They're Baaaack!

The Claremont 400 don't rest long, nor do they take their losses very seriously. You have to grant them this much: they are persistent.

At last night's City Council, we noticed several of the traditional power brokers present or represented by their surrogates. For instance, Helaine Goldwater, the former Police Commission Chair and keeper of The List (the 400's index of all potential candidates for city committees, commissions, and candidates for City Council), was present and spoke about Oakmont School.

Speaking of Helaine, her unsuccessful candidate for the March City Council race, Bridget Healy (pictured, left), got a mention in Saturday's Claremont Courier. The Courier ran a letter from a few members of Claremont Heritage board (Ginger Elliot, former Claremont Human Services Commissioner Suzanne Hall, and Don Pattison), thanking the all the people who made the July 12 Padua Hills Theatre open house a success, among them:

In particular, former Mexican Players were there along with many others who had enjoyed meals and plays at the Padua Theatre during its heyday from 1930 to 1974. Thanks to Bridget Healy and the Friends of the Padua Hills Theatre, a newly formed group of neighbors and friends, who planned the open house.

The letter was notable for a couple omissions:

• The Mexican Players and all Latinos (as well as any non-Caucasian) were barred by the racial restrictions from owning land around the Padua Theatre. Thanks for the entertainment, guys, but remember: Play, don't stay.
  
  
• The letter also praised the shuttle service Claremont Heritage got to ferry open house guests from the overflow parking at Mills and Mt. Baldy Rd. What they didn't say, however, was that so many people (over 1,000, according the Heritage) showed at the theatre on July 12, that traffic backed down Padua Ave. to Mt. Baldy Rd. Cars couldn't turn around easily in the parking lot after it filled up, and the someone removed the barriades that were supposed to prevent people from parking along Via Padova in front of homes there. So traffic flowed out onto the neighborhood around the theatre.
  
  Naturally, no one took responsibilty for the mess, and all the parties - the City of Claremont, Claremont Heritage, and Chantrelles (one of the partners in the Padua Theatre) - pointed the finger of blame at each other.
  
  

History is once again erased in Claremont.

If past behavior is any indicator, the Claremont Heritage letter to the Courier would represent an opening salvo for a 2011 Healy campaign for council. The 400 usually gets their candidates to front for civic-minded organizations in order to add to their communitarian resumes (something that Healy notably lacked in the last election). If Healy is indeed thinking of running, you'll see a parallel effort by the 400 to attack the current council by getting hot-button issues on the council's agenda and through letters to the local papers.

The 400 strategy has always been to divide and conquer: talk up your candidate, talk down your opponents.

Our thinking on Healy hasn't changed much at all. She represents the worst of the Glenn Southard years, left the City to follow Southard to Indio when the going got tough for her boss, and returned in retirement after having looted Claremont, Indio, and Pomona to the tune of a $150,000-plus CalPERS pension thinking that she could get a free pass in her failed bid for a council seat.

The 400 are in Healy image rehab mode now, but they have 18 months to fix things and to spin whatever image they want. The question is, will people buy into it?

* * * * *

We saw an article in the Onion about a new Apple product, the invisible iPhone, that reminds us a lot about about the forgetfulness and gullibility of Claremont voters:

SAN FRANCISCO—In a move expected to revolutionize the mobile device industry, Apple launched its fastest and most powerful iPhone to date Tuesday, an innovative new model that can only be seen by the company's hippest and most dedicated customers.

"I am proud today to introduce to those who really, truly deserve it, our most incredible iPhone yet," announced Apple CEO Steve Jobs, extending his seemingly empty left palm toward the eagerly awaiting crowd. "Not only is this our lightest and slimmest model ever, but as any truly savvy Apple customer can clearly see, it's also the most handsome product we've ever designed."

The packed auditorium, which had been listening to Jobs in hushed reverence for several minutes, then erupted into applause, with hundreds of men and women suddenly jumping to their feet and shouting, "I can see it!" "Look, there it is!" and "God, it's so beautiful!"

Remember, voters: No clothes, no clothes.

Are They Listening?

One of our complaints about how things have traditionally worked in Official Claremont is the persistent unwillingness on the part of city councils, commissions, committees, and staff to take the time to really listen to citizens concerns about various issues.

The City would start out with a preconceived idea about how a given project should go, then staff would proceed to write up a report to support it. City Attorney Sonia Carvahlo would then backstop the process by making sure all legal bases were covered. But the outcomes had been determined long before any public discussion ever occurred.

For years, you'd go to a public meeting on an issue, speak up about some obvious oversight or omission that staff and the commissions or council had failed to account for, and you'd get nothing blank stares, or, worse, you'd be treated to a round of eye-rolling and sighs. It was like trying to tell the Titanic's captain his ship might be sinkable after all. You'd just have to sit and watch the inevitable play out knowing it was all very preventable. We've learned the hard way that staying the course only makes sense when one's path is iceberg-free.

We'd like to think that the recent Claremont municipal election signaled a change, but it's extremely difficult to alter a ruling culture. It means convincing people that there are better ways of doing things, and most people by nature are conservative in the non-political sense. We just don't like to abandon what's worked in the past, even it no longer functions well.

BarackObama.net image

Today's Claremont Courier reports on Wednesday's lecture at Bridges Auditorium by Obama for America campaign manager David Plouffe (picture at right), and it seemed clear that one of the things the Obama campaign did was to tap into new technologies and combine them with grassroots organizing efforts. The Courier article said:

The unconventional use of technology in the 2008 campaign is considered one of its most valuable innovations. “Technology was married to the grassroots approach,” Mr. Plouffe said. New media like the Internet, email, and cell phone was heavily used to move the message. “Huge numbers of people gathered online to build groups and widen the circle,” Mr. Plouffe explained.

