Tonight's City Council Business

Tonight marks the final meeting of the Claremont City Council prior to their annual August recess. The council will have another busy night ahead of them, beginning with a special session at 5:15pm to discuss Capital Improvement Program budget priorities.

At 6:30pm, the council moves on to its regular meeting.

Issues on tap at tonight's City Council meeting include:

• Budget Talk: As indicated, the Capital Improvement Program (CIP) budget is a big topic, especially in light of the city having to implement an across-the-board cutback in spending in order to balance its books. With the state facing a $15.5 billion or more budget deficit and with Governor Schwartzenegger floating the idea of withholding Prop. 1A transportation bond money from municipalities, Claremont could be hurting if it doesn't manage its finances prudently.
  
  The city has $4,189,396 in capital improvements budgeted for Fiscal Year 2008-09. For FY 2009-10 they've allocated $3,491,000.
  
  One thing we noticed in the staff report for the CIP budget review is the amount of money the city has set aside from their gas tax fund: $216,351 in FY 2008-09 and a whopping $1,217,000 in FY 2009-10, or more than a third of the CIP budget for that period.
  
  If you read yesterday's LA Times, you might have seen the front-page article about how federally-funded highway and infrastructure projects are endanger because the feds are collecting less gasoline tax money as result of people driving less. According to the Times, gas consumption is projected to decline this year, which means less tax revenue on the state level as well.
  
  The less money the city gets from gas tax revenues, the more it has to come up with from other sources for things like road resurfacing, sidewalk in-fill, and street light projects. With gas prices expected to rise in the long-term get ready for less gas tax money, Claremont.
  
  
• Affordable Housing: Yes, this one has come back, mostly because Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor wants this as an accomplishment to point to for her re-election campaign next March.
  
  There are two agenda items for this issue. The first is the purchase of a new affordable housing parcel. Will Bigham at the Daily Bulletin reported yesterday that the Claremont City Council is going to consider purchasing the old Claremont Courier site at 111 S. College Ave. [NOTE: This item was no longer available last time we checked, a victim of the vagaries of the Bulletin's breaking news policy.]
  
  Bigham said the purchase price for the 3.3-acre parcel is $3.5 million. 2.4 acres are owned by G. E. McKay & Co. The remaining .9 acres (listed as a "9-acre property" in the staff report, but what's an order of magnitude between friends?) is owned by Golden State Water Co. The city says it can buy the 2.4 acres for $2,750,000 and the .9 acres (or 9 acres) for $800,000, which adds up to $3,550,000.
  
  Bigham wrote that the City will use one million dollars from an affordable housing reserve fund and wants to finance the remainder through a bond taken out by the Claremont Revelopment Agency, otherwise known as the Claremont City Council.
  
  The second affordable housing item is the report from the city's Affordable Housing Task Force. The city will review the task force's recommendations.
  
  
• Appeal of Architectural Commission Decision: The council will hear an appeal by of the Architectural Commission's decision to grant a Mitigated Negative Declaration for Claremont McKenna College's planned 162,000 Kravis Center. The center will house administrative and academic offices. The appeal has been made by resident Alfonso Villanueva.
  
  
• Criminal Background Checks: The door-to-door solicitation ordinance that got the Girl Scouts all riled up okayed the use of criminal background checks for commercial solicitors (you Girl Scouts and your parents don't have to worry about that one - your secrets are safe!).
  
  The city now wants the City Council to allow Assistant City Manager Tony Ramos to conduct criminal background checks to screen potential employees and volunteers. Here's the staff report, by none other than Claremont Police Chief Paul Cooper.
  
  
• City Investment Accounts Report: The staff report for the City's investment accounts show relatively conservative portfolio, a legacy of Claremont's investment in the Orange County Investment Pool (OCIP) back in the early 1990's. Recall that when the OCIP went bankrupt, over $5 million in Claremont funds were tied up for years while the City litigated the matter. We eventually recovered our investment but lost out on the interest that $5 million would have accrued had it been more carefully invested.
  
  The staff report shows that 95% of the City's investment funds are with the state-managed Local Agency Investment Fund, which is highly liquid. The other 5% is invested in CD's. Of course, as of April, 2008, about $1,000,000 of that CD money was with the teetering PFF Bank & Trust, which might have meant that Claremont's golden touch remains intact.
  
  However, it appears that $781,000 of that CD money with PFF matured and was not reinvested with PFF. According to the staff report there's $209,000 left at PFF.
  
  
• Mansionization: Staff is also presenting the City Council with a report on elements the city might incorporate into its future mansionization ordinance that would govern housing design throughout the city.
  
  
• Human Service Program User Fees: The city is raising fees for a number of Human Service Department recreation programs. The staff report for this item indicates youth and adult sports groups will be asked to pay hourly sports lighting fees. Also, adult sports groups and some youth sports groups will be asked to pay hourly field-use fees.
  
