City Money Matters

In case you were wondering about Tuesday night's Claremont City Council meeting, there were a few items of interest:


COUNCIL BENEFITS TRIMMED

The Council voted unanimously to do away with the option for Councilmembers to take the unused portion of their health benefits and put it into a deferred compensation account. At last report, Councilmember Peter Yao and Mayor Ellen Taylor were the only two of the five Councilmembers receiving the health benefits, and Taylor was the only one putting the money into the deferred compensation plan.


COUNCIL SAYS "NO" TO NEW BONDS

The Council voted 4-1 against financing another million dollars through general obligation bonds to repay the city's General Fund reserve for money the City used to help buy Johnson's Pasture. That $1 million was needed after the state pulled promised grant money because of what the state felt was faulty language in the deed for the property.

Councilmember Linda Elderkin (pictured, left) was the person who pushed this agenda item, citing her worries about the city's future financial situation and the need to have that extra million in reserve. Councilmember Yao, however, pointed out that the financing fees for the bonds Elderkin was proposing amounted to $75,000. As Yao rightly asked, would you pay 7.5% in financing fees on a home loan? Additionally, the city would have been facing much higher interest rate payments on those bonds than they did when they bought the Pasture in 2007 because of the deterioration in the municipal bond market.Even Councilmember

Sam Pedroza seemed to understand that the ride on the bonded debt gravy train is over for now, especially if the city plans on asking voters in the future for $25 million or more in bonds for a police station. Pedroza said, "I get accused of saying, 'I never met a tax I didn't like.' It [Elderkin's bond proposal] looks enticing. The cookie jar's right there." And yet, in the end Pedroza voted against going for the $1 million bond.

After the vote, Councilmember Elderkin warned, "Wait until we've gotten to where there's no money left in the General Fund. Remember your vote." Perhaps Elderkin and the others, instead of looking to find more money, might try living within their means for a change. If they and past councils had done so in the first place, they wouldn't be in such dire fiscal straits now.


TROLLEY ON TRACK FOR FOUNDATION GIG

The other issue of the day was the request by the Claremont Community Foundation - the Claremont 400's charity arm - to use the Claremont Trolley for a fundraiser. The CCF wants to use the Trolley to bus people around to different historical sites in town. They plan on doing two of these tours with about 20 people per tour.

CCF Executive Director Nickie Cleaves (pictured, right) was on hand at the Council meeting Tuesday to lobby for the proposal. Cleaves said there was extra urgency because the CCF booklet advertising the event in question was at the printer's, and the event was listed in the copy.

This was a real tactical error by Cleaves and the 400, by the way. It illustrates perfectly how official Claremont decisions are supposed to work: an event gets dreamed up by former Mayor Judy Wright and is supposed to be approved without any real discussion by the Council. It's just assumed that the item will automatically pass. So much for the public process. It shows how the 400 will intentionally create a false sense of urgency to get their way: "The brochure is at the printer's. It's too late to make a change. We must pass this. If you don't vote for this important charity event, you are a heartless monster."

Two problems arose. The first, mentioned by Councilmember Yao, was the lack of any procedure for giving city resources over to private organizations. For all her talk about caring about "the process," Councilmember Elderkin, who supported lending out the trolley, conveniently ignored the fact that there was NO process at all in place here. It was completely arbitrary, which is how even things with set processes can go in Claremont anyway.

The second objection was the fact that because the trolley is garaged in a city facility funded with Federal Transit Authority grant money, the city risked getting that penalized for lending out the trolley for a private function. Apparently, federal policies restrict how municipal resources linked to federal transit funds can be used. Councilmember Corey Calaycay, who is Claremont's representative to the Foothill Transit Authority, raised this concern, citing the example of a project in Sierra Madre where similar concerns arose.

Oddly, the councilmembers (Taylor, Elderkin, and Pedroza) in favor of lending out the trolley were unconcerned with the possibility of getting penalized by the federal government. Because of the false urgency the CCF's Nickie Cleaves stirred up, the Councilmembers who favored the event did not even want to wait a week or two for an opinion from an attorney familiar with the laws governing federal transit funds (City Attorney Sonia Carvalho wisely acknowledged she didn't know enough about the subject).

In his tongue-tied way, Councilmember Pedroza (pictured, left) expressed his unconditional love for the proposal: "I feel it's a shame that we dwarf [sic] this because of a technicality." To which Mayor Taylor added with a scowl, "Say petty technicality."

Incidentally, where was the League of Women Voters on this issue? They send observers to every Council meeting, yet they will be inevitably silent on this issue. If it didn't involve the CCF, whose own governing board includes at least one League member, the LWV would have been up in arms about the lack of process and the potential risk of federal violations.

In any case, the item was approved on a 3-2 vote with Yao and Calaycay dissenting. It was unclear whether or not the vote was contingent upon the City getting a legal opinion on the issue of the federal transit funds.