Emails were particularly successful because people could incorporate the information in their conversations with friends and relatives. “This is not the regular way of doing things,” Mr. Plouffe admitted, “but people don’t trust the media and they don’t trust the government; they trust the conversations they have with their neighbors down the street.”

Mr. Plouffe concluded the campaign’s biggest asset was the actual performance of the candidate. He addressed Mr. Obama’s relative lack of experience by saying that it was one of his advantages. Having spent less time in Washington, Mr. Obama was less used to the “conventional practices” established there.

It may be that for a change our own city council was actually trying to learn some lessons from Plouffe. We hear there were several councilmembers in the audience to hear Plouffe, and they may have finally come around to the idea that they need to be more receptive to the public than past councils.

We seem to be seeing evidence of that thinking. At Tuesday night's new mayor Corey Calaycay was much freer with public comment than some past mayors. For a long time, Claremont had a four-minute time limit for speakers, and a red light would blink when your time was up. Councilmmber Peter Yao retired the clock when he was mayor, but Ellen Taylor, who is no longer on the council, brought it back. Calaycay re-retired the public comment clock Tuesday.

Our recent town leaders seemed to think that democracy requires orderliness and that all issues can be fitted into an arbitrarily set four-minute period. The council, of course, has unlimited time to talk about things, so there wasn't much balance in the so-called dialogue. It was really a parent-child relationship, with the public being the two-year-old that needed to be humored.

But, as we all know, some issues take longer than four minutes to discuss, some less, and there's nothing more irritating than having someone like former Mayor Taylor interrupting you to tell you you're finished as soon the red light blinks. In any event, the clock is gone for now, and City Hall is still standing. None of the public speakers took advantage of the clock's absence to filibuster, and the meeting was quite orderly. Indeed, one could argue that treating the public as an equal participant diffuses anger and resentment.

In another sign the council may be listening, at Tuesday night's meeting they considered complaints from residents along Adirondack Lane near the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park. The residents were concerned about parking from hikers spilling over onto their streets and wanted to have parking permits required for their neighborhood. The council approved the measure and even extended it to cover weekdays, as some residents had requested. The Daily Bulletin reported on the parking discussion:

Residents said the area was packed with cars primarily visiting the Wilderness Park which threatened the safety of everyone, particularly children.

"We feel like we're on lockdown," said resident Lisa Friedman.

Adirondack Lane resident Avi Hershkovitz, one of a number of residents that spoke before the council this week, was in favor of the ordinance if it was for every day.

The original ordinance was only for weekends and federal holidays.

Councilwoman Linda Elderkin said she felt the ordinance should be for every day and introduced a motion supporting it.

So, we find Elderkin's receptiveness encouraging, and, to be fair, she has been one of the more reasonable councilmembers since she was elected. Maybe that portends good things to come.

You Say Goodbye, and I Say Hello

It's a Hit!

(Click to Enlarge)

Last night's Claremont City Council meeting was a quiet affair featuring introductions and farewells. If you caught the action streamed over the city's website, you saw that the results of the March 3rd municipal election were certified.

You also witnessed a farewell address by ex-Mayor Ellen Taylor, who sucked the life out of the council chambers with a long, year-by-year (some would say blow-by-blow) recitation of all the achievements the council inflicted on its citizens during Taylor's four-year term on the council. The amazingly myopic Taylor used the secret word, "VISION," several times.

Taylor concluded by warning that she would still be around and might very well offer some future interference in city business. Frankly, we preferred our more succinct farewell tribute to Taylor over her own, but we're biased.

After Taylor wrapped up her parting shots, she was presented with a parting gift, and then the two winning council candidates, incumbent Corey Calaycay and Community Services Commissioner Larry Schroeder, were sworn in.

Losing candidate Bridget Healy was apparently there as well, though she seems to have cut out after Taylor's farewell because she wasn't around later when Calaycay acknowledged her from the podium.

The council also reorganized, naming Calaycay mayor and Linda Elderkin mayor pro tem. Councilmember Sam Pedroza nominated both, and both were approved unanimously.

It's very early to tell, but we really got the sense the council and the community have turned a corner. Something just felt different. For years we've heard talk of inclusiveness and diversity, but things on the council have remained fractious and exclusive with respect to the public. The campaigns of 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007 also featured varying degrees of ugliness. This time, though, as several people have said, including Calaycay in his comments after being appointed mayor, the election season was relatively quiet, and the candidates ran clean campaigns with the issues actually getting a public airing.

Larry Schroeder gave a brief, gracious speech last night, thanking his supporters and, most of all, his wife, who couldn't be there because she was teaching a class at the University of La Verne.

The other councilmembers, Elderkin, Pedroza, and Peter Yao, were similarly gracious in their remarks, and all five councilmembers spoke of looking forward to working together in what will certainly be challenging times.

We'll see how things develop. There will be disagreements over policies and various projects, but the juxtaposition of Taylor's farewell and the new council's installation provided a perfect contrast between the old Claremont and the new.

A Quiet Town

Claremont, CA - Post-Election, Day 1:


We can only hope.

The results of Tuesday's city election continue to reverberate, at least in the Insider email account. The notes ran the gamut from the pensive:

DATE: Wednesday, March 4, 2009 3:00 PM
SUBJECT: And the winners are?
TO: Claremont Buzz

Dear Buzz,

I too would like to congratulate the winners of the March 3rd Claremont council elections. I wish and expect success for Corey Calaycay and Larry Schroeder. Mr. Schroeder, in particular, must be more vigilant to prove his commitment to rational and transparent governance devoid of the usual group-think mentality of the Claremont 400. I say this because I am wondering if his winning was a clear win for him, or the voters' mere rejection of Bridget Healy - the 400's candidate. Time will tell.

To the giddy:

DATE: Wednesday, March 4, 2009 9:33 AM
SUBJECT: Great news on the election results
TO: Claremont Buzz

Can we now get rid of the trolley!