  
• Public Utilities Commission Protest: City staff is requesting the council appropriate $30,000 to protest a rate increase proposal by Golden State Water Co. to the California Public Utilities Commission. Golden State Water is seeking a 27.24% rate increase over a three-year period.
  
  This is a dance Golden State and municipalities go through every three years or so. Golden State asks for the moon, cities protest to the PUC, and the water company eventually gets a smaller-than-asked-for rate increase, most likely for the amount they were aiming for in the first place. And we get to spend $30,000 getting to that same place.
  
  
• Sanitation Fee Increase: Irony of ironies, on the same agenda the City is seeking an increase in its municipal sanitation fees (no PUC approval needed here, though the city does have to notify property owners of the proposed increases). The rate increase under Option A would apply to commercial refuse service and to temporary bin rentals. Commercial rates for weekly service would rise from $88.91 to $114.10.
  
  Option B includes a proposed increase for multi-family residences from a current rate of $13.98 to $18.10 per unit, according to the staff report.
  
  According to the staff report, a 2005 court decision ruled that things like municipal sanitation fees are subject to Proposition 218 rules, which means that the city must allow a 45-day notice period for such fee increases. If at the close of a public hearing at the end of that period the city were to receive protests from a majority of property owners in the affected service area, the proposed fee increases would be defeated. Imagine that.
  
  

Claremont City Council Meeting
5:15pm - Special CIP Budget Review Session
6:30pm - Regular meeting
225 W. 2nd St.
Claremont, CA 91711

Cookie Mail

The LA Times story on our fearless mayor prompted quite a bit of mail, including this from one reader who noted that the article left out one important point:

The LA Times reporter left out one of the most important facts surrounding this issue. He neglected to report that in confronting the Girl Scouts, Taylor told them that she was the deputy mayor of Claremont, as if that gave her the right to call the police. One more instance of the abuse of power that Taylor and her crew exhibit when dealing with anyone that gets in their way. So sad for Claremont.

By the way, I received the latest issue of Money Magazine yesterday which rated the best cities in the US and lo and behold, Claremont was NOT among the top 100. Maybe they heard about Queen Ellen as well!

Yes, we forgot about that one when we were deconstructing the Times piece. The Courier reported this in their March 15th article on the affair:

Ms. Taylor first asked if the group had a permit from the city to operate at the location, announced that she was deputy Mayor of Claremont and threatened to call the police if the Girl Scouts did not cease operations, [parent Pam] Gavin said.

Say, now that we re-read that first sentence, it does sort of make you wonder if Ellen didn't have a hand or paw or some other appendage in having the Girl Scouts named in that solicitation ordinance after all.

Then there was this from a former Claremonter who found us from somewhat afar:

The Ellen Taylor matter is a nice way to be introduced to you.

I lived in Claremont long ago and still love it.

Any intuitive personality will quickly pick up the lengthy dissembling of Ms. Taylor. The profession of her husband is mentioned, and it is a classic strategy of his profession to attempt to turn the victim into the perpetrator and to turn the perpetrator into the victim—in this matter, the victims into the perpetrators and the perpetrator into the victim. A bit dicey with Girl Scouts and their cookies, but Taylor clearly has been giving it her best shot. Nevertheless, Ms. Taylor doesn’t play the “victim role” very convincingly, and it would take an Oscar-level screenwriter to turn those Girl Scouts into Nightmare on Indian Hill Boulevard!

My sense is that this scenario exactly describes all her language and all her efforts here. Almost instantly she attempts to portray herself as the protector and the savior of these witless young girls and of their equally witless adult guardian, (all present on that spot apparently with permission), which self-serving portrayal clearly was not what brought her rushing from her husband’s office—her own admitted first words reveal this and absolutely convict her!

Basically, every word and every action of this woman after her first sentence has been a self-serving and self-protecting lie. Off with her lying head!

Ah yes, the ol' turn-the-offender-into-a-victim trick that's the nth time Claremont's fallen for that one, straight out of the playbook of former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard. Amazing how many times that one works in this city of Ph.D's.

We also received this from another erstwhile Claremont resident:

Subject: Your blog reminds us of home

As a Claremont expatriate, I was delighted to discover your blog through a link at professorbainbridge.com.

Thanks for your insights. I’ll be a regular reader!

There were also a couple emails in support of Taylor, and, out of some vestigial sense of fairness, we'll try to post those in a day or two. Keep those cards and letters coming!

We're Still Going to Have Xavier Alvarez to Kick Around

Xavier Alvarez "Remorseful"

"Rambo" Alvarez, the Three Valleys Municipal Water District Director who gained nationwide infamy for claiming to have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor will not go to jail for his crime. Will Bigham, in a noon article on the Daily Bulletin website, reports that Alvarez will get three years probation, pay a $5,000 fine, and do one year community service (Hey! Does this mean the Water Board meetings don't count as service to the community?). More here at the KNBC website.

