Affordable Housing News

The Claremont City Council Tuesday night approved the formation of a seven-person task force to find affordable housing sites in town.

According to Will Bigham's article in today's Daily Bulletin, Mayor Peter Yao has appointed Mayor Pro Tem Ellen Taylor and Councilmember Sam Pedroza to an ad hoc committee to make the selections.

The task force decision passed 4-1 with Councilmember Corey Calaycay voting against it because he wanted to see a larger task force. Councilmember Linda Elderkin apparently got passed over by Queen Ellen for the selection committee. The city staff report for the issue had indicated that Elderkin and Pedroza were interested in doing the selections.

All of this means that the task force will be hand-picked by Queen Ellen. It's difficult to imagine Pedroza standing up to the Queen's bullying in the selection process, especially when it's just the two of them with no backup for Pedroza.

Assuming Taylor has her way, expect no people who opposed the Base Line Rd. affordable housing project to be appointed. You will see plenty of League of Women Voter and Claremont 400 members on the task force. Taylor may appoint her former campaign manager, Helaine Goldwater (one of the League members most responsible for the Base Line Rd. mess) so that Goldwater can chair the thing and make sure that everyone toes the 400's line.

Given the personalities involved, we half expect the task force to find that there are no alternative sites to the Base Line Rd. project and to continue to push that site. One thing's for sure - with Taylor running the show, whatever comes out of the process will be a square peg jammed into a round hole, same as before.

If you are interested in applying for the task force, Claremont's website has applications online. The deadline for applications is Tuesday, March 11th.