To the gleeful:

DATE: Wednesday, March 4, 2009 10:04 AM
SUBJECT: heh heh heh
TO: Claremont Buzz

My schadenfreude is the size of Mount Baldy.

The Claremont Courier's Tony Krickl had election night coverage on his blog, including quotes from the two winners, Corey Calaycay and Larry Schroeder:

Calaycay was the top vote getter, earning 3,083 votes or 40.1 percent. "I feel like I've closed one chapter of my life and started a new one," Calaycay said, addressing his supporters at his campaign party.

Schroeder came in second with 2,767 votes or 36 percent. "It's still very surreal," Schroeder said at his home along side friends and supporters. "I want to thank the voters for giving me this opportunity to serve them. I promise I will do the best I can for Claremont."

And the Daily Bulletin's Will Bigham had a quote from Bridget Healy on the Bulletin's Inland Valley Elections blog:

When asked about her future plans, Healy said she will "re-engage" with her volunteer work. She said she will soon be traveling to New York City, a trip she received as a retirement gift from the city of Indio, where she also worked as an assistant city manager.

Asked if she will consider running for City Council in the future, Healy said, "I can't even think about that tonight."

She said some of her supporters had been encouraging her since the results came in to run in a future council race.

As hard as it to not rejoice in the schadenfreude, our own joy at reading of the Bridget Healy candidacy's spectacular flame-out is tempered by the thought that there was a time back in the mid-1970s when many of the people who formed the loose-knit social network we've come to call the Claremont 400 were themselves galvanized to political action in order to save Sycamore School from being closed. Those people instituted a successful school board recall, and they didn't look back, at least for three decades. At least until the Healy flop.

You'd hate to think that the town's been through a good deal of strife and political change only to have some other group arise to replace the one we've only just now managed to chop down to size. But, at the moment we shouldn't frighten ourselves into the false belief that just because Healy's campaign failed it necessarily means that some other group must step up take the 400's place.

For a while at least, we're probably going to be a lot more like other towns where groups coalesce around various interests and issues and then just as quickly disperse. We're guessing there won't be a single, monolithic group claiming to represent all points of view and controlling all of the decision-making. With luck, we'll experience much more real discourse and balance in the way things are run.

On the other hand, if we allow our pride to rise to the fore once again, we'll be back here in another 30 years. Or 10. Or 5. So kept it real, folks. Pride goeth before the fall, and all that. Or, as the nameless ronin could tell you, "A long life of eating gruel is best."

And the Winners Are... [UPDATED]

Unofficial Results for the
2009 Claremont Municipal Election

Top 2 Win:
(See UPDATE just below)
Corey Calaycay - 3,083 votes, 40.1%
Larry Schroeder - 2,767, 36%
Bridget Healy - 1,842, 23.9%

Total Ballots Cast - 4,717
Turnout - 22.4%

UPDATE: Provisional ballots and absentee ballots turned in at the polls now counted (midday Wednesday):

Corey Calaycay - 3,195 votes, 40.2%
Larry Schroeder - 2,853 votes, 35.9%
Bridget Healy - 1,900 votes, 23.9%

Total Ballots Cast - 4,876
Turnout - 23.1%

Click to Enlarge

Election Night Results,
superseded by the tallies linked here

Our congratulations to the two winners of last night's city election, Corey Calaycay and Larry Schroeder. We'll have more commentary later, but you can see there are a number of noteworthy items in the results from yesterday's city election.

Here are a few preliminary observations:

First, for the first time that anyone can remember, the candidate backed by the Claremont 400 lost. BIG. Nearly 1,000 votes separated Larry Schroeder from Bridget Healy, the candidate of choice for our dear Claremonsters. Healy lost (came in third) in every precinct except the central Village. This was astounding considering that Schroeder had nowhere near the funds to spend that Healy did and had to kick in $4,500 of his own money to help his campaign.

Second, turnout was extremely low, which in the past has helped the 400's candidates. This time turnout was at around 22.4%, much lower even than the 29-34% of the last four elections. But it didn't help Healy at all. In fact, the results seem to underscore just how weak a candidate Healy was. Even though she came in second in the Pilgrim Place area (Precinct 8), Healy couldn't generate enough excitement there to get the traditional 400 candidate advantage to carry her over Schroeder. Turnout in Precinct 8 was only 37.7%, which is well below the 50% or so the 400 has come to expect from the heart of the Claremont Village.

Third, the Preserve Claremont folks from four years ago are pretty much dead as a movement. Corey Calaycay was their prime target in the 2005 city election and almost didn't win that year. This time around, however, Calaycay got over 3,000 votes, which is a pretty high mark for such a low-turnout election. Also, a number of people we would have considered in the 400, Randy Prout, Butch Henderson, Paul Held, Valerie Martinez, Nick Quackenbos - former Preserve Claremonters all, actually supported Calaycay this time.

Those pro-Healy letters in the Claremont Courier last Saturday signed by former League of Women Voters president Sharon Hightower and by eight former Claremont mayors (including Held and current mayor Ellen Taylor) got no traction at all. Or, worse for the 400, they had a net negative effect because people saw them as trying to look to the past rather than to the future.

* * * * *

Why did Healy lose? We keep trying to figure that out. Maybe it was because she was too closely tied to former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard. The 400 have never really understood the depth of the antipathy in town towards Southard, and they severely underestimated how much Healy, who was Southard's former assistant, was seen as one of the people most responsible for maintaining order in Southard's administration.

Or, it might have been the carpetbagger issue. Healy ran off from Claremont four years ago after the Preserve Claremont people, most of whom supported Healy this time, failed to keep Calaycay from getting elected. You'd think the 400 could have found someone else from among their ranks who stayed, who didn't run away, someone who volunteered and worked in the community. But the Helaine Goldwaters of the 400 crowd were just so arrogantly sure of themselves that they would not listen to reason and pushed the Healy candidacy on their friends. That hubris factor certainly cannot be discounted in Healy's downfall.

