Three Valleys Gone Missing on Claremont Chamber Website

It's been the contention of the Claremont Insider for a long time that the Claremont 400 control the levers of power in our community and subtly (well--sometimes not-so-subtly) use these levers to control the public debate and perception. (See, e.g., the paragraph below the title of this blog page above.)

We mentioned a week or so ago how the Chamber of Commerce Board was handmaiden to the proponents of the ill-fated "Parks and Pasture" Assessment District, but could not bring itself to endorse Measure S, the successful bond measure that ended up providing the bulk of the funding for Johnson's Pasture.

With Three Valleys Municipal Water District so recently in the news, we thought we'd check the information for Three Valleys on the Claremont Chamber website. The director elected from the Claremont (and La Verne) area is Brian Bowcock (picture, right), a knowledgable and energetic former water resource manager from our neighbor to the west.

The problem is this: although the Claremont Chamber website lists every other elected official affecting Claremont, from President Bush down through Sue Keith on the Citrus Community College District Board, there is no mention of Director Bowcock or the Three Valleys Municipal Water District. Maybe water issues are not too important a problem for the Claremont Chamber of Commerce. We think, though, that it is more due to the fact that Director Bowcock had the bad form in 2002 to run against and defeat Claremont Patron Saint and Icon Nick Presecan, husband of current CUSD Board member Joan Presecan. Presecan died in 2005 and a monument was constructed to him, requiring special action by the Claremont City Council, in the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park.

So, Executive Director Maureen Aldridge (picture, right) just forgets to mention the Three Valleys District and our director, Brian Bowcock. Erase it from the public memory until we can elect a director whose name can be used in polite society.

Call the Insider paranoid if you will; we prefer to think of ourselves as perceptive.

Here is a screenshot of the bottom of the website where we'd expect to see Three Valleys, along with CUSD, the City of Claremont, and the community college district. Look for the chamber to make a change.