Judge R. Gary Klausner declined to impose a term of probation (presumably recommended by the federal probation officer) of 5 months home detention. Such a term would have in all probability allowed the Three Valleys Board to declare his seat vacant, which they would have done after 90 days and 1 second, and would have allowed them to appoint a replacement--probably Luis M. Juarez, whom "Rambo" edged out by a vote count of 3854 to 3804 in the November 2006 election.

It is now apparent that the voters of Division I (South Pomona) will have to make the effort to recall Alvarez, or else suffer representation by this "remorseful" buffoon for another two and a half years.

Every area has it's own cross to bear: Claremont has Mayor Taylor of the Porcelain Convenience and South Pomona has Xavier Alvarez.

For your edification, we provide Xavier's official biography from the Three Valleys website. (note the disclaimer at the bottom which was placed on all directors' biographies after Xavier's prevarications hit the press).


(No word yet on whether the LA County District Attorney is going to pursue fraud charges against Alvarez for the some $4,000 he claimed for medical insurance for his former wife. He says he paid it back, so no harm no foul.)

Towards a Sustainable Claremont

Claremont's draft Sustainable City Plan is posted on the city's website, for anyone interested in reading it.

The city's Sustainability Task Force came up with the plan, led by folks like former city Planning Commissioner and former Claremont League of Women Voters (LWV) president Sharon Hightower. Former Claremont Traffic and Transportation commissioner Tim Worley is also on the task force and, with Hightower, was a task force co-Vice Chair.

Worley works for the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC) as their director of water policy. He also used to work for the Metropolitan Water District and for Three Valleys Municipal Water District. RMC, his current employer, is a quasi-public state agency in a position to toss a good deal of money over to Claremont and to Three Valleys as well.

Hightower was also chair of the city's Affordable Housing Task Force. Apparently, the Claremont 400's bench is getting a bit thin. Should they be the Claremont 40? The Claremont 4?

As with most of these sorts of things, there are a number of good ideas, along with some self-interest and a dash of hypocrisy built in. And blindness. A good deal of hubris-driven blindness as well. Can you find those things?

The city is taking public comment on the draft plan over the next few months. The city informs us:

The public is invited to review and comment on the draft plan at any of the following six City commission meetings:

July 23, Architectural Commission
July 24, Traffic and Transportation Commission
September 2, Planning Commission
September 3, Human Services Commission
September 4, Police Commission
September 11, Community Services Commission

All meetings will begin at 7 p.m. and are located in the City of Claremont Council Chamber, 225 Second Street. A copy of the document is available for review at the City Hall public counter at 207 Harvard Avenue, and may be downloaded by clicking on the link below. For additional information, contact the City's Senior Planner, Christopher Veirs at (909) 399-5486.

http://www.claremontonline.net/download.cfm?ID=25468

Pass the Madelines

"All of those orange and lemon groves brought an incredible and memorable smell to the entire area. That is what I remember about summer nights in Claremont, but that strong but welcome aroma doesn’t exist here anymore, either."
- Sid Robinson, Sid's Side

Last week, David Allen had a post about local blogger Sid Robinson. Move over Marcel Proust, memory and sense tug strongly, even here in the digital world.

Robinson, who is a Claremont High School grad, recently wrote a piece about places and things he'd grown up with that have been demolished or redeveloped beyond recognition:

When the “new” Albertson’s opened on Towne and Foothill, we found ourselves venturing a mile east for some of our shopping. And in the same center sprang up a Value Fair, where you could find pretty much anything. All of those places – gone.

The other grocery store in town was the Stater Bros. on the southeast corner of Foothill and Indian Hill. There were tunnels that went under those streets so pedestrians wouldn’t have to cross in heavy traffic on the way to the old Claremont High School. I can barely remember when that was a campus, but I remember the previous iteration of shops that replaced the classrooms, as well as the Griswolds’ Restaurant. The old gym was known as “the Pavilion” before it became the Candlelight Pavilion, and we had quite a few dances and other events over there.

We've heard the tunnels are still under there someplace, sealed and covered up, though we've never seen proof of that. An occasional reader recently mentioned a taco restaurant at Central and Foothill that was pretty popular among high school aged kids. This would have been around the 1940's and 50's. Anyone ever hear of this place?

Sunday Alvarez Update

Count on our old friend Xavier Alvarez for some interesting non-mayoral news.

The Daily Bulletin today has an article by Will Bigham that says Alvarez, who represents South Pomona on the Three Valleys Municipal Water District board, will be sentenced in a Los Angeles federal court tomorrow after taking a guilty plea for a misdemeanor charge of falsely claiming to be a Medal of Honor winner.

Bigham's article gives the backstory to Alvarez's conviction. It turns out the the story first came to light back in June, 2007, during a VIP trip sponsored by Southern California Edison to a hydroelectric facility in Big Creek, CA.

Bigham tells us that the event planner, Melissa Campbell, heard Alvarez say he was a former Marine and a Medal of Honor recipient:

Campbell's 10-year career as a Marine ended in 1996. She went to college and raised children before returning to the work force full time with Edison in 2004.

