Measure CL: Truth in Advertising

We think that any campaign materials from SupportClaremontSchools should come with this disclaimer:

"This advertisement paid for by Committee to Support Claremont Schools - Yes on CL. FPPC # 1330811, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Piper Jaffray, investment bank of Minneapolis, WLC Architects of Rancho Cucamonga, Stradling Yocca Carlson, bond counsel, Newport Beach, Northcross Hill Ach, financial advisors to public agencies, San Rafael, and Flewelling and Moody, educational facility architects, Pasadena, California, dba the Claremont Unified School District. Any resemblance of this campaign to a grassroots campaign is purely coincidental."
The Courier had an interesting juxtaposition on page 3 in Saturday's paper (October 16). We reproduce it nearby, and suggest you go to the newsstand and buy the paper if you don't have one. Click to enlarge and read the article. The page contained an article on corporate donations to Measure CL just above a photo spread of a MoveOn.org demonstration in Claremont against corporate donations.

This must induce cognitive dissonance in the wee minds of some of the "good government" types in town. The Claremont Area League of Women Voters comes to mind. The campaign dear to their hearts, on the one hand, accepting huge private money; and on the other hand the very idea of huge Corp. Contrib.

Read the article before continuing.

There is much to be said, but J. Michael Fay, treasurer of the Yes On CL group must think we just fell off the pumpkin wagon if we are to believe his breathtaking assertion that there is "no quid pro quo". Of course there is; just go back to Measure Y, see who contributed to it, and then find out who underwrote and advised on the bonds and then lease financing done in 2001, who got architectural engineering and design contracts worth gazillions, and who got other largess spread around by the CUSD.

We've already alluded to the fact that the bid process can be rigged to result in the selection of a desired vendor.

On a side note, it appears as if the NO on CL people are trying to draw the YES side into a debate on numbers. More than one person has noted that none of the material put out by the YES side thus far even mentions that--er--Measure CL is a $95,000,000 bond with a probable total price tag north of $250,000,000. Saturday's paper was folded with a flyer by the NO crowd (right, click to enlarge) that contains cockamamie numbers on Measure Y. We won't bother to dissect it. We'll let the YES folks do that. And why does it refer to Measure CI instead of Measure CL?

Subtle are some peoples' minds in this town. Mrs. Insider posits that this is bait put out to draw the proponents into a real debate on facts, with plausible deniability built right in. If so, and if it works, very clever.

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Acknowledgment is made to the Claremont Courier for not complaining--yet--of our use of the headline on page 1 and the material on page 3 of Saturday's paper. The opinions herein are ours and not those of the Claremont Courier.