It also might be that voters looked around and found things in town to be running better than they had under Southard and some of the past city councils. Sure there are disagreements on the council; but, apart from Ellen Taylor, things seem to be much more civil now. So a good number of people could have figured there was no need to change. People may actually prefer how City Hall works now compared to years past.

Healy's city pension may also have been a concern for voters. She is, after all, collecting around $100,000 a year from a CalPERS pension for her 18 years as a Claremont city employee (plus more from Pomona and Indio), and Claremont's $10 million pension account account deficit certainly represents a huge potential problem for the City. Healy's pension belies her claim that she gave of her time to our community out of some form of pure altruism (as opposed to a more mercenary tendency).

And then there's the deposition factor, which came late in the race. But Schroeder out polled Healy in the absentee ballots, and most of those would have been cast before last week's disclosure of some inconsistencies in Healy's campaign claims. So, he was beating Healy anyway.

Let's also not forget that Healy was just not a good candidate. She was a poor, unexciting speaker, appearing at forums to be more like a civil servant presenting a project report (which you'd expect given her former career) than a person seeking elective office. Lack of energy seemed to translate to indifference in many voters eyes, and those people probably figured, "If she doesn't care enough to run as hard as the other two, why should I vote for her?"

Whatever the reasons for last night's smackdown, we shouldn't expect the 400 to go gentle into that good night or that they will even take any lessons from their huge defeat. Self-reflection has never been their strong suit. Raging against the dying of the light is more their style. We can expect them to try to co-opt Larry Schroeder now that Healy's history. But they may have an uphill battle. From what we're hearing on the streets, some the 400 elders, wanting to avoid a campaign and seeking to hand Healy an uncontested seat, tried to tell Schroeder not to run last year, and he's not likely to forget that anytime soon.

To his credit, Schroeder was strong-willed enough to go ahead and run anyway, without much support from the 400 at all. All of which may indicate he's secure enough in himself to be his own man on the council. But rest assured you'll still see much sucking up to Schroeder on the part of the 400, who have no shame or sense of humility.

We also should not forget that Calaycay won big too. If things go according to form, he should be the next mayor, and there is no small measure of justice in Calaycay's replacing Ellen Taylor in the mayor's chair. The next council will be seated next week on Tuesday, March 10th, and we'll begin to see then how much things have really changed in town. Like you, we're expecting a kinder, gentler city government. Lord knows, we've all earned it.

* * * * *

A sad personal footnote: Our write-in campaign lasted precisely 12 hours. You're not going to have Claremont Buzz to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is our last press conference, etc., etc., and so on and so on.

Vote Today

Don't forget to do your civic duty today. The Claremont Municipal Election takes place today from 7:00am to 8:00pm.

If you need to know where your polling place is, you can check the Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters website. Just type in your address, and it'll tell you where to go. Or, you can call the Claremont City Clerk at (909) 399-5460.

The votes will be tabulated in the City Council chambers at Claremont's City Hall after the polls close at 8 tonight. If you've never seen one of these, it's pretty fascinating, with people from the various campaigns filling the chamber, and the City Clerk and other city officials running the ballots through the counting machines.

It actually goes pretty quickly, and odds are that the counting will be done before 11pm. In the past, the City Clerk has posted the results on the city website. They get updated as each precinct gets counted.

Losing My Religion

Bridgetforcouncil.org image

The Daily Bulletin has an article today covering the campaign claims made by Claremont City Council candidate Bridget Healy's campaign in a recent flyer.

You might recall that the flyer asserted that Healy, in her job as former Claremont assistant city manager, had a big hand in the City's acquisition of the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park and the Padua Hills Theatre. Those claims were contradicted by Healy's testimony in a deposition three years ago in the Palmer Canyon fire lawsuit.

We posted the flyer and Healy's deposition transcript in a post a couple days ago. As we remarked in our post, the flyer and Healy's sworn testimony are mutually exclusive. The flyer says she accomplished certain things. Her testimony, under oath, says she did not.

Today's Bulletin article, by Wes Woods II and Will Bigham, indicated Healy was still trying to process the situation. She appeared to be in crisis management mode:

Healy declined to comment on the apparent inconsistent statements when reached at her home on Thursday afternoon.

She said an attorney was going over the statements, and she would make a comment after the attorney's review.

The article also quoted Healy's campaign manager Gary Riley, who doesn't seem to have known Healy very long:

"I honestly don't know," Riley said. "I need to know more about it before I can really take a stand one way or another. Everything that I've ever known about Bridget, she's above-board, honest. I've never known her to be lowdown, underhanded, lie, cheat, steal, about anything. That's why I think she would be the perfect person to be (on the City Council)."

The other two candidates in the race, Larry Schroeder and Corey Calaycay, did not comment for the article.

As we've noted before, none of this really matters because Healy is the Claremont 400's anointed one. If this election holds true to form, Healy's name simply has to be on the ballot, and she will get the 2,300 to 2,500 votes she needs to win one of the two council seats up for grabs in next Tuesday's city election.

If you saw Wednesday's Claremont Courier, you may have noticed that all three candidates had election advertisements. Schoeder had an insert in the paper, and Calaycay had a full page ad on the Courier's back page. Healy also had a full page ad. Her ad did not mention any accomplishments or qualifications. It consisted mostly of several columns of Healy supporter names. This is how a prototypical Claremont 400 campaign works. The argument, such as it is, does not ask you to vote for Healy because she is the best qualified based on any true, verifiable evidence. Healy's ad says it all: Vote for me because these people say to.