As part of her duties as an event planner, she would frequently accompany elected officials and community volunteers on trips to the utility's hydroelectric facility in the Sierra Nevada mountain town of Big Creek.

In June 2007, one of the guests on the trip was Alvarez, who seven months earlier had been elected to his seat on the Three Valleys water board.

He introduced himself to Campbell as a former Marine and a Medal of Honor winner, and Campbell says she was overwhelmed with excitement at being able to meet someone she initially believed was a highly decorated war veteran.

She contacted her husband at home in San Clemente to share the news, and he searched the Internet to find information on Alvarez's medal.

His searches were fruitless. He notified Campbell she was dealing with an apparent fraud.

The article said Campbell and another Edison employee later started questioning Alvarez's claims, and their questions apparently prompted Alvarez to complain to people higher up in Edison chain of command.

Just to show that no good deed goes unpunished, Edison suspended Campbell without pay two weeks after the Big Creek trip. Two weeks after that, Edison fired Campbell, citing performance issues. Edison claims that Campbell's termination had nothing to do with the Alvarez incident.

Right.

please click on image to enlarge

Ellen Taylor Cookie Monster Directory of Posts for Visitors

We provide here a directory of posts relating to the "Ellen Taylor Cookie Monster" story, for all of the new readers we are seeing as a result of the LA Times article. Listing is chronological from the beginning:

Our first post. See the second half. March 17, 2008

"Wonder Ellen and the Justice League of Women Voters", wherein Wonder Ellen intervenes against youthful criminals possessed of magic biscuits.

"More Reader Mail". The cookie incident is mentioned briefly.

A Reader writes, and we are reminded that Ellen threw around her city rank of "deputy mayor" (probably a problem with a repeated story; actually, Mayor Pro Tem at the time). How would the girl scout leader have known this if Ellen hadn't threatened them?

LA Times Blog picks up the Ellen story, March 21, 2008

Tough Cookie Taylor.

Queen Ellen Ascends the Throne. More feedback on her behavior.

"Cookie Monster" coined by Foothill Cities Blog

Ellen Gets More Attention. Contains a reference to coverage in a KNBC blog, and a letter in the Courier thanking Ellen for dealing with the "serious Girl Scout problem."

A Summary of the Situation to date (April 8, 2008). VIDEO of Ellen's apology.



Local News Briefs mentions the council taking up the solicitation ordinance, last part of post. (April 24, 2008)

Scofflaw: the backstory to the "Wrong Way Ellen" moniker.

Wrong Way Ellen.

Claremont Courier letter writer and Insider email connect solicitation ordinance to the Girl Scout Cookie incident.

Jeff Parker clarifies solicitation ordinance. First Rule of Holes: When you are in one, stop digging.

Ellen's refined taste in art; the backstory to the "fixture" post.

LA Times article hits the street, page 1, below the fold, Saturday, July 19,2008

Fixture.

Clarifications to LA Times Article.

Meg's Take at M-M-M-My Pomona. Did we "beat it to death", or merely flood the zone?

Commentary on LA Times Article at LAIST

[only includes items before Saturday, July 19, 2008, 2:30 p.m. PDT]

Dept. of Corrections

We noticed of couple of errors in today's LA Times article about Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor's Cookiegate and wanted to correct those.

First, the article indicates that we here at the Insider broke the story:

"It was such a negative experience," said [Girl Scout parent Maia] West, who has lived just outside Claremont for nine years. "Here we are trying to empower these young girls to be entrepreneurs, and this woman shuts them down."

A few days later, West made what would be a fateful decision: She sent an e-mail chronicling the incident to the Claremont Insider, a popular blog in town known for gossipy items and sharp jabs at local politicians.

It was an anonymous editor of the Claremont Insider who named Taylor the "Claremont Cookie Monster" in a series of biting posts.

Readers responded with their own comments, the vast majority siding with the Girl Scouts.

On the blog, the mayor became known as "Queen Ellen," "Wrong-Way Ellen," "Tough Cookie Taylor" and "Her Honorable Majesty."

It wasn't long before the Claremont Courier picked up on the story, publishing readers' letters ridiculing Taylor for taking on the Girl Scouts.

"I actually felt sorry for her after a while," West said.

As much as we'd like to take credit for finding this story, the fact is that Claremont Courier reporter Tony Krickl first wrote about it in the paper's edition of Saturday, March 15th. The article is not posted in the Courier's online archive, but if you're interested you can probably request a copy from the Courier.

We were impressed that Krickl and Courier could get the story into that Saturday's paper because the incident occurred on Friday, March 14th, and there couldn't have been much time for Krickl to get the article into the paper before the Courier's Friday press time. The Courier gets mailed out on Friday, so the paper needs to be printed and off to the Post Office in time for delivery on Saturday.

The Insider did not pick up the story until Sunday, March 16th.

We did, of course, have our fun with the story, but any credit for breaking the news has to go to Tony Krickl and the Courier.

