Murrieta City Council Works Through Priority Task List: Pool, Fire Station Discussed

MURRIETA, CA — The Murrieta City Manager and City Council juggled the importance of numerous issues, projects, and events for the coming year in a working session held on Thursday.

The council session, which began at 8:30 a.m., was still in full swing at 2 p.m. as they discussed a hierarchy of projects. The plan was to discuss possible next top priorities to guide the council going forward, according to City Manager Justin Clifton. Each project will be prioritized as a Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3 project during the session.

The tone of the meeting was "take care of what we have," as the council members grapple with tiers, priorities and funding.

Council member Lisa Deforest said. "We have all these wants, and that's when we need to know how much we have to spend."

Items up for discussion included a 23-page list of priorities from last year's session. During the conversation, the large-scale projects of Fire Station 6 and the Murrieta Pool appeared to be the greatest priority, according to City Manager Justin Clifton.

With the fire station, the city has acquired the property, estimated operating costs, and is working to confirm utilities and annexation. More work is needed to pursue grants and funding, as well as to design and build the new station.

During the 2025 priorities session, the Murrieta council downgraded the importance of the redesign and build of the community pool. The redesign did not get beyond extensive community outreach, as its projected $10 to 13 million budget was deprioritized. Now, the sitting council has upped its importance.

Councilwoman Lori Stone discussed the tier program in her fifth city council session.

"This is just our wish list. If we can carry this forward for the future, this is a snapshot of where we are, but it is important for the city manager to carry on with our wishes."

Among the large-scale city projects currently underway or completed are: Fire Station 6 project; the Amphitheater Parking Lot project, which has been completed; the Los Alamos Soccer Complex, which is in process; the Keller Road Interchange to the I-215, which is in process; the Library Expansion, which is in process; and numerous others.

One community member wrote in, supporting the new community pool at the site of the previous community pool off California Oaks Road.

"We have had to use the Temecula pools quite a bit between the CRC and Margarita Park, but it's a drive with traffic," Jeffrey Garrett said in an email. "I live right by Murrieta Town Hall and having a pool down the street would be great."

Next steps will be a thorough examination of the priorities, budgets for achieving goals and further council decisions and review.

"Realistically, I want the moon, too, but what's my budget? If you told me I had $10 million bucks and let's go, get a project together and let's go," said

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Stone recalled previous sessions and said that this year she felt things were actually moving forward.

"This is my fifth goal session meeting. This is the best goal-setting meeting to date," Stone said. "This has been an amazing conversation and it starts at the top."

The full agenda packet is available for review.