The people supporting Healy have permanently suspended disbelief. Their choice isn't made based upon any rational framework. They are willing to overlook not only false statements but also Healy's own work history while here in Claremont for 18 years under former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard.

The 400's stubborn refusal to acknowledge the truth has been the foundation of our town's dysfunction for 30 years or more, and there is no reason to expect that to change any time soon. For many of her supporters, the belief in Healy's candidacy approaches a religious intensity and is wrapped up in the mythology they've created for Claremont. To acknowledge the truth of their very flawed candidate would require them to surrender a large portion of those beliefs, not simply in Healy, but in their entire image of our town town.

It would be asking too much of any human being to abandon their religion. So Healy as councilperson will probably be the price we pay for our very human weaknesses.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Depositions

Our post on Sunday commented on a letter to the Claremont Courier that noted some factual errors in a Courier insert that city council candidate Bridget Healy distributed with the paper a couple weeks ago.

The letter in question referred to a statement in Healy's flyer which listed her supposed accomplishments as Claremont's Assistant City Manager. The letter, quoting the flyer, incorrectly stated that the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park cost the City nothing. In fact, as we pointed out, Claremont paid $1.25 million, or about $1,000 an acre, for the land.

Here's the flyer, both sides, for your review:

Click on Images to Enlarge

As you can see, Healy's campaign very clearly states that it is presenting us with a mere "partial list of accomplishments to which Bridget made significant contributions during her years of public service to Claremont's citizens [emphasis added]." The first item on the list is the acquisition of "1,600 acres of Wilderness Park as well as the Padua Theater [sic] at no cost to the tax payers [sic] of Claremont [emphasis added]."

We've already shown from city documents that it cost the city a million two to pay for the Wilderness Park. But, we wondered, did Healy really have all that much to do with the park or the Padua Hills Theatre at all?

On January 13, 2006, Bridget Healy, who by then had left Claremont for Indio, was deposed as a witness in the Palmer Canyon lawsuit. That suit was brought by homeowners whose houses burned down in October, 2003, due to alleged negligence by the city of Claremont in failing to properly implement its brush management for the Wilderness Park. The suit settled for $17.5 million - the largest settlement ever paid out by the city's insurer.

Ever since the lawsuit settled last year, Healy's deposition transcript has been making the rounds among curious town insiders. We read it. The questioner that day was plaintiff counsel Mark S. Grotefeld. On pages 20-22, Healy very clearly stated--and repeated--that she had nothing whatsoever to do with either the Wilderness Park or the Padua Hills Theatre:

In the matter of
Bassett v. City of Claremont
L.A. County Superior Court
Civil Case No. KC 045147

Deposition of Bridget Healy


Claremont, California,
Friday, January 13, 2006

BRIDGET HEALY,

having been administered an oath, was examined and testified as follows:

[Pages 20-22]

Grotefeld: ....give me an example of what you mean by special projects.

Healy: The Orange County bankruptcy, release of a serial rapist in the community, securing a paramedic squad in the city, working with the school district on policies and procedures for high school student safety and campus security.

Grotefeld: As you sit here today do you recall being involved with any special projects that related to the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park?

Healy: No.

. . . . .

Grotefeld: As you sit here today do you recall any special projects that you worked on that dealt with the Padua Theatre?

Healy: No.

. . . . .

Grotefeld: Would it be a fair statement to say that the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park was not something that you, in terms of your work as the assistant city manager performed any job function with respect to?

Healy: Correct.

. . . . .

Grotefeld: All right, the wilderness park came into -- at some point during the time that you were city manager [sic; he means assistant city manager, but Healy doesn't correct him] the city acquired the wilderness park, do you recall that happening?

Healy: Correct.

Grotefeld: Did you have any involvement with the acquisition of that land?

Healy: No.

Healy cannot have it both ways. If her most recent campaign flyer statements are accurate, then Healy testified falsely under oath three years ago. If her deposition testimony is truthful, then her campaign's statements are false.

Which is it? Is Healy's campaign misrepresenting facts, making them up out of whole cloth with respect to her so-called accomplishments (they actually called them "gifts" from Healy to Claremont). Or could Healy have committed perjury in her sworn deposition testimony on January 13, 2006?

You tell us.

Here's the entire transcript (click on the little box in the upper right-hand corner to enlarge to full screen):

*********

A letter in today's Courier [not online as this was written, but added by the Courier midday Wednesday] points out Healy's contradictory statement from another angle. Dean McHenry, who frequently comments on the local scene quite apart from his wife, former city councilmember Jackie McHenry, cites the following statement by the City's insurance defense attorney, Edwin Richards: "Healy testified she had no involvement whatsoever with regard to the park acquisition."

Duelling Narratives

The Claremont 400, that group that has more or less run the city for the past 30 years, seems to be losing its long monopoly on defining the terms of city elections. For the first time in recent memory, the 400's chosen candidate wasn't among the city council candidates endorsed by the two local newspapers, the Claremont Courier and the Daily Bulletin.

We're also getting the impression that the 400's candidate, former Claremont Assistant City Manager Bridget Healy, either doesn't have her heart in the campaign or she figures she's such a shoe-in that she doesn't have to work as hard as the other two candidates, incumbent Corey Calaycay and Larry Schroeder.

Healy, who ought to have plenty of money raised for the campaign, hasn't spent large amounts on the traditional things like full-page newspaper ads or mailers. Nor has she been doing things like walking neighborhoods with the same sense of urgency or energy as the other two candidates.

Healy did get a letter of support in Saturday's Claremont Courier, though the letter, which only ran one two paragraphs [on the Courier's website it was run as a one-paragraph note], spoke only in the broadest generalities and failed to give any specifics, other than that Healy knows our values and is (in the letter signers' eyes) a proven leader:

We support Bridget because we need council members who know our community and its values, have the experience and demonstrated leadership Claremont needs, understand how to balance a city budget in difficult economic times, and possess the vision and skills to lead Claremont into the future.

