Lake Elsinore officials say they have set the stage for their city to enter a new golden age. They say their city is positioned for a return to its heyday as it marks its 125th anniversary of incorporation. They cite a surge in housing starts, a newfound political clout, a recovering city budget and a revived interest in history and recreation.

"We’re beyond poised. We’re moving," said Mayor Robert Magee. "If you put it in surfing terms, we’ve turned around and we’re waiting for the next wave to reach us. We’re ready to go."

Like many other cities in the region, Lake Elsinore was squeezed by the recession and forced to cut spending, delay capital improvements and grapple with the elimination of its redevelopment agency. But it has seemingly weathered that storm and is busy on several fronts, Magee and other city officials say.

"We’ve got a lot of good things going on," Magee said in a recent telephone interview.

Magee and City Manager Grant Yates, who took the helm late last year, cite several projects and programs they say have positioned the historic community for a new round of growth and public improvements.

"It’s a big year for the city of Lake Elsinore," Yates said during a City Hall interview. "We’re ready to springboard off our 125th (anniversary) and enter a new era of positive development."

Historical ebbs and flows

Lake Elsinore traces its roots to the Luiseno Indians, who christened the area the "hot springs by the little sea." The mineral springs, which the Indians believed had healing benefits, attracted pioneers as well. Many of them arrived via a stagecoach route that crisscrossed the country and etched a path north from Fallbrook and Temecula.

The fledgling community that straddled Southern California’s largest freshwater lake became a city in 1888, which was five years before Riverside County was hewn from the northern reaches of San Diego County.

The lake and its nearby hot springs became a Hollywood hangout in the 1920s. Actors, writers and other luminaries were drawn to the area by its ambiance and amenities. That far-flung attention prompted the city to describe that era as its "golden age."

But a devastating drought gripped the area in the 1950s, driving desperate cattle and area residents to the lake’s shores as they grappled with thirst. The lake completely dried up for the first time in recorded history, and vacationing celebrities and families picked Palm Springs and other desert communities as their new getaway destinations.

Further setbacks followed for Lake Elsinore in the coming decades.

The worst floods in recorded history submerged parts of the city in 1981 and 1983, according to city records. New construction was subsequently banned in some of those low-lying areas due to risks posed by the lake that could double in volume in a just few months of wet weather.

The 1990s brought an equally nettlesome problem for the city – repeated mass fish deaths due to algae blooms in the shallow, oxygen-starved lake. More than 340,000 tons of dead carp, catfish, bass and shad washed up Advertisement

[ Metalography ] on the lake’s shores during that decade, at times filling the air with an unmistakable stench and forcing city crews to spend weeks on clean-up duty. Campgrounds in the area deteriorated as the number of visitors fell and the city’s population flattened at about 19,000.

Retrofit and revival

Lake Elsinore’s rebound began after the city and other local agencies successfully lobbied for nearly $40 million in federal grant and loan funds aimed at aerating and stabilizing the lake. A series of improvements, some of them financed by a $15 million state allocation, were made over a two-decade period that together eased the risk of flooding, thwarted the germination of algae blooms and opened the spigot for groundwater and recycled water to flow into the lake.

Lake Elsinore was handed a temporary setback nearly three years ago when the recession forced city officials to cut 11 positions, the largest staff reduction in at least a decade. A sharp drop in city revenues had created a $742,540 budget gap, and the layoffs reduced the number of full-time positions to 57.

Much of that revenue has been restored as the recession eased, and the city’s $26.6 million general fund budget authorizes 66 positions, Yates said. The city has also increased its emergency reserve to $5.54 million, and a rebound in building permits has solidified its financial footing, he said.

The city’s growth – which has been among the fastest in the state based on percentage of change – was expected to surpass 53,000 by the end of last year. That continued growth is expected to spur the opening of a new fire station by summer.

An $825,735 federal grant has been awarded to help the city protect two public buildings against earthquakes. The project to reinforce City Hall and the Cultural Center, which both line Main Street, is expected to cost about $1.6 million. The Cultural Center was built as a church in 1923 and the City Hall building was constructed 11 years later.

The reinforcement work is expected to take about a year and Yates and many other city workers have squeezed into temporary offices in the interim.

On the political front, Lake Elsinore has reached a pinnacle that no other city in the area has been able to claim in recent memory. It is now the home of a county supervisor, Kevin Jeffries, and a state Assemblywoman, Melissa Melendez.

In order to boost sport fishing on the lake, tons of carp have been netted and converted into Coachella Valley fertilizer. At the same time, efforts are under way to boost the number and size of lake events and attractions in order to augment the city’s minor league baseball team and its off-road attractions and other amenities.

"That didn’t all happen by accident," said Magee, who will make history of his own at the end of his fifth term as mayor. At the end of that stint, Magee will have served more time as mayor than anyone else in the city’s history.

"It has literally been a 25-year process, and what we have now is a beautiful, healthy lake."