Similarly, we cannot take credit for applying the term "Cookie Monster" to Taylor. Fellow blogger Centinel over at Foothill Cities first used that term on March 27th. (And another local blogger, Frazgo, used the term "Cookiegate" in a comment to Centinel's post.)

Lastly, while we have used terms such as "Queen Ellen" and "Wrong Way Ellen" to describe Taylor, those really were unrelated to the Girl Scout flap. The Queen business predates the cookie incident by a couple months.

Really, the point of all these things is to point to a pattern of arrogant personal and official behavior by Taylor that is not limited to any one incident. That arrogance, when applied to public issues, leads to bad decision-making.

Further, in our view Taylor exemplifies much of what we believe to be at the root of Claremont's problem: a small-town with great potential, run into the ground by a self-righteous, incompetent, humorless elite that often behaves more like a high school clique conducting its business at social gatherings around town.

Sometimes, as in the case of the Girl Scouts, the trouble is merely annoying or funny. Other times, as in the early 1990's when the city invested over $5 million in the Orange County Investment Pool that later went bankrupt, when the city's insurer had to settle a suit for an 18-year-old motorist shot to death by Claremont police, or when the city had to pay over $17 million to settle a suit with homeowners whose houses burned down in the 2003 Padua Fire, the effects are expensive and tragic.

Our error in Claremont is that we consistently fail to see the underlying pattern. Ellen Taylor will move off the public stage at some point, but until we really change the way business is conducted in this town, we will inevitably face another embarrassing situation brought on by Taylor's successors.

It has been thus for over 20 years and will remain so until voters in town wise up and correct things once and for all. Queen Ellen is a symptom; she is not the disease, and we'll continue on in chronic dysfunction as long as we support the people who stand behind Taylor.

Los Angeles Times on Ellen Taylor

L. A. Times: "Taylor has been a fixture in Claremont for nearly three decades."


More later, but this quote was too good not to illustrate. See our post of Monday, July 14th.

Fingering the Bad Guys

Yesterday's Claremont Courier had an article by Tony Krickl about a new digital (no pun intended) fingerprint scanner that is small enough to be carried in the field.

Los Angeles County obtained 500 of the devices through a U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security grant, and Claremont received one of these units. According to the Krickl article, the Claremont Police Department used the new piece of equipment at a DUI checkpoint they ran last week on Indian Hill Blvd. south of the 10 Freeway.

The article said:

Among those stopped at the checkpoint was a man who told police that he did not have his driver license. His car was pulled off to the shoulder, where police asked his identity.

“He supplied a name that we ran a records check on that came back with no match,” Claremont Police Captain Jenkins said.

The Claremont Police Department recently received mobile fingerprint scanning devices, which can be used in the field to find matches within a fingerprint ID database.

Claremont Police Corporal Chris Bradley then put the department’s new gadget to use for the first time. The man’s index fingers were scanned right at the scene and 5 minutes later, the police had the information they needed.

“We were able to pull up all his real information; his name, date of birth and all that,” Corp. Bradley said. “And then we saw that he had a no-bail parole hold.”

Albert Dominguez, 26, of Chino, was a parole violator out on murder charges. He is now in custody in Los Angeles.

The article reported that the device compares subject fingerprints against a database of fingerprints taken from people have have been "booked previously through the Los Angeles County penal system."

The Daily Bulletin also had an article on the new fingerprint system. The Bulletin quoted CPD Captain Gary Jenkins as saying that eventually the system should expand beyond LA County to the entire state. Jenkins also told the Bulletin CPD hopes to be able to get enough units, which run about $1,000 a piece, for every on-duty officer.

* * *

In other CPD news, we got to wondering about that guy CPD pulled over on the 10 Freeway on July 9th. You might recall that CPD called in a drug-sniffing dog from the Upland PD, and it turned out the car had a hidden compartment containing 6 pounds of methamphetamine and 15 pounds of heroin with an estimated value of around $900,000.

The Daily Bulletin's article on the arrest indicated the motorist, Gusberto Uriarte, was charged with suspicion of driving without a license and was also booked by CPD on charges of possession of a controlled substance for sale, possession of a controlled substance, and transportation of a controlled substance. Uriarte also had an outstanding arrest warrant.

So what happened to the Uriarte? We expected the CPD and city public information folks to be all over this one. It's not everyday CPD makes a nearly $1 million bust. But there was nothing. Silence.

A reader alerted us to the fact that the Los Angeles County Superior Court website listed a Gusberto Uriarte as being charged on July 11th in Pomona Court with only one charge: Section 12500(A) of the California Vehicle Code - being an unlicensed driver. Here is an image our reader sent of the LA County Court info:

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

The reader states this is the only arrest listed in LA County for the name Gusberto Uriarte. So what happened to the other charges? Just wondering. Hope it wasn't a bad search or some sort of administrative flub that caused the drug charges to be rejected by the District Attorney's office.

Local Bands on Stage

If you made it to Claremont's 4th of July fireworks spectacular, you would have heard The LCR Band entertaining the crowd. If you missed them, they'll be at the Claremont Doubletree, Friday, August 1st, from 7pm to 10pm in the outdoor patio there.

