Claremont to Kids: "Breathe This!"

Affordable Housing EIR

The Daily Bulletin's Will Bigham has a story about Claremont's affordable housing project at Base Line Rd. and Towne Ave. on the north side of the 210 Freeway.

The FC Blog also offered up some commentary on the project.

The project has been pushed (shoved) along by such Claremont dilettantes as former Police Commission Chair Helaine Goldwater and her friend Mayor Pro Tem Ellen Taylor, who seem to be saying, "Put it anywhere but in the Village, at any cost."

The costs are now becoming clear. The environmental impact report (EIR) for the project is now in. You can see it here on the city's website (see how easy that is?).


Sensitive Receptors

The most interesting section of the EIR is AIR QUALITY (Section 3.2). It turns out that for so-called "sensitive receptors" - consultant-speak for structures that house people who are especially sensitive to air pollution, mainly kids and the elderly - living continuously next to a freeway is a bad thing.

The EIR mentions the results of a ten-year study by USC School of Medicine that found that living within 500 meters of a freeway can significantly impair the development of children's lungs.

The report also cites a California Air Quality Board land-use handbook that says states that officials should "Avoid siting new sensitive land uses [like affordable housing projects] within 500 feet of a freeway." The project EIR also notes that the entire Base Line Rd. project falls within 500 feet of the 210 Freeway.

Page 3.2-20 of the EIR's Air Quality section tells us:

A growing body of scientific evidence shows that living or going to school near roadways with heavy traffic volumes is associated with a number adverse effects. These include increased respiratory symptoms, increased risk of heart and lung disease, and elevated mortality rates.

Okay, kids, you're going to have to take one for the Claremont 400. At least we're teaching self-sacrifice and team play.

The EIR goes on to list three possible mitigations that would allow the city to go forward with the project:

1. Requiring HVAC units with special filters.
   Question: What happens when the developer stops maintaining the filters?
   


2. Requiring dense plantings along the south-side of the project bordering the freeway.
   Question: How do the plantings stop air flowing over, around, and between the plants?
   


3. Requiring tenants to be given a legal notice informing them of the risks associated with the project.
   Observation: This seems to say, "Affordable housing folks, your kids get what they deserve, don't blame us."
   
   
   

The Claremont Solution

Pictured above:
Proposed city of Claremont mitigation absolving it of any legal or moral responsibility for lung damage to children living the the city's new affordable housing project. No word on whether or not the city has contracted with the legal department at tobacco company R. J. Reynolds for legal defense services.

* * *

As you might be thinking, there's really not much the city can do to seriously mitigate the problems they have with the site. And, as you might also be thinking, Claremont and the Claremont 400, remain as inflexible and uncreative their problem-solving as ever. You would be right on both counts.

Will Bigham's article reported:

Supporters of the project appeared poised to move forward despite the health concerns, citing several other residential projects adjacent to the freeway that have been recently approved by the City Council.

"We have a number of housing projects along the freeway, and this is not going to be any better or worse than any of the other housing developments," Mayor Peter Yao said.

"The EIR is to make us understand what areas where we can mitigate the negative impacts, but from my perspective it's not going to kill the project."

Mayor Yao seems to be saying the purpose of the EIR is not to identify significant impacts of the project but to find ways of getting around those impacts.

Fair enough. Only, let's not hear any more about what a kid-friendly town Claremont is. When Claremonters Against Strip Mining (CASM) and city staff were fighting Vulcan Materials' proposed gravel mining project in Northeast Claremont one of the things they claimed was that pollution would be damaging to kids' lungs.

And now it's okay or at least can be mitigated by decree. So goes the absurdist logic of Claremont.

* * *

The Base Line Rd. project EIR identifies a couple alternative sites in other parts of town that would not have the problems this site has, but the 400 refuses to budge, even in the face of their own EIR.

This is precisely why the EIR process, as utilized by the city of Claremont, is defunct. It's not about building the best project or identifying all the possible alternatives. It's about finding the legal loopholes through which to jam faulty projects pushed by a Claremont 400 incapable of a course correction (stay the course, stay the course).

It is no different for this project than it is for any other project in town. The 400 decides what it wants, usually before all the available information is at hand, then staff is charged with pushing that project through. And staff, including the city attorney, can be counted on to manipulate, twist, and ignore facts to get whatever result they want.

Pictured at right:
Mitigation proposed by Claremont city staff and Mayor Yao: Personal kiddie "Mr. Air" units. Very low-income kids to share units, hold breaths until their turn comes up.

The City Council Writes Us

A FAMILIAR TUNE

Our post from Wednesday was a riff on a theme we here at the Insider have written about several times. It's been our contention, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that the net effect of that social network known in local circles as the Claremont 400 has been the creation of an inflexible, counter-productive, regressive, intolerant system of local governance.

On the surface, things look swell, but look deeper and you will see a consistent pattern of missteps and misjudgments that in a non-dysfunctional community would result in a change in leadership, a change in direction.

