Government Report: Council to discuss museum improvements

BARSTOW — The City Council will meet Monday at 7:30 p.m. to discuss awarding a contract for $27,000 worth of floor and carpet improvements at the Mojave Valley River Museum.

The council will also consider enacting the city’s water efficient landscaping ordinance and updating the floodplain management program.

At 7:00 p.m., the police department will swear in newly hired officer Andrew Reyes.

The council will also receive a presentation by consultant DPRA about nitrates in the groundwater in the Soap Mine Road neighborhood.

The council will meet at council chambers at city hall located at 220 E. Mountain View, Barstow. Meetings are televised live on Time Warner Cable channel 6 and recordings are placed on the city’s website, www.barstowca.org.

Statewide disaster drill canceled due to actual disaster

BARSTOW — An exercise designed to test the effectiveness of government agencies and hospitals’ response to disasters was canceled because the organizations were too busy responding to October’s wildfires.

Barstow Community Hospital, the Barstow Police Department as wells as county, state and federal agencies were scheduled to participate in the drill, according to hospital marketing director John Rader.

Original plans for the exercise called for BCH to respond to large numbers of ill and infectious patients exposed to the plague. The hospital had originally planned to postpone the drill, but authorities decided to cancel it, earlier this month, Rader wrote in an e-mail.