Spelling Bee Today

Besides meeting the Claremont City Council at the Farmers' Market today or attending the Japan Day fundraiser at the Claremont Colleges this afternoon, you can also check out the 6th Annual Friends of the Claremont Library Spelling Bee at Taylor Hall in Claremont's Cahuilla Park.

The Bee begins at 2pm, and there will be plenty of familiar faces on hand. The Friends of the Library have a new website with details about the event, as well as photo albums from years past. We borrowed a couple, courtesy of our friends The Friends:

Money to Burn

A reader just made this inquiry:

Friday Night Lights

DATE: Fri, September 3, 2010 9:23:53 PM
FROM: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
TO: Claremont Buzz

We were down at he skate park tonight (which was fairly crowded). Took this photo from the parking lot behind Taylor Hall. Is this the city or school district that can afford to keep the lights on for 4 unused fields??


We think it's the City. Readers?

CUSD, Claremont City Council Meet Tonight - 6PM (UPDATED)

The Claremont City Council and the Claremont Unified School District are teaming up (always a scary thought) for their yearly joint meeting tonight in CUSD's Richard S. Kirkendall Center Board Room at 170 W. San Jose Ave. The meeting begins at 6pm.

On the agenda tonight are:

• An update of the Youth Master Plan for 2008-09.
  
  
• An agreement between the City and school district for the City to hand over to CUSD the management of the two softball and one baseball fields at Cahuilla Park.
  
  
• A report on the proposed RV/boat storage facility at CUSD's property at 2080 N. Mountain Ave.
  
  The report lists a couple potential snags in the process. One is the City's requirement for a 24-hour security presence. CUSD wants the City to waive this requirement. This is a cost-saving measure for the district, though it tends send the message, "Thieves get your free flat screen TVs and stereos here," not to mention the attraction for criminals looking for scrap copper wire and piping to sell. Private security? Isn't that what the Claremont PD is for?
  
  
• A demonstration of Claremont.connect.com, a City-CUSD joint project to be run by the Committee on Youth and Family. The website will be a one-stop shop for residents looking for information about local programs and services.
  
  A company called Idealistics worked on the web design. The startup costs were $20,000, of which the City and CUSD each contributed $4,000. The committee raised the other $12,000 through sponsorships.
  
  The ongoing costs will be $12,500 a year, with $4,250 each coming from the City and the school district. Sponsorships will pay the remaining $4,000. Idealistics will maintain and update the site.
  
  Out of curiosity, we looked into Idealistics. They don't have an extensive C.V. posted on their website. They did work with United Way of Greater Los Angeles and with the City of Pomona on similar websites. But you'd think the City and school district could set something like this up on their own. Why pick Idealistics?
  
  The company's website reveals that among its advisors is one Dick Guthrie, Claremont's former director of Human Services and a consultant on the City's Youth Master Plan. We suppose it's another case of Claremont taking care of its own. No conflict of interest there.
  
  Let's hope they update Claremont.connect.com more frequently than their own blog, which has had one post this year at the end of March and 22 total posts in 2008. Also, we trust they'll proof the City's site a little better than their own. The Idealistics Community Resources page had a subheading called "Asses [sic] Community Needs."
  
  Why exactly do we need them?
  
  UPDATED, May 12, 11:35am - Looks like Idealistics finally got around to correcting that typo after 24 hrs. They're staying right on top of things!
  

Unretouched!
(Except for editