The residents of an embattled Riverside neighborhood gathered Monday night for a meeting that had implications for their lives, the future of their community and, in a real sense, for the state of democracy.
The meeting was held at a Riverside County building, in a room that can host some 300 people. It was full. An overflow room had space for over 100 more. It was full. A cafe in the building had a few more seats. Those filled up, too. Some people stood along the edges.
The reason, as it so often has been in the Inland Empire in recent years, was warehouses — specifically a proposal to build an industrial and warehouse complex on the edge of the old March Air Force Base…