The letter was signed by some of the usual 400 names, several of whom were Preserve Claremont supporters and donors in 2005. Though to be fair, a number of them are listed as Corey Calaycay supporters this time around, perhaps a sign of a willingness to make amends for the last go 'round when they absolutely dragged Calaycay through the mud and muck of their own imaginations.

In any case, it's clear that Healy is their candidate, and when they write of values, it's their values, not necessarily the community's values, that they write of. The 400's most notable trait has always been the insistent projection of its wants and wishes onto the city at large followed by the packaging of those as universal values for Greater Claremont.

The 400's letter Saturday had the misfortune of appearing with another letter by a person named Carolyn Gonzales, who questioned a recent Courier insert by the Healy campaign. The insert had included a bulleted list of things the city accomplished while Healy was assistant city manager. The insert described these accomplishments as gifts from Healy to our citizens, but the campaign advertisement failed to mention that Healy was a city employee and that she was very highly compensated for those so-called gifts. Healy's campaign seems to have forgotten that gifts are traditionally presented without billing the recipients.

The Gonzales letter was quite detailed in its particulars. First, she reminded readers of the Healy's very strong ties to former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard, whose management style many in town consider the casus belli of the near-civil war that split the community, especially from January, 1999, when the Irvin Landrum shooting occurred, to April, 2005, when Southard (and Healy) left Claremont together for jobs in Indio.

Gonzales went on to say:

Twenty years working for Mr. Southard, even following him to Indio when he “left” Claremont, this is some kind of loyalty, but alas, it was not loyalty to Claremont. It was loyalty to oneself. Or perhaps it was that the Southard/Healy political climate of that time was jaded with the debacle of the Landrum shooting episode. While serious errors were made, perhaps they thought there were merely ‘hiccups”.

Of course, while her “team saved the day” by acquiring 1,600 acres of hillside property that became the Wilderness Park, at no cost to the tax payers [n.b. Even this statement by Healy is wrong. Healy's campaign strategy is for people to be hypnotized or to have short memories. See note at end of post] of Claremont, she should “rue” the day when her “teams” failure to properly manage brush clearance in the Wilderness Park cost the city a judgment of $17.5 million for more than 40 homes lost in the Palmer Canyon fire. What a team!!

Now on a more serious note, the fact that Ms. Healy drafted a policy that would have required mental health professionals to “assess” citizens expressing their views at City Council Meetings, lends me to wonder what her ideological mindset would be if elected. Could it be that Claremont citizens could not speak at future Council meetings without a “note from one’s doctor”. (Kudos to the City Council at that time for not implementing this “are you fit to ask a question” requirement.)

Gonzales' letter points up the paradox in the argument Healy's campaign makes for her election. On the one hand, they want Healy recognized as a generous volunteer for certain things that happened while she was an employee doing what she was amply paid to do; on the other, they want the public to overlook the many bad things that occurred during Healy's working career here, things that ended in her fleeing our city for Indio with her mentor when the City Council election of 2005 didn't go the way she and Southard wanted.

Healy may very well win one of the two seats in the election. In fact, unless an unexpected bout of sentience suddenly afflicts the residents of Pilgrim Place and environs, she most certainly will awake a Claremont councilperson come March 4th. But it is greatly encouraging that other voices are gaining traction in the debate and that the local papers have been able to weigh all of the evidence before them without too much distraction from people wishing to take the city backwards.

We'll see how it all turns out in eight more days.

**********

Note: We don't believe that the Wilderness Park was acquired "at no cost to taxpayers." Our recollection is that it cost the City some $1.2M. It seems to us that Glenn Southard--and, let's be fair to her, Bridget Healy--had engineered some complicated land transaction with Pomona College involving option payments of $35,000 per month. The City continued these option payments for some some time, approximately 3 years, until it became clear the City was going to be unable to hold up it's end of the bargain. The City stopped making option payments along about 1992 and ultimately gave Pomona College a specific plan (a specific plan is an exception to the otherwise-controlling zoning ordinance) that allowed it to sell the entitlements and land north of Baldy Road to Centex, which built the big-box houses now blighting the landscape there. Pomona College also kept all option payments made. This is where the $1.2M comes in. In return, the City received 1220 acres, more or less, of undevelopable land for the Wilderness Park.

See the City Council agenda report for July 26, 1994. Note especially the paragraph on page four, clipped here:

Let's have a little truth in advertising here, Healy Campaign.

City Election Winds Down

"Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point; on le sait en mille choses."

-- Blaise Pascal

With just over one week to go, Claremont's municipal election season is winding down. The Daily Bulletin gave their endorsements last week, and the Claremont Courier weighed in with their picks yesterday (the Courier's endorsement article isn't posted on their website).

Surprisingly, both newspapers picked the same two candidates: incumbent Corey Calaycay and Community Services commissioner Larry Schroeder. The Bulletin liked Schroeder's background as a director of finance for the cities of Lakewood and Glendora. They also thought Calaycay has done a good job since he was elected four years ago, despite a some ugly mudslinging by the Preserve Claremont group.

The Bulletin thought the third candidate, Bridget Healy, was qualified, but Healy's insiderness (small 'i") was a turnoff. The Bulletin's editorial board also noted that Healy draws the majority of her CalPERS pension from her 18 years in Claremont. The Bulletin didn't come out and say it, but there does seem to be an implied conflict there; and, besides, it's just not good policy to have former senior staffers running for office in the same city they worked in. There is supposed to be a separation between the council and the staff, and having Healy on the council would seem a breach.

The Courier devoted a full page to its endorsements, with long, very thoughtful explanations for their choices. The Courier remarked about how quiet this election has been compared the last several, and that has indeed been a welcome relief.