Here, however, given the unique and an entrenched nature of the 400, when Claremont started down the road to a more responsive city council beginning 2001 in reaction to the fatal shooting by Claremont police of 18-year-old motorist Irvin Landrum, the 400 snapped into action, working tirelessly by spreading false rumors about critics of the local scene in an effort to undercut anyone who stood to threaten their control of City Hall.

The result has been that voices of critics like ourselves have been either been silenced or driven underground. The 400 and their main representatives on the Claremont City Council (Ellen Taylor, Linda Elderkin, and Sam Pedroza) refuse to acknowledge this past and current behavior on the part of the people who got them elected.


A BRIEF HISTORY OF PACS

The August 18th edition of the Claremont Courier carried a very good article (not available online) by Tony Krickl that explored the phenomena of local political action committees that really began in 2003 with Residents United for Claremont (RUC), a PAC organized to support the three city council incumbents in that year's municipal election.

RUC was organized by Claremont Human Services Commission Chair Valerie Martinez and received the support of many former councilmembers and commissioners, as well as one future councilmember: Sam Pedroza.

RUC was the precursor to the Preserve Claremont campaign two years later that attacked sitting Councilmember Jackie McHenry and then-candidate Corey Calaycay. The Krickl article noted:

Mr. Calaycay referred to a full-page advertisement in the COURIER in February 2005 featuring a letter written by a man whom Mr. Calaycay had never worked with that offered false information about his career and character. Paid for by Preserve Claremont, a political action committee active during the 2005 election, the ad was one of several that the group received criticism over for being negative and malicious.

Preserve Claremont included spokespersons Valerie Martinez (again), former Claremont Mayor Paul Held and Homer "Butch" Henderson, the former head pastor at the Claremont United Church of Christ and the recent chair of the city's Youth and Family Master Plan Steering Committee.


2007 - ALL ROADS LEAD TO CASM


What happened after that Preserve Claremont debacle? Was there a backlash against PACs? Hardly. In this year's campaign there were two active PACs. The Krickl article noted that the anonymous Claremont Progress group was created by two former Claremont residents, including a Newport Beach attorney who largely funded the groups $2,000 operating budget.

Claremont Progress sent out a pre-election mailer critical of Mayor Peter Yao and candidates Elderkin and Pedroza. The mailer endorsed McHenry and candidate Opanyi Nasiali.

The other group that was active in the 2007 election was Claremonters Against Strip Mining (CASM), which Krickl noted spent more than four times the amount Claremont Progress did - over $8,000 total. CASM was organized to fight the proposed Vulcan Materials Co. gravel and aggregate mining project in Northeast Claremont.

CASM and its president Mike Kunce, were largely a single issue PAC. However, the Preserve Claremont group wasted no time in trying to co-opt CASM in order to get two candidates, Elderkin and Pedroza elected. CASM ended up endorsing those two and also endorsed candidate Mike Maglio, whom the 400 knew could not win.

The strategy was to use Maglio to siphon off votes that might have gone to McHenry and Nasiali. That much was evident from the involvement of Pedroza supporter and Human Services Commissioner Ed Leavell in Maglio's campaign.

According to the Krickl article,

Several local political leaders and observers believe that the group was influenced by behind-the-scenes players who were seeking CASM's endorsement for their favored candidates.... This was done, they say, by feeding CASM's leadership questionable information and rumors about the prospect of mining in the city and certain candidates' stances on the issue.

In the run up to the election, CASM president, Mike Kunce, approached the COURIER with unverifiable information, claiming that the city council had voted in closed session to authorize negotiations with Vulcan Materials Company to allow strip mining....

Mr. Kunce's named former mayor and spokesman for Preserve Claremont, Paul Held, as his source on the information leaked from closed session, as well as "someone very close to the inner workings of city hall." If the statement is true, Mr. Kunce's claim could imply that a Brown Act violation occurred on the part of either council members or city staff for leaking information out of closed session. [Emphasis added.]

No outcry from the public on that last bit, so we can assume it's okay for the Claremont 400, without being anonymous but manipulating behind the scenes, to break the law and to spread false rumors in order to get Elderkin and Pedroza elected.


PEDROZA RESPONDS

Another thing we've observed repeatedly is the habit of the Claremont 400 to constantly erase the past, to refuse to acknowledge any error in judgment. When critics arise with valid points, the 400 will never address the facts of those arguments. They consciously avoid engaging on the issues. Instead, they attack the person speaking out. So, we ask, is it really surprising that things like anonymous blogs would arise?

We think that what frustrates the 400 the most about our humble efforts is the fact that they don't have anyone to attack, so they are left with having to deal with the information we provide - something they tend to be inept at responding to intelligently.

A case in point. We received an email from Councilmember Sam Pedroza in response to our posting from Wednesday. Did Pedroza address the concerns we raised? Did he use his skills in debate and argument to refute our points of contention? We'll let Sam speak for himself:

Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:24:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: "sam" spedroza1@verizon.net
To: claremontbuzz@yahoo.com
Subject: Claremont Insider : Why are We Here?

sam has sent you a link to a blog:

weak response, if you are just providing another view then why hide... just another coward.

