Like it or not, the culture wars are on Temecula’s agenda.
While the southwest Riverside County city of 110,000 has long been conservative, the leadership of Temecula’s city council and school board has veered further right in recent months, wading into matters like race, abortion and whether to recognize the LGBTQ community that go beyond the nuts and bolts of local government.
The council no longer declares events such as Black History Month and considered banning abortion, while Temecula Valley Unified School District trustees prohibited the teaching of so-called critical race theory to the district’s 28,000 students.