Like the Bulletin, the Courier noted Calaycay's concerns about fiscal responsibility, and they also noted his willingness to listen to the problems and concerns of individual citizens, as well as the emphasis he has placed on transparency in city government. The Courier said about Calaycay:

He is always prepared at council meetings and has a clear position on the issues. At the same time, he is open to hearing the thoughts of the public. On a couple different occasions, he has changed his vote due to compelling input from the public. This is something you rarely see from council members, who usually have their minds set on the issues before the meeting, regardless of what is brought up during public comment.

With Schroeder, again like the Bulletin, the Courier liked his finance background, especially in the current economic climate. They also liked an example Schroeder gave of how the transportation funds the city received and used for the Claremont Trolley could have been traded to another city whose transportation needs are greater than ours. The swap would have allowed Claremont to put a good portion of the money into its General Fund to help balance the current budget.

The Courier said about Schroeder and his idea:

Was this option ever presented to the city council by our city staff? If it was, would we have a mostly empty trolley trucking around the Village today?

This type of innovative thinking is what our city will need over the next few years as we ride out the economic crisis.

Being relatively new in town [Schroeder has been in Claremont seven years] does not have to be a drawback. An outsider, particularly with with Mr. Schroeder's background, can bring in fresh ideas on how to promote economic development and deal with other issues facing our city....

And regarding Healy, the Courier thought that some of her ideas, like forming a committee of citizens to examine economic issues, "seems a bit recycled." They thought that compared with the other two candidates, Healy's ideas weren't fresh. The Courier also felt that Healy didn't offere up the sort of long-term ideas for the city that the other two candidates did.

The biggest criticism the Courier had regarding Candidate Healy, though, was her long history as Assistant City Manager here - the very thing her supporters praise. The Courier said:

Like many in the community, we have a hard time distancing her from her longtime colleague, former City Manager Glenn Southard. His management style rubbed many people the wrong way. Although "he got things done," [i.e., made the trains run on time - ed.] as Ms. Healy noted, we believe our current city staff is very capable of getting things done without creating tensions among the community.

We can't shake the feeling that she skipped town [to follow Southard to Indio] when things got contentious between the council and staff after Jackie McHenry was elected. Is packing your bags the best way to deal with challenges?

So there you have it. Both local papers are in agreement on Schroeder and Calaycay. How does this play out on election day? Your guess is as good as ours. The points the two papers made were all good, reasonable ones. But those don't necessarily matter in Claremont.

Healy has one enormous thing going for her. She doesn't need the papers' endorsements. She has the Claremont 400 backing her, and that means that Healy can count on winning the most important precinct in town, the one encompassing the Pilgrim Place retirement community in the heart of the Claremont Village. The Pilgrims, many of whom were outraged (or at least as outraged as those folks get) over the 1999 Irvin Landrum shooting and City Hall's handling of that crisis - something in which Healy was deeply involved. All seems to be oddly forgiven (or forgotten), however.

Since that Pilgrim Place precinct generates a very high turnout loyal to the 400, Healy can bank a lot of votes, an advantage that past Claremonster candidates have used to the fullest. It matters little that Healy's record as a senior city staffer embodied the worst of the Southard years. The Pilgrims will reliably punch the chad corresponding to whomever the Claremonsters say.

As we've said before, Official Claremont has its reasons that Reason knows not. You've seen it in a thousand things.

The Quest

With the March 3rd city election fast approaching, the Claremont Courier posed several questions to each of the three candidates for Claremont City Council - Bridget Healy, Larry Schroeder, and Corey Calaycay:

• Why are you interested in serving on Claremont's City Council?
  
  
• What can the city council do to make sure the city's finances will be safe in these troubling economic times?
  
  
• Village West is struggling to find tenants as more businesses are closing up shop. What kind of economic development tools can the city implement to attract more customers and secure more businesses in the area?
  
  
• What makes you different and unique from the other candidates running and who are currently on the City Council?
  
  
• What are your favorite TV show, favorite book and favorite movie?
  
  

You can read the candidates' respective responses on the Courier's website, minus the Village West question, which was omitted on the website, along with the corresponding answers. Also, Courier reporter Tony Krickl had a bonus question about the candidates' views on building a new police station. That last question, and the candidates' answers, are posted on the Courier City Beat blog.

The big surprise on that police station question is candidate Healy's response. She is now pushing the former affordable housing site on Base Line Rd. and Towne Ave. Apparently, she's been hearing one of her opponents, Corey Calaycay, talk about that location and thought it was a good enough position to borrow. It may also mean that Healy's League of Women Voter supporters have finally given up on that location for affordable housing.

These sorts of candidate forum/interview questions are always a kick, especially ones like the "What's your favorite...? One senses that the questioner, whether it's the Courier's Krickl or Barbara Musselman at the League of Women Voters, serves as a kind of public gatekeeper of taste as well as policy.

These sorts of gatekeepers have been around a very long time, and those fill-in-the-blank questions can occasionally surprise, sometimes with deadly consequences for our brave, aspiring leaders:

Daily Bulletin Election Endorsements

The Daily Bulletin's editorial board has made its endorsement for the March 3rd Claremont City Council election.

We won't spoil the surprise. Click here to see the Bulletin's editorial.

Candidate Forum Ratings

We received an email report on Monday night's League of Women Voters candidate forum from one of our field correspondents. The writer thought all the candidates were quality people and rated their performances. The correspondent also had some thoughts on the composition of the audience:

DATE: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 10:39 AM
SUBJECT: Hughes Center - Candidate Forum
FROM: Claremont Buzz

I attended the candidate forum at the Alexander Hughes Center last night and was happy to see many Claremont residents. With no favorite candidate(s), I was there with an open mind to see what they Corey [Calaycay], Bridget [Healy] and Larry [Schroeder] had to say. I was impressed by all of them, and feel we are lucky to have quality people running for the open seats. I felt that Corey came out on top, with Larry 2nd and Bridget 3rd. Nothing really was brought up about So. California Water and their need to continue to pursue hefty increases to the PUC [Public Utilities Commission].