Blog: Claremont Insider Post: Why are We Here? Link: http://claremontca.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-are-we-here.html

We suppose cowardice takes many forms. The worst, we feel, is that of the weak, insecure man placed in a position of power and who allows himself to manipulated, who refuses to use his position to speak out against serious things like possible Brown Act violations and the leaking of information from closed session city council meetings in order to influence elections. Cowardice need not be limited to anonymity; often it is masked in respectability.

City of Angles

Northeast Claremont has changed drastically in the past 20 years, a period coinciding with the regime of former City Manager Glenn Southard, whose planning philosophies and "vision" (to use a Claremont 400 term) are embodied in the residential developments between Mills Ave. and Padua Ave. and north of Pomello.

The other northeast development that Southard managed to avoid dealing with is the ongoing attempt by Vulcan Materials Co. to mine aggregate in the San Antonio Spreading Ground area below the San Antonio Dam.

The Spreading Grounds (seen in photo at right) is owned by a non-profit corporation called the Pomona Valley Protective Association (PVPA). PVPA was founded almost 100 years ago and was created to protect the water rights for users in La Verne, Pomona, Upland and Claremont.

The Golden State Water Co. controls nearly 50-percent of the PVPA. Remember them? Golden State Water also supplies Claremont's water, and the city has been looking at buying out Golden State to form a municipal water utility. The price? Over $100 million. Wheels within wheels.

The Vulcan mining proposal was a big election issue, pushed by an anti-mining group called Citizens Against Strip Mining (CASM). CASM has pretty much disappeared since the election after being manipulated by the Claremont 400 into endorsing Linda Elderkin, Sam Pedroza, and Mike Maglio in the municipal election last March. (Hey, CASM, what happened to the two of you?)

Mining, though, hasn't gone away, and this City Council won't be able to avoid dealing with it and the litigation Vulcan has thrown at the city in order to exercise the mining rights they lease from PVPA.

PVPA, in the meantime, is working on a deal to sell about 400 acres of the spreading grounds' 560 acres of open space. Will Bigham in last Sunday's Daily Bulletin had an article about a new report commissioned by PVPA that found that developing the 400 acres in question would not affect the spreading grounds' ability to collect runoff to recharge local groundwater basins.

Tony Krickl in the Claremont Courier also had an article on the subject. For more information on the background of this issue, check out the CASM website.

The land is still zoned by the City of Claremont as open space, so any proposal for housing or mining would have to be approved by the city. Seems like there's a lot of angles to work here.

Luckily, we have the Claremont 400 to guide us. Of course, these are the same geniuses who leased away Claremont's water rights in 1998 and who signed off on our current water rate structure - something that has allowed Golden State Water to justify charging Claremont much higher water rates than its neighboring towns. The minutes for that 1998 Council meeting noted that then-Councilmember Diann Ring was all for the water deal:

Councilmember Ring thought the proposal was historic and that many such agreements take twenty years to final[ize]. Mayor Smith agreed and thought it set a good tone for the future.

[City Council Minutes Minutes of 5/26/98 Agenda Item #17]

Not exactly a record to inspire confidence.

Mining theTruth

Frank Schiavone has an opinion piece in today's Daily Bulletin in which he delves into the problems facing local open space proponents. Claremont's issues with Vulcan Materials Co. get a mention.

Schiavone notes the fact that the land Vulcan wants to mine in Northeast Claremont is a scarce type of habitat called Riversidean Alluvial Fan Sage Scrub (RAFSS). For more information on this, see the Claremonters Against Strip Mining (CASM) site.

Schiavone also points out the competing interests involved in land use issues: builders, state agencies, local agencies, citizen groups. He says, "A psychologist might diagnose the state with multiple personality disorders."

He's right, but Schiavone also ignores Claremont's two-facedness in the mining issue. Call it Pedroza Syndrome. One the one hand, the city has argued that some of the RAFSS bordering the proposed mining (the Padua Sports Park site) has no value and should be developed (contrary to a California Dept. of Fish & Game opinion). On the other hand, the same Planning Dept. is arguing that RAFSS is important, so Vulcan shouldn't touch the land.

Similarly, the city's planners have argued against the mining saying in the past that the area was zoned as open space and that it would adversely affect residents nearby. Yet, when the Stone Canyon Preserve's 125 houses went in a couple years ago, the city (under then-City Manager Glenn Southard) allowed developer Centex Homes to run an aggregate mining operation on-site north of Mt. Baldy Rd.

You think Vulcan and their attorneys haven't noticed either of these contradictions? Just another case of the Claremont two-step catching up with them. Let's hope Vulcan doesn't bury the city.

Hypocrites-R-Them

For some reason, the hypocrisy and absurdity of Claremont 400 politics has us musing about the duality of human nature.

Anybody remember back during the March 2007 election when the Claremont Democratic Club endorsed Sam Pedroza and Linda Elderkin for City Council? There was a bit of complaining, some by local Democrats who didn't support either of the endorsees. Those people argued that it was a non-partisan election and that the Democratic Club had no business endorsing anybody.

You may recall Bob Gerecke, the club's president, writing a letter to the Claremont Courier defending the club's endorsements. Gerecke's confused and emotional screed seemed to argue that if local Democrats didn't stand behind their candidates, first the city, then the state, then the nation would be overrun by Republicans. Democratic voters, Gerecke believed, have a duty to their party to vote for Democrats--in particular the two he wanted you to support.