Doubletree Hotel Claremont
555 W. Foothill Blvd
Claremont, CA 91711
(909) 626-2411

Kenny Haerr is the LCR Band's lead guitarist and vocalist. Music must run in the family because Kenny's brother Rob plays for another local band, The Ravelers, who send word that they'll be appearing at the following venues:

Friday, July 18- KFROG Fuel & Fun Summer Nights at Ontario Mills!
Ontario Mills Mall
Outside court area between Market Broiler & AMC Theater
Ontario, CA

The Ravelers play from 6:00 to 9:00pm...Have some musical fun and cruise the mall! Stop by the KFROG booth and sign up for your chance to win a $50 gas card courtesy of Ontario Mills! Also win frog freebies, tee shirts and tickets to Fiesta Village Family Fun Park!

Sunday, July 20- Concert in Yucaipa!!!
Yucaipa Community Park Amphitheater
34900 Oak Glen Road
Yucaipa, CA

The Ravelers play 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Gold Line News Continued

We received a response to yesterday's post about the Gold Line that pointed out that readers might come away with the mistaken opinion that Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich is opposed to extending the Gold Line from Pasadena to Claremont.

In fact, Antonovich has been supportive of the extension, as a recent editorial by the supervisor demonstrates. In the piece, Antonovich argues for equitable revenue sharing for the $40 billion or so that would be generated by a proposed half-cent increase in Los Angeles County sales tax that would fund transportation projects in the county.

Antonovich points out that in 2006 California voters passed the $19.9 billion Proposition 1B transportation bond partly with the help of residents and elected officials from so-called county subregions like the San Gabriel Valley. (In Claremont, Prop. 1B funds will be used to pay for the Claremont Trolley.)

Antonovich writes that once Prop. 1B passed, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) gave the lion's share of the fund allocated to the county to projects in the City of Los Angeles:

So what happened? Prop 1B passed and Los Angeles city took over 48 percent of the $3.16 billion in funding the county received from bond categories designed for highway, rail, bus, streets, roads and traffic signal synchronization projects.

By contrast, the San Gabriel Valley only received 5 percent of this funding, the South Bay Cities 2 percent, the West San Fernando Valley Cities 0.05 percent and the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys 0.7 percent.

This result was well below these subregions’ fair share of funding based on any measurement of equity, most notably population. Once again, they were a victim of Los Angeles city’s greed.

From the three major Prop 1B funding categories for highways, transit and traffic signal synchronization, the city of Los Angeles took home a whopping 61 percent, 52 percent and 94 percent of the county’s share, respectively.

So, the Gold Line's fate is now linked to the successful passage of a half-cent county sales tax increase in November. Unfortunately, MTA is once again in charge of the allocation of those funds, and there is no guarantee that money would be shared fairly with residents outside of the city of Los Angeles. Antonovich says in his article that voters in the San Gabriel Valley, who passed Prop. 1B with 70-percent of the vote, may not feel like getting burned again - fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

There are other problems facing the proposed sales tax measure, as an article in the Daily Bulletin notes. The measure must be approved by the MTA board at its meeting next Thursday, July 24th, and then it a similar version must be approved by the state legislature. All this must be done before the August 8th deadline to get the measure to the county for the November ballot.

The Bulletin article laid out the possible roadblocks to getting the sales tax measure on the ballot:

The county version of the measure might not get passed at next week's MTA meeting, either. Several board members of the MTA said they had objections to the expenditure plan that still needed to be worked out.

Michael Cano, the transportation deputy for county supervisor and MTA board member Michael Antonovich, said his boss would introduce amendments to the proposed ordinance at the meeting.

He said Antonovich wants language that guarantees each region receives a percentage of the sales tax money that is equal to the percentage of the county's population in each region.

The San Gabriel Valley is currently allocated 16.4 percent of the money, while the MTA estimates it has 18.3 percent of the region's residents.

Cano added that the MTA should commit to funding the full $1.4 billion cost of the Gold Line.

He said Antonovich also has concerns that projects on the expenditure list that are not yet approved, like the 710 Freeway tunnel, might end up not being built.

Antonovich will likely not vote for the measure in its current form, said Cano. If the measure does not get passed next week, he said, the only recourse will be for the board to schedule an emergency meeting before the Aug. 8 deadline.

Part of the opposition the MTA and the City of Los Angeles might face in getting this sales tax increase passed is the result a blowback against MTA's track record of project mismanagement and waste (and in some cases accusations of possible fraud) and LA's record of stiffing its neighbors.

Of course, another problem is that what's really needed to move people effectively from the our area to Pasadena and Los Angeles is not a light-rail but a real commuter train like the Metrolink. As the Foothill Transit board could tell you, in a city like Paris, to get to many areas outside the city you take a regional express train (the RER). The smaller metro trains are used mostly for shorter hauls, like a bus system on rails.

