The City Council Writes Us

A FAMILIAR TUNE

Our post from Wednesday was a riff on a theme we here at the Insider have written about several times. It's been our contention, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that the net effect of that social network known in local circles as the Claremont 400 has been the creation of an inflexible, counter-productive, regressive, intolerant system of local governance.

On the surface, things look swell, but look deeper and you will see a consistent pattern of missteps and misjudgments that in a non-dysfunctional community would result in a change in leadership, a change in direction.

Here, however, given the unique and an entrenched nature of the 400, when Claremont started down the road to a more responsive city council beginning 2001 in reaction to the fatal shooting by Claremont police of 18-year-old motorist Irvin Landrum, the 400 snapped into action, working tirelessly by spreading false rumors about critics of the local scene in an effort to undercut anyone who stood to threaten their control of City Hall.

The result has been that voices of critics like ourselves have been either been silenced or driven underground. The 400 and their main representatives on the Claremont City Council (Ellen Taylor, Linda Elderkin, and Sam Pedroza) refuse to acknowledge this past and current behavior on the part of the people who got them elected.


A BRIEF HISTORY OF PACS

The August 18th edition of the Claremont Courier carried a very good article (not available online) by Tony Krickl that explored the phenomena of local political action committees that really began in 2003 with Residents United for Claremont (RUC), a PAC organized to support the three city council incumbents in that year's municipal election.

RUC was organized by Claremont Human Services Commission Chair Valerie Martinez and received the support of many former councilmembers and commissioners, as well as one future councilmember: Sam Pedroza.

RUC was the precursor to the Preserve Claremont campaign two years later that attacked sitting Councilmember Jackie McHenry and then-candidate Corey Calaycay. The Krickl article noted:

Mr. Calaycay referred to a full-page advertisement in the COURIER in February 2005 featuring a letter written by a man whom Mr. Calaycay had never worked with that offered false information about his career and character. Paid for by Preserve Claremont, a political action committee active during the 2005 election, the ad was one of several that the group received criticism over for being negative and malicious.

Preserve Claremont included spokespersons Valerie Martinez (again), former Claremont Mayor Paul Held and Homer "Butch" Henderson, the former head pastor at the Claremont United Church of Christ and the recent chair of the city's Youth and Family Master Plan Steering Committee.


2007 - ALL ROADS LEAD TO CASM


What happened after that Preserve Claremont debacle? Was there a backlash against PACs? Hardly. In this year's campaign there were two active PACs. The Krickl article noted that the anonymous Claremont Progress group was created by two former Claremont residents, including a Newport Beach attorney who largely funded the groups $2,000 operating budget.

Claremont Progress sent out a pre-election mailer critical of Mayor Peter Yao and candidates Elderkin and Pedroza. The mailer endorsed McHenry and candidate Opanyi Nasiali.

The other group that was active in the 2007 election was Claremonters Against Strip Mining (CASM), which Krickl noted spent more than four times the amount Claremont Progress did - over $8,000 total. CASM was organized to fight the proposed Vulcan Materials Co. gravel and aggregate mining project in Northeast Claremont.

CASM and its president Mike Kunce, were largely a single issue PAC. However, the Preserve Claremont group wasted no time in trying to co-opt CASM in order to get two candidates, Elderkin and Pedroza elected. CASM ended up endorsing those two and also endorsed candidate Mike Maglio, whom the 400 knew could not win.

The strategy was to use Maglio to siphon off votes that might have gone to McHenry and Nasiali. That much was evident from the involvement of Pedroza supporter and Human Services Commissioner Ed Leavell in Maglio's campaign.

According to the Krickl article,

Several local political leaders and observers believe that the group was influenced by behind-the-scenes players who were seeking CASM's endorsement for their favored candidates.... This was done, they say, by feeding CASM's leadership questionable information and rumors about the prospect of mining in the city and certain candidates' stances on the issue.

In the run up to the election, CASM president, Mike Kunce, approached the COURIER with unverifiable information, claiming that the city council had voted in closed session to authorize negotiations with Vulcan Materials Company to allow strip mining....

Mr. Kunce's named former mayor and spokesman for Preserve Claremont, Paul Held, as his source on the information leaked from closed session, as well as "someone very close to the inner workings of city hall." If the statement is true, Mr. Kunce's claim could imply that a Brown Act violation occurred on the part of either council members or city staff for leaking information out of closed session. [Emphasis added.]

No outcry from the public on that last bit, so we can assume it's okay for the Claremont 400, without being anonymous but manipulating behind the scenes, to break the law and to spread false rumors in order to get Elderkin and Pedroza elected.


PEDROZA RESPONDS

Another thing we've observed repeatedly is the habit of the Claremont 400 to constantly erase the past, to refuse to acknowledge any error in judgment. When critics arise with valid points, the 400 will never address the facts of those arguments. They consciously avoid engaging on the issues. Instead, they attack the person speaking out. So, we ask, is it really surprising that things like anonymous blogs would arise?

We think that what frustrates the 400 the most about our humble efforts is the fact that they don't have anyone to attack, so they are left with having to deal with the information we provide - something they tend to be inept at responding to intelligently.

A case in point. We received an email from Councilmember Sam Pedroza in response to our posting from Wednesday. Did Pedroza address the concerns we raised? Did he use his skills in debate and argument to refute our points of contention? We'll let Sam speak for himself:

Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:24:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: "sam" spedroza1@verizon.net
To: claremontbuzz@yahoo.com
Subject: Claremont Insider : Why are We Here?

sam has sent you a link to a blog:

weak response, if you are just providing another view then why hide... just another coward.

Blog: Claremont Insider Post: Why are We Here? Link: http://claremontca.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-are-we-here.html

We suppose cowardice takes many forms. The worst, we feel, is that of the weak, insecure man placed in a position of power and who allows himself to manipulated, who refuses to use his position to speak out against serious things like possible Brown Act violations and the leaking of information from closed session city council meetings in order to influence elections. Cowardice need not be limited to anonymity; often it is masked in respectability.