visiting my daughter and four grandkids in Temecula, there is hardly anyone left that I know in the city.”
Allen is not a political animal.
“My one exposure to politics burned into my brain that I was not cut out for that job. I enjoyed the challenge of helping to create Murrieta, but I was not cut out to be a longterm politician.”
Weishaupl, a retired land surveyor, has more political experience, having served on three water boards in Colorado and working for two local state assemblymembers, Bruce Thompson and Dennis Hollingsworth.
His wife, Karyl, died with Parkinson’s disease in 2020. He has Meniere’s disease, not as debilitating as Karyl’s ailment.
“Most of my dizziness has subsided, but I still have a few problems with lightheadedness, but all is going pretty well for some old guy that will turn 85 later this year.”
I recently received another surprise from Weishaupl: A leather book cover of my book, including a title, my name and that I write for this newspaper. He said he’s been doing more leather work since he retired. He’s made more than 300 leather works and never charges anybody.
“Now I do it because I enjoy it and besides that it keeps me off the streets and out of the bars,” he added.
Weishaupl still has his sense of humor.
I told him I was remarkably touched by his gift and that I was so happy we reconnected.