I was also struck by the age of the attendees. Kudos to our senior residents for taking the time and making the effort to get out and hear – they were well represented. Looking around I was wondering if ID’s were checked at the door, since no one under 60 seemed to be in the room (other than the candidates). Seriously, I saw one college aged attendee, a couple of people in their 50’s and an overwhelming majority being in their 70’s and 80’s. Aren’t there Claremont residents that are still working that might be interested in who’s leading the city at this critical economic time?

A Concerned Claremont Citizen

We weren't there, but we imagine the scene was probably pretty much like many a past candidate forum from years gone by, except that the crowd is a little grayer, a little less perambulatory than it was the last time around in 2005.

Claremont is a graying population, after all, as our comments regarding The Claremont View a couple months ago suggested. As new people move in, they don't necessarily participate in the local politics as much as the people they replace. That is one unintended consequence of the Claremont 400's insularity. It tends to drive away people not invested in supporting the in-group. If the last U. S. presidential election taught us anything, it's the value of the politics of addition, something sorely lacking among the clique running our City Hall.

For the same reason, the League of Women Voters itself is a graying group. Their lack of real outreach is hurting them, and it also moves them farther and farther out-of-touch from the younger community at large, the community not represented (or at least underrepresented) by the Ellen Taylors, Helaine Goldwaters, Sharon Hightowers, Judy Wrights, and Barbara Musselmans of the town.

We'd like to see a younger demographic get involved in the issues our community faces, especially since they and their progeny will be paying for a lot of it, but most of our 20-, 30-, and 40-somethings have got things like starting careers to think or raising families to think about. They enjoy the good things in town, like the restaurants and shops, the college-town atmosphere, or the tree-lined streets; and they don't see the bad until they bump up against it when the City wants a freeway offramp dumping traffic onto their street or shoves an accident magnet of a roundabout into their favorite downtown intersection.

Also, there just may not be that many of them in the first place. But, perhaps the drop in housing prices will bring some affordability back to the local real estate market and encourage more young families to move into our town. Revitalization spurred by recession: just another unintended consequence, we suppose. This must be the so-called "creative destruction" we've heard about.

LWV Candidate Forum Tonight

This evening the League of Women Voters of the Claremont Area hosts their candidate forum for the 2009 Claremont municipal election.

The forum begins at 7pm tonight in the Padua Room of the City's Alexander Hughes Community Center. League President and City Police Commissioner Barbara Musselman will take question suggestions from the audience and then cull through them to decide what questions are appropriate for tonight's forum. You can submit your proposed question to Musselman before the forum begins.

Candidate Forum - 7pm tonight
Alexander Hughes Center, Padua Room
1700 N. Danbury Rd. Claremont, CA 91711

Sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Claremont Area
(909) 624-9457

Election Money Report

Saturday's Claremont Courier had a report from Tony Krickl on the campaign finances of the three candidates for the March 3rd municipal elections. The article, unfortunately, is not posted on the Courier's website.

Krickl's article gave the amounts of money raised and spent as of the first reporting period for 2009. The reporting deadline was last Thursday. Krickl also explained what that money gets spent on. As Krickl noted, the maximum an individual can donate in to a Claremont city council candidate is $250 in a calendar year. Here's the information from Krick's article:

Unless he can raise some quick cash, Candidate Larry Schroeder will have his hands tied with only $439.65 in his balance. He has raised a total of $4,455 and already spent $4,015.35.

Candidates are allowed to dip into their own pockets for campaign expenditures if they choose. Mr. Schroeder loaned his campaign a total of $3,500 while Ms. Healy made a loan of $1,300.

....Mr. [Corey] Calaycay is in the best financial shape, with a cash balance of $14,305.18. He has made $3,512.11 in expenditures so far. Some of his supporters in the maximum $250 range include Glenn and Patricia Gross, Susan Schenk, Ivan and Elisabeth Misner and Beatrice Niu.

Ms. [Bridget] Healy has a balance of $7,209.85 after spending $3,376 thus far on her campaign. Her top supporters in the $250 range include Paul Held, Sandy Baldonado, Valerie Martinez, and Francine Baker.

Many of the initial expenditures for a campaign, including lawn signs and postage for mailing literature, are some of the most costly. Anyone who has driven around town can see that Mr. Calaycay has won the lawn sign battle thus far.

Candidates typically make more expenditures in the month before the election, including newspaper ads and a final mailer just days before the election.

The Claremont City Clerk, for the first time in recent memory, has posted the campaign finance filings on the City's online archive. Kudos to City Clerk Lynne Pahner for having the documents up in such a timely manner.

Below, we've posted the filings in order of the money raised, from lowest to highest. There is one Form 460 shown for the Healy and Schroeder campaigns. There are two Form 460s listed for Calaycay, whose campaign started fundraising earlier than the other two candidates and so had to file a report for the 7/1/08 to 12/31/08 reporting period.

Click on the box in the upper right corner of each window to enlarge the documents. We'll hold off on any analysis at this juncture.

Larry Schroeder's
Campaign Finance Filing Form 460

Schroeder Pre Election 090120

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Other Periodicals & Report larry schroeder campaign filings

Bridget Healy's
Campaign Finance Filing Form 460

Healy Pre Election 090120

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Other Periodicals & Report bridget healy campaign filings

Corey Calaycay's
Campaign Finance Filing Form 460

Calaycay PreElection 090121

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Other Periodicals & Report campaing filing corey calycay

Corey Calaycay's
Campaign Finance Filing Form 460
for 7/1/08 to 12/31/08

Calaycay Semiannual Campaign Filing

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