Lake Arrowhead’s Lewis Murray: Making our mountain communities’ voices heard

By Mike Harris

Special to the Alpine Mountaineer

 

San Bernardino County is America’s largest county, covering 20,105 square miles, and reaching from the eastern border of Los Angeles County to the state line with Arizona and Nevada, including the Colorado River. To handle the people’s business, there are five members of the board of supervisors.

Mountain residents live in the 3rd District, the largest of the five districts, and our supervisor is Dawn Rowe. The 3rd District covers nearly 10,000 square miles, and Rowe’s home office is located in Joshua Tree.

So, for mountain residents, the question becomes how do we get our voices heard, our questions answered and our needs met in so large a county?

For the past 13 years, the answer primarily has been one man – Lewis Murray, who has been active in the Lake Arrowhead community both as a businessman, active volunteer and the mountain representative for Rowe and, before her, Supervisor Janice Rutherford, Rowe’s predecessor.

Murray, who is retiring from government service and moving off the mountain with his wife, Brenda, is proud of his many years of service.

“I’ve really enjoyed it,” Murray told the Alpine Mountaineer. “I’ve worked for two really great supervisors, who both strongly cared for supporting and helping mountain residents.”

Born in Long Beach, Murray grew up in Seal Beach. Married for 48 years, the couple moved to Lake Arrowhead in 1982.

“We had one child and one child on the way,” he recalled. “Brenda and I came up here to open a jewelry business. We chose the mountains because of the quality of life here, and we saw it as a great place to raise a family.”

They opened the Village Jeweler in Lake Arrowhead Village in 1982 and successfully ran it for many years.

During those years, Murray became the executive director for the Lake Arrowhead Chamber of Commerce in 2002, served on the Lake Arrowhead Village Merchants Association, served on the Lake Arrowhead Chamber of Commerce board, and was an active member of the Lake Arrowhead Rotary Club.

He also served on the Rim of the World Search and Rescue team for 17 years.

“We rescued lot of people,” he added. “You’re a volunteer on call 24 hours a day. It was mostly lost hikers, and it almost always turned out OK. You start out where their car was parked and it’s just a matter of tracking them, but we had some that were less pleasant. We had one airplane crash to work and one helicopter crash. We had some with people falling off a cliff. But they were mostly good outcomes.”

Murray also served for a few years as a reserve deputy with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Former Supervisor Rutherford came to speak at one of the chamber meetings and that’s when Murray heard that she was looking for a mountain representative.

“She brought a flyer with her to hand out, and I looked it over,” he remembered. “I applied, and later I learned I was one of many applicants. I got through the first round, and it was just me and one other person. There was a longer interview and driving home I got a call from her. She offered me the job and I said yes.”

Murray worked for Supervisor Rutherford for 11 years. When she was termed out and the county went through a redistricting, the job of supervisor went to Dawn Rowe. Murray was again offered the job of continuing as mountain representative and he said he would do it for two years.

Taking over in Murray’s mountain representative role will be Robin Bull, serving as a constituent services representative.

One of the toughest tasks for a mountain representative, or even the supervisor herself, is trying to communicate the mountain’s needs to the greater county government structure. Because of such situations as mountain businesses not having enough parking spaces for customers, sometimes there’s a bump.

A classic situation involved LouEddie’s Pizza in Skyforest.

“According to county codes, there was not enough parking for the business,” Murray said. “Janice (Rutherford) worked hard to get common sense parking requirements that were mountain specific. It took a lot of work, but she made it happen.”

The Murrays are looking forward to being retired and having the time to travel  and visit their kids and grandkids.

“Our son, Ryan, lives in Seattle and our daughter, Haley, lives in Denver. Our other daughter, Katrina, lives in Yucaipa, so she’s easy to get to. We have six grandkids, and there are two in each location.”

Looking back at his years in county government, Murray said he’s proud that he could help.

“I think we made a difference,” he said.