But, the Gold Line is what we're left with, so we'll have to take what we can get. Or just choose not to have it.

Goings On

SWAMP TALK TONIGHT - 7PM

The Claremont Courier informs us that we can hear a presentation at 7pm tonight at the Claremont Public Library on the proposed $7.6 million marsh at the Thompson Creek Dam that is being championed by the Claremont League of Women Voters (LWV).

LWV representatives Marilee Scaff and C. Freeman Allen are will give a talk to Active Claremont this evening. Marilee's Marsh is full of unanticipated surprises (to the tune of upwards of $24.4 million - to be passed on to water customers here and elsewhere). So, come on out to the dog-and-pony show at the library tonight.

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

If you're going, try asking why Scaff and Allen didn't try harder to save the natural cienega at Chicken Creek where the 125 Stone Canyon Preserve homes now sit, or why they don't just try to recreate a marsh in one of the spots where they used to occur, either at the old Seyfarth Nursery along Mt. Baldy Rd., or in College Park near the old Courier Building.

Putting a cienega in one of those other spots would be far less costly than the massive project that Scaff and Allen propose for the simple reason that the underlying geologies support cienegas in those places. At the location proposed by Scaff and Allen, the cienega would have to be created artificially, giving lie to the words "nature" and "natural" being bandied about by the proponents.

Putting the cienega in an alternate spot would also allow Scaff and Allen to be more forthright in their grant applications to the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC) than they have been to date.

See our post from last month for a more detailed discussion of these issues.

Active Claremont Monthly Meeting
Thursday, July 17th, 7pm
Claremont Public Library Community Room
208 Harvard Ave.
Claremont

Marilee Scaff and C. Freeman Allen
"Thompson Creek Spreading Grounds: Acquire, Restore, Develop"

TRUTH IN GRANT APPLICATIONS

Speaking truth in grants, we were wondering if there's an agency that investigates grant application claims. Does the State Attorney General examine these? We'll have more on this subject in a few days, with a bit of news from the city of Indio, where 32 forged signatures ended up on a $34.5 million state grant application.

Claremont has had its own problems with questionable grant claims. For instance, a few years ago, the city applied for a $2 million state grant for the Padua Ave. Sports Park in which the city claimed that the park was needed partly because after the 2003 Padua Fire that burned through Palmer Canyon the Claremont Wilderness Park would be closed for years. That grant application said, "The City has closed the wilderness park indefinitely. The park will be closed for up to 3 years." This was completely untrue, as anyone who hiked in the wilderness park in 2004, 2005, and 2006 can testify to.

That Padua Park grant application was rejected, of course. But how many of these things get through? Is there anyone who really checks these? And what keeps someone in a potential position of influence like former Claremont Traffic and Transportation Commissioner Tim Worley, who is now the director of water policy for San Gabriel RMC, from lobbying behind the scenes for his friends in Claremont, even if they make some exaggerated or even untrue claims?

Is there a state grant ombudsman? Do you have his or her number?

A Reader Writes

We received an email response to our post from two days ago. We had wondered if macro-economic problems won't trickle down to the local level and if our city leaders are preparing for that possiblity.

The reader wonders if the city should really be frittering $50,000 to the Friends of the Claremont Library for a collection of local authors:

Dear Insider,

In the "Trickle Down" blog on July 15, you pointed out Claremont City Council's possible reluctance to spend $500,000 to mitigate the tree problems on Shenandoah Drive. Note that at the same meeting on July 8, the council was not reluctant to spend $50,000 from the general fund for cataloguing books, by Claremont authors, at the county public library. Granted, $50,000 is only 10% of $500,000 but given the current dire economic conditions, was this expenditure really necessary on a project that is not really of high priority? Would it not be more prudent for the council to hold off on such expenditures until the economic situation improves? This is the same council that would not use general fund dollars to cover the Lighting and Landscaping District cost increase of about $65,000 this year. Instead, the council passed the cost on to the property owners.

Prioritizing has certainly been a problem for our city government in the past. No telling where they're headed this time, though the reader probably has a opinion or two on that.

Gold Line: "I'm Not Dead Yet"

Rumors of the Metro Gold Line's Foothill Extension's demise may be greatly exaggerated says Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Pasadena). The Pasadena Star-News ran an Op-Ed piece by Schiff last week in which Schiff argued that playing off the Gold Line against the proposed Expo Line Phase II to Santa Monica is a losing strategy.

Recall that at it's last meeting on June 26th, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to put off until November considering the Gold Line Extension as part of the MTA's Long Range Transportation Plan. Inclusion of the plan is a key to the Gold Line's securing what Schiff calls potentially hundreds of millions of federal dollars that require MTA matching funds. According to Schiff the federal grant money require as little as a 20-percent match.

Schiff says that the Gold Line is ready to go while the Expo Line's Phase II is still a few years from being eligible for the federal money. He believes MTA should push for the sure Gold Line money now and then he will work with his fellow congressmen to try to secure funds for the the Expo Line:

There has been much debate about the merits of the Gold Line versus the Expo Extension, but the Los Angeles region desperately needs both these projects. And while some may claim that these two extensions are in competition for local and federal funds, they need not be, and we must not create a destructive zero-sum game by playing one line's advocates off against another's.

The Gold Line is the only project in Southern California that is ready to begin construction now and is already eligible for federal funding. Expo Phase II is an important and valuable transit project, but it is still a few years away from such eligibility and construction. If funding is provided today, the Gold Line can begin operation in 2012. According to MTA's estimates, EXPO Phase Two will not begin service until 2016. We should not delay construction of the Gold Line, when we can have the opportunity and the resources to build both.

The MTA long range plan does not currently have a strategy to access much-needed federal funds for several years. If the board does not provide a local match, we leave hundreds of millions of federal dollars on the table that will be directed elsewhere in the state or country. And, if the Gold Line funding is approved now, construction will be well under way when Expo is ready to begin breaking ground, allowing the entire Los Angeles Congressional delegation to focus on securing federal funds for the Expo Line.

Schiff ends by asking readers to join him in urging the MTA to include the Gold Line in their Long Range Transportation Plan, but his piece doesn't say how to go about doing this. The MTA does have a meeting next Thursday, July 24th, at 9am, and you might try to emailing the MTA before that at: customerrelations@metro.net.

You can also email your Gold Line concerns to L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich's office at: FifthDistrict@lacbos.org. [Point of clarification: Supervisor Antonovich has been very supportive of the Gold Line Foothill Extension. You can read a transportation policy editorial by Antonovich that appeared in a Santa Clarita paper yesterday.]

If you're interested in attending the MTA board meeting here's the information:

Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Regular Board Meeting - Thursday, July 24th, 9:30am
One Gateway Plaza, 3rd Floor Board Room
Los Angeles, CA 90012

And for more information on what's happening with the Gold Line Extension, click here.

Balancing Priorities

Claremont's Human Services Commission is holding a special meeting today at 3:30pm at the Alexander Hughes Community Center. The commission will discuss whether the city should swap the senior programs at the Joslyn Center in Larkin Park over to the Hughes Center and move the recreation programs from the Hughes to the Joslyn Center.

The agenda for the special meeting gives the commission two choices:

1. That the commission receive the proposal to shift the senior programs to the Alexander Hughes Community Center and recreation programs to the Joslyn Center.
   
   
2. That the commission determine if there is general support for staff to continue to investigate this option.
   

Why the need to switch the programs? You might recall that the city had talked about a $10-12 million expansion of the Joslyn Center to accommodate the demand for more space for senior programs. The staff report for today's meeting informs us that the Joslyn expansion is pretty much dead, a casualty of our tough economic times and competition for dollars from other capital projects.

As we wrote yesterday, the projects on the city council's priority list include the new police station ($25-35 million), Padua Ave. Sports Park ($10-12 million total when complete), the water company purchase ($100+ million), and whatever affordable housing the city decides to build.

According to the Human Services Department's analysis, staff has consistently overestimated the need for its recreation programs. The report says:

What the staff learned, in looking over the previous three years of revenues, was that the Department never achieved its budgeted projections [for revenues from recreation programs], but continued to increase its budget projections. The gap between revenue projections and actual revenues received grew each fiscal year. In an effort to bring actual revenues in line, staff reduced revenues by 12% and next set out to analyze participation levels.

It turned out that staff had also overestimated the demand for its Human Services recreation programs: "Staff learned that many programs offered were achieving minimal or no sign ups. In order to change this, staff began to promote the programs in different ways."

These "different ways" included marketing Claremont's recreation programs to Upland, La Verne and Montclair residents. In addition, the programs were discounted. However, the staff report says, "None of these efforts had a significant impact on participation or revenue received and revenue projections were reduced again by 23% in the 2008-09 budget."

The report goes on to say that about 40% of the recreation programs at the Hughes Center were underutilized. At the same time, the senior programs at the Joslyn and Blaisdell Centers were bursting at the seams. Why? Because seniors represent the fastest growing segment of Claremont's population. The staff report states:

According to the the 2006 General Plan, seniors currently make up approximately 27% of the total population in Claremont. They represent the fastest growing segment of the City's population as the Baby Boomers have begun to reach the age of 60. The Committee on Aging has long led the charge for more facilities for senior programs and has pursued the need for a facility expansion of both Joslyn and Blaisdell.

This is news? We and other have argued the same thing before and have said that rather than pursue the full (and very expensive) Padua Sports Park, which would serve a youth population that is stable or even slightly shrinking, the city should instead invest in more senior programs. Those arguments have apparently finally found some receptive ears, and it was refreshing to see a Human Services staff report that lays out the truth of the matter in clear, simple terms.

Claremont Human Services Commission
Special Meeting - Wednesday, July 16th, 3:30pm
Alexander Hughes Community Center, Padua Room
1700 N. Danbury Rd.
Claremont, CA 91711