Of course, Gerecke conveniently ignored independent Jackie McHenry, who was the only councilmember to take positions on a number of city issues that mirrored what one would expect the national Democratic Party to favor: the armed forces banners (against); sustainable building--well before Mayor Peter Yao took the issue up (for), the city's proposed homeless ordinance--since pulled because of a court ruling that a similar statute was unconstitutional (against). Even Councilmembers Ellen Taylor and Sandy Baldonado, both registered Democrats, had worse records than McHenry on those issues.

At the time of the election, we believed that Gerecke's hysterical portrayal of Claremont as a potential springboard to higher state and national offices by Republicans was just a power play by Gerecke and his Claremont 400 friends. They just wanted to get endorsements for their candidates. They didn't care about the truth of those endorsement arguments.

For instance, Democrat Pedroza also got an endorsement and support from a person named Mike Kunce, whose organization Claremonters Against Strip Mining was fighting the proposed Vulcan Mining Co. gravel mine. Yet, we noted that Kunce also was a $1,000 donor to an anti-immigrant movement called the California Border Patrol Initiative in 2005. Hardly a Democratic position, and a strangely ironic source of support for Pedroza, who is a Latino.

So, the signs were there early. Pedroza isn't the tow-the-party-line Democrat Gerecke would have you believe. Was Gerecke lying or just stupidly naive?

And Pedroza does have a history of talking out of both sides of his mouth, as he did during the past year. In August, 2006, Pedroza argued against the affordable housing project at Baseline Rd. and Towne Ave. Then, after a good talking to by the Helaine Goldwater arm of the Claremont 400, he switched positions, arguing in October, 2006, in favor of the project.

We bring all this up because of a Republican fundraiser invitation that has been circulating around town. The occasion was an April 26th Claremont event for California Assemblyman Anthony Adams, who is a Republican. There were a number of local Republicans listed as sponsors for the event, but one name caught our eyes: "Councilman Sam Pedroza!"

So here you have Pedroza, the beneficiary of the Claremont Democratic Club's endorsement, using his new official title to help raise money for our area's Republican assemblyman's campaign war chest. Bob Gerecke's silly claim that our local politics are partisan and that Republicans could benefit from the March Claremont election turns out to be not-so-silly after all. Only, he got it completely backwards--it's Gerecke's Democrat endorsee who's out to help Gerecke's Republican opponents.

Silly man! As Sam Pedroza could explain to you, life is so much easier when you don't have to be accountable for your positions.

What can you say? It's Claremont, folks.

Careful--She Bites!

A reader writes to say that Claremont City Councilmember Ellen Taylor's at it again (so much for "civility). Of course, because it's Ellen, the Claremont 400 double standard applies, so no worries, Ellen, slap away! Hey, we don't make the news, we just report it. Also, Vulcan Mining (CASM's nemesis) makes a cameo:

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:31:09 -0700
Subject: April 24th Claremont City Council Meeting
To: "claremont buzz"

Deja Vu all over again at the Claremont City Council on Tuesday, April 24th.

According to council watchers

present at the meeting (you can see a taped broadcast of this event on Monday, April 30th at 8pm on the local cable station) when the discussion about approving the recommendations made by the Human Services Commission for distribution of CBO (Community Based Organization) money from the city's general fund came around, Councilmember (oops----Mayor Pro Tem) Ellen Taylor wanted to give Shoes That Fit , a local non- profit that provides shoes and clothes and school supplies for needy children, $1500 more than the Commission recommended.

This is the same thing that former Councilmember Sandy Baldonado did the previous year for a few of her favorite charities when CBO funding recommendations were presented to the council. Except that it worked for Baldonado with Mayor Peter Yao and Councilmember Taylor supporting her recommendation. Calaycay and McHenry voted no, for various reasons I hear, but perhaps it occurred to them, as it evidently did to some of the council watchers at the April 24th, 2007 replay of the 2006 event, that if councilmembers want to give away even more of the taxpayer money to charitable groups than their Commission recommended, perhaps they themselves should pony up the extra money.

This time around, after initially saying that perhaps the council should give an extra $5000 and send it back to the Human Services Commission to make further
recommendations for distribution, Yao voted against the additional $1500. Calaycay, now taking on the questioning role McHenry used to play (albeit a softer and gentler version) opined that all the organizations recommended for funding were worthy of council support and it would not be fair to give additional money to just one group no matter how deserving. Evidently Elderkin and Pedroza felt similarly and the vote was 4-1 with Taylor dissenting. Her parting shot to the council after the vote came in, and heard by at least half the people in the council chambers (if you view the tape , see if you can hear it) was "Heartless.....". Some watchers heard "people" as the second word, some heard "council" but everyone heard "heartless".

Some watchers suggested that she could take some the $914 per month she gets from the city for deferred compensation and give that to Shoes That Fit, and , in fact, watchers tell me that Calaycay and Pedroza pledged to give their own money to the group. Evidently Taylor was not pleased with the vote and let her chagrin show and poor Pedroza , her seatmate to her right, took the brunt of it. Perhaps Sam should reconsider the seating arrangement and switch with Calaycay as they were seated in the initial meeting of the new council?

Speaking of Shoes That Fit , it is a very deserving outfit whose Executive Director is Roni Lomeli ( the wife of LaVerne City Manager Marty Lomeli and who are both Claremont residents), and whose Secretary/Treasurer is J. Michael Fay (who is not a resident of Claremont but manages to act as Treasurer for Claremont non-profits and local Candidates ,Paul Held among other luminaries) . In their Fall 2006 newsletter ,on the front page no less, is a glowing report of the wonderful contributions that Vulcan Materials has made to the organization. The newsletter reports that Vulcan "is one of Shoes That Fit's fastest growing corporate donors. Not only has Vulcan generously supported Shoes That Fit with donations from their foundation, but they have helped Shoes That Fit expand into our 33rd state with their new chapter in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and they have chapters in Upland, San Bernardino and Azusa, California." Wow! Maybe that is one reason Forbes Magazine voted Vulcan as the number one business in social responsibility in the nation (perhaps that was in their field, but check it out on the Forbes website, forbes.com). The Vulcan employees seem to love the partnership also. This is also from the Fall 2006 Shoes That Fit newsletter" "It's a great feeling to be able to help these kids," says Richard Lopez, assistant plant manager in Upland, CA. "This industry attracts a lot of rough and ragged type guys. But Shoes That Fit has really softened these guys up." " And yet another testimonial from the Upland plant " " Everyone participates," says Richard Lopez. "It is a really heart-warming experience. Some of the folks here got teary-eyed reading the letters from the kids we helped." " Wonder what CASM (Claremonters Against Strip Mining) thinks of this view of Vulcan?

If any of you readers of this blog would like to find out more about Shoes That Fit, you can go to their website, www.shoesthatfit.org, and if you contribute money, maybe you can tell the city council contact@ci.claremont.ca.us that you have made a contribution of private funds to support Shoes That Fit. Even better, you can make a contribution in the name of Ellen Taylor since she seems to short on both cash and civility.

Vulcan and Other News

For what it's worth, Foothill Cities has noted that Vulcan Materials Co., the Alabama-based aggregate mining company that wants to mine on 500-plus acres in Northeast Claremont, has been named one of the most admired building materials companies in America by Fortune.

Fortune gave Vulcan a top score for "social responsibility." So, it's possible that in court arguments and in arguments before the state's Mining and Geology Board, Vulcan might have some ready-made answers to Claremont's charges that the Vulcan proposal is environmentally irresponsible.

Claremonters Against Strip Mining (CASM) may be sweating a bit.

_______________________

A nod to our friends at Eye Level Pasadena, who've linked to us, and who write of interesting places and events in the City of Roses.

_______________________

The Los Angeles Times today had a Column One article on blogging. Power to the people!

Reason vs. Emotion

"The heart has its reasons that reason knows not of."
--BLAISE PASCAL


The Claremont Courier isn't quite dead, as this editorial from Wednesday's edition shows:

(Published in the Claremont Courier, 3/14/2007)

My Side of the Line

By Rebecca JamesCourie
Managing
Editor

[NOTE: We have removed the body of the text because, as a reader has pointed out, the material is copyrighted, and we would need the Courier's and JamesCourie's permission to post it in its entirety. Unfortunately, the Courier does not post its editorial material, so readers will have to find a hard copy of the 3/14/07 Courier to read the piece.

The editorial did cite three campaign issues that winning candidates Linda Elderkin, Sam Pedroza and Peter Yao focused on: affordable housing, the Vulcan gravel mining proposal and the Padua Sports Park project. JamesCourie pointed out that in all three of these issues, the winning candidates made promises to emotionally-driven voters--promises that the editor thought might be hard to keep.]
_______________________

The Claremont 400, with its blood up, will be calling a pecking party for Ms. JamesCourie after this piece.

Carnac the Magnificent

Well, we don't want to gloat, but we called it. Linda Elderkin's piece in today's Bulletin did everything we predicted in our last posting and more. First, here's Elderkin's response to the Trozpek piece on the endorsements by Claremonters Against Strip Mining:

There is no conflict of interest

Linda Elderkin, Guest Columnist Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Article Launched:02/21/2007 12:37:54 PM PST

It was very disappointing to read such a factually inaccurate account of my supposed conflict of interest with the mining question in Claremont (Ludd A. Trozpek's guest column, Feb. 20). It was even more disappointing to read such a presentation of my character.

This comes just before the City Council election in Claremont where all candidates have stressed the need for cooperation and openness. It would have seemed more appropriate to check facts first. And indeed Mr. Trozpek's claim that I will not be able to vote on the mining issue is simply incorrect.

Had it occurred to me that there might be a conflict interest with my husband's employment, I would have looked into the matter long ago. When Mr. Trozpek spoke to me after the candidates meeting last week, I told him that. I did comment then on several possible scenarios as I made my first efforts to think about this potential conflict. He does refer to some of these comments, but alas, not in their context.

I also said to him repeatedly that I would be checking the facts on the situation. His comment that I should know the facts without the "... need to consult her advisers or the city attorney" makes it quite clear that he was very aware of my intent to do just that. Obviously, he did not wish to wait for any clarification or fact check.

I did need help in understanding the possibilities and I pursued them the very next day. I have now received the needed information. My husband does of course work for Pomona College. The college does indeed own a little over 1 percent of the nonprofit Pomona Valley Protective Association. The college has no seat on the board with such small holdings.

However, it is important to me to share with readers the response of the city attorney in Claremont concerning areas of possible conflict:

I have no conflict and can vote on General plan and zoning changes.

I do not have a conflict of interest with the Vulcan mining application to Claremont.

If the PVPA land is sold to developers, they will become the applicants so I could also vote on the possible housing development.

Should any other possible PVPA conflicts emerge, they will depend upon the extent of the financial impact on Pomona College (amounts set by law).

This clarification will be helpful to our community and we appreciate receiving it.
I love our community. I am running for the City Council to serve it well. The more I learn about Claremont, the more I find there is to learn. I have not intentionally deceived anyone about anything, and in this case I would really have appreciated the opportunity to have the facts clear before having such destructive allegations published. I can only hope that it was not the intent of the writer to get the allegations out quickly, before the facts could stand in the way.

In the spirit of his guest column, it might be interesting to ask Mr. Trozpek why it was taglined "a resident of Claremont.'' He does not vote or live in the city of Claremont, but in the unincorporated area of Los Angeles County that adjoins Claremont. A minor clarification, but really, why make it look otherwise?

Linda Elderkin is a candidate for Claremont City Council.

Meow! Linda sure bit on the unincorporated county bit, just as we predicted. Wonder how she feels about non-resident, non-voter J. Michael Fay's position as Honorary Chair of Elderkin's running mate Sam Pedroza's campaign? Fay has also served on past election committees as well. Again, what's a little hypocrisy between friends?

Where to begin....

We noticed several flaws in Elderkin's defense of her conflict (or appearance of conflict):

1. Elderkin claims to value a process. How does her participation in a decision affecting her husband's employer square with the "pristine process" she calls for, given that there is either an actual conflict or the appearance of a conflict?
   
   
2. City Attorney Sonia Carvalho makes the "no conflict" call on General Plan and zoning; that addresses a charge that was not made. Trozpek pointed out that the Elderkin conflict had to do with the land sale to Allied.
   
   
3. The City Attorney's supposed advice to Elderkin seems to conflict with prior advice she gave to former council member Llewellyn Miller. How does this square with the minutes of July 10, 2001 City Council meeting, page 3: "City Attorney Carvalho explained that council member Miller will recuse himself from consideration of this matter as his wife is a professor of Pomona College and is a source of income to him which creates a conflict of interest. Councilmember Miller left the meeting."
   
   That conflict involved a liquor license of Amine Corporation (dba Sagehen Cafe), a lessee to Pomona College as we found out. The amounts with PVPA are hundreds or thousands of times greater than the amounts of the liquor license benefits. So even though Pomona College's interest is 1.25%, approximately, it is 1.25% of a much larger number--likely upwards of $174 million or more (based on the sale of 580 undeveloped acres at an estimated $300,000 per acre). PVPA is a shell in this case that does not inoculate Pomona College from benefit or the conflict of interest issues.
   
   That measly 1.25% that Elderkin makes light of in her piece amounts to a potential $2.17 million windfall for Pomona College, the employer of Elderkin's husband. We're not sure whats more troublesome--Elderkin's inability to acknowledge the appearance of a conflict that would could open the city up to litigation, or Elderkin's bad math (her husband's a math professor after all).
   
   
4. There is probably a real conflict; certainly the appearance of a conflict. Again, Elderkin avoided addressing the land sale issue in her claims of no conflict. Is it possible she was told that there was a conflict regarding the land sale and just chose not to mention that fact? Hmmm.....
   
   

Finally, we hate to point it out, but Elderkin got quite a deal from the City Attorney, whose hourly rate must be over $250. Elderkin seems to have gotten free legal advice (on the city's dime?). We suppose this should be listed as an in-kind donation on Elderkin's reporting forms, not that she will report it. And, of course, it is her city, not yours.

Well, just another example of the "400" and the Preserve Claremonsters using city staff as their own private servants. To them, city staff and city resources are just another lever of power to pull. And you! Hands Off!

(Has anyone else noticed how the Claremonsters are running Elderkin and Pedroza as if they were an incumbents? At least Pedroza has a track record of mismanagement and mangled syntax on a commission, but Elderkin? She herself said she didn't know she was running until October--she wasn't the 'Monsters' first choice, apparently.)

Daily Bulletin Coverage

The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin has become an interesting, lively paper. The Bulletin's endorsements of Claremont candidates on 2/16/2007 was a first.

The endorsements acknowledged that there is an "old guard" and a "new guard" in Claremont. In endorsing Nasiali, Pedroza, and Yao, they also identified Sam Pedroza as "old guard" and Opanyi Nasiali and Jackie McHenry as "new guard." Peter Yao, the other incumbent besides McHenry, is listed as an independent.

Yao is presented as a swing vote on many issues, and his Honor the Mayor has been making the most of that tag in his campaigning. Too bad it isn't true. Yao quite a while ago named Helaine Goldwater, candidate Linda Elderkin's campaign manager, as one of the key people he needed support from if he was going to run for re-election.

Yao, in seeking Madame Goldwater's support, went along with many things the "400" wanted, among those: the street banners for Iraq troops, the flawed affordable housing development project on Baseline Rd. (something that may not pass the environmental impact report muster), Padua Sports Park--a $10 million+ boondoggle that even sports groups say won't meet their need for lighted fields, the installation of Lt. Paul Cooper as interim police chief--effectively giving Cooper a heads up on any other candidates, and allowing Cooper to install his cronies as subordinates (Cooper is a Goldwater favorite).

Of course, Yao ignores things like Cooper's co-authorship of the city 1999 staff report (pull up the PDF file and scroll down to Item M, Threat Assessment) that recommended stationing a psychologist or social worker at council meetings to evaluate the potential threats of people speaking at public comment. The policy was wisely tabled and never implemented.

Yao's submitting to the will of the "400" may or may not have paid off. As noted, Goldwater is chairing another candidate's campaign. Our thinking is that the "400" will come to support Yao late in the race--they want him to be thankful for saving his bacon should he be re-elected.

Yao is a smart guy trying to please, but his pleasing has been pretty one-sided. He takes credit for many of the changes in Claremont, but really what has he done? Ex-city manager Glenn Southard didn't withdraw his employee-of-the-year awards for the two police in the Landrum shooting because of Yao's leadership, and it took two more years--the weekend before Corey Calaycay was elected to the council in 2005--for Southard to step down and take a job in Indio. Yao didn't speak up in a leadership role during the whole Preserve Claremont fiasco in that same election.

Worse, Yao pushed the Parks and Pasture Assessment District in 2006, saying that that a bond would never get the 67% of the vote needed to pass. The assessment lost with only 44% of the vote, and the bond passed with 71%. In the aftermath, Yao claimed that the people had spoken, Johnson's Pasture was saved and the means of paying for the pasture didn't really matter. Sort of misses the point, doesn't it Mr. Mayor?

Yao's a nice guy, a smart guy, who has very little political sense. He is in the Llewellyn Miller mold in that sense, and both were taken advantage of by the "400" once they got into office. Used and abused, then discarded.

__________________________

The Bulletin's Letters section has also gotten more lively:

Claremont should re-elect McHenry I strongly agree with you that Claremont has more qualified candidates than open seats for the upcoming City Council election. But I disagree with your exclusion of Jackie McHenry on your endorsed list.

For the last four years, my family has attempted a straightforward subdivision and building project in Claremont made infinitely more difficult, delayed, and costly by bad decisions from City Hall. Jackie McHenry and Corey Calaycay were the only City Council members to even listen to our concerns.

That we need another council member aligned with the "old guard" makes no sense to me. The city government is supposed to work for the people, not the other way around. I believe that Jackie McHenry knows this.

CATHY YEAGER, Claremont

McHenry takes a lot of heat for being "negative" and "abrasive". Look at what she faces: an entrenched group of snobs who believe they own the town. Remember Diann Ring's call "to get back our town." Remember the Preserve Claremont campaign that worked in concert with Southard and his senior staff members to try to censure McHenry in 2005 (they failed and lost that election). The "400" and Preserve Claremont never believed in McHenry's legitimacy, and they have sought to attack and undermine her since her election in 2003. Their attacks have been unrelenting in labeling her has "negative". That's one of Diann Ring's and Judy Wright's talking points.

So how would you come off in McHenry's place? All those problems that happened in Claremont prior to McHenry's election have disappeared. Instead of winning a Black Hole Award for secrecy and closed government, Claremont was lauded for its openness in government. The "negativity" McHenry is accused of is another example of the "400" blaming the victim they have attacked with let up for four years.

Endorsements

We've already spotlighted the odd, inexplicable endorsements by Claremonters Against Strip Mining (CASM). Now onto the Claremont Democratic Club. They endorsed Sam Pedroza and Linda Elderkin. Why? For the same reasons as CASM endorsements. The Claremont 400 wants Pedroza and Elderkin pushed, and they want votes taken away from the other candidates.

Remember: the president of the Claremont Democratic Club is Bob Gerecke. Gerecke's wife Katie was the former co-president of the Claremont League of Women Voters, until she was suspended for unknown reasons (word is she took partisan stances on some issues--a League no-no).

The irony of the Democratic Club endorsement is that Sam Pedroza is also taking support from CASM president Michael Kunce, the CEO of Armstrong Garden Centers. Kunce is a registered Republican and in July 2005 donated $1,000 to an organization called the California Border Police Initiative. That organization was dedicated to sealing off California's border with Mexico by creating a state border patrol unit.

Kunce's support of this anti-immigrant group is ironic because his industry, the gardening and landscaping business, is so incredibly dependent on immigrant labor, both legal and illegal immigration. Kunce's backing is even more ironic since Pedroza is of Hispanic descent. Of course, this sort of ironic hypocrisy is nothing new in Claremont.

But, remember, this is Claremont--land of the inconsistent, the hypocritical, the goofy!

Here's a link to the 2005 Kunce donation (scroll down to 7/25/05): ElectionTrack.

And here is a link to the organization itself: http://www.calborderpolice.com/.

Back Online - Election Season

Yes, we're back after a much, much too long hiatus from still zany, still silly Claremont.

Folks, it officially crazy season in Claremont--Election Time! That moment that comes every two years in which the goofy, so-called Claremont 400 (Paul Held, Valerie Martinez, Diann Ring, Helaine Goldwater, Randy Prout, Al Leiga, Patrick Sullivan, Judy Wright, Sue Keith, Jeanne Hamilton, Michael Fay, et. al.) get their Friday night dinner group together to campaign for their typically inane candidates.

This time up, the Claremont 400 has nominated Sam Pedroza and Linda Elderkin to be their candidates. If elected, the two will join Ellen "The Slapper" Taylor to form a group of three to control the five-member city council.

Pedroza, for those who haven't followed city politics, is a man who has never met a policy position he didn't like, depending on who his audience is. Pedroza has taken alternating positions on: the Baseline Rd. affordable housing project (first opposing, then supporting it); and Padua Sports Park (pushing for it, then lobbying for putting a sports complex in the gravel pit at Baseline and Monte Vista).

Pedroza has also never met a tax he didn't like. As chair of the Claremont Community Services Commission, he pushed to have the city's Landscape and Lighting District (LLD) brought before his commission each year for review. In 2006, Pedroza voted for a larger increase to the LLD (6.48%) than the city council eventually voted for (4.67%).

Pedroza also backed last year's failed Parks and Pasture Assessment District to pay for the purchase of Johnson's Pasture and to fund park maintenance in town. Pedroza was on the Parks and Pasture Steering Committee and along with other people like Al Leiga, Diann Ring, and Judy Wright, hijacked the Claremont Wildlands Conservancy for the Parks and Pasture issue. That assessment failed 56% to 44%.

After last year's assessment failed, all these people, including Pedroza, pulled a disappearing act, refusing to help work on the Measure S bond for Johnson's Pasture that ended up passing 71% to 29%. Pedroza, ever the opportunist, had his name put on the Measure S steering committee, but those who worked on the issue say that Pedroza showed up for very few meetings and was mostly missing in action, other than for a couple photo ops--a typical Pedroza move.

Linda Elderkin, the other Claremont 400 candidate, is another in a long line of Claremont League of Women Voter dilettantes. Elderkin is much in the mold of Sandy Baldonado and Ellen Taylor, both of whom have bothered even their own supporters by their negative, no mean, behavior while in office. Recall that after the Parks and Pasture assessment lost, Baldonado was quoted in the papers as saying that Claremont did not deserve her services (yes!). And Taylor told Claremont Courier reporter Will Bigham to shut up when he questioned Taylor about the $10,000 per year retirement benefit she is taking (Taylor and Peter Yao are the only ones of the five current council members to take the council benefits--Yao's mostly in the form of health insurance).

So voters shouldn't be surprised if Elderkin follows in the footsteps of Baldonado and Taylor if she elected (i.e., turns a deaf ear to the public; blindly follows what her handlers tell her; must get the last word in to show how much she knows about anything). Listen to Linda at one of her coffees, and you can probably guess why the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin didn't endorse her--she's a know-it-all. Elderkin was another who backed the Parks and Pasture assessment and latched on to the Measure S campaign when she was deciding to run for office.

Elderkin has been endorsed by Claremonters Against Strip Mining--a group oppposed to the Vulcan Materials Co. proposal to mine aggregate in northeast Claremont. She's an odd choice because her husband Rick works as a math professor at Pomona College, which a part-owner of the land Vulcan wants to mine. If elected, Elderkin would have a conflict of interest that would almost certainly force her to abstain from any discussion or vote on the mining issue.

CASM's odd choices for endorsement--Elderkin, Pedroza and Mike Maglio--don't seem so odd when one remembers the discredited Preserve Claremont smear campaign from 2005. Recall in that one, Preserve Claremont, through Paul Held, got the CASM people all worked up with false rumors that then-candidate Corey Calaycay was taking money from mining interests. To no one's surprise, CASM appears to be spreading similar false gossip this time around.

And why did CASM endorse Mike Maglio? Because he splits the opposition vote. The Claremont 400 and the Preserve Claremonters (who are trying to take a much lower profile in this election) have been taking turns pumping Maglio up. Poor goof, they've got him thinking he actually has a chance. Anyone who's heard Maglio speak knows that this is a guy who seems to be running on a lark. Maglio himself has pretty much said in several candidate forums that he's learning on the fly. Voter records show that Maglio hasn't voted in the last three city council races, he hasn't ever served on a city commission, and he has only attended one city council meeting--EVER! Maglio has consistently displayed an ignorance of the issues and has changed positions of such things as the gravel mining land--housing development there good (prevents mining, generates development fees) and housing development bad (we want open space).