Mailbag

We had a couple responses to our post from yesterday:

First off, great blog!!!

This may, or may not mean anything but it sparked my curiosity. I recently queried a property database for parcels owned by the edevelopment Agency of Claremont to research the affordable housing
issue. What caught my attention was a parcel well north of Baseline that showed it’s ownership as the Redevelopment Agency of Claremont I had taken note of it and filed it away for future research.

However, when I read your post todayregarding the park, I wondered if they are pushing this project because of the Redevelopment Agency’s ownership? I know there is an obligation for revenue generated within redevelopment agencies to go towards such things as affordable housing. Perhaps there is a component regarding funding here as-well?

Take if for what it is, a theory. Furthermore, I haven’t validated that the ownership information is accurate (the database has been known to be wrong at times). To do that, one would need to look at the recording documents. But, I thought I would bring it to your attention since I’m sure you have snippets of information and this may be another piece to a puzzle you might have…

Keep up the great work.

We're not sure about the redevelopment angle. It's news to us. If anyone has any information on this this, by all means pass it on.

And:

I hope this meeting with the Houston Group and the city manager's office is open to the public. If not, when will the discussion be public? Want to bet the answer is: "after it is a done deal."

Also, I remember Ellen Taylor saying that she wanted to go back to the original design of the park where it would have even more fields and lights than are now proposed. And, of course, Peter Yao wants to light up every park in the city whether or not the residents near those parks want lights or not. Sam Pedroza has always been a cheerleader for more lighted sports fields and so has Linda Elderkin. Once again, the city asks the people for their input and does exactly what it wants anyway. Utterly diabolical, and, as you pointed out, sheer hypocrisy.

As for the sustainability of the park, during the election all the candidates practically fell over one another getting to the microphone so they could prove how committed to a green city and sustainable principles they all were. It is sad, but predictable, unfortunately, that the city has not kept it's promise to the people in the northeast section of Claremont to keep the area rural. Can any of these people trust the city again? Some are dead, some moved away, but there are enough veterans of the city wars there that do remember the promises.

We need to preserve more flatland open spaces and you could do that easily here with a more inclusive, accessible and less intensive park that meets the needs of the neighborhood, not the sports groups whose participants are not all Claremont residents. The question is, is there the will as well as the votes to do this on the council, or will they shove another overdeveloped project down our throats and spoil the very things that made people move to Claremont in the first place? Time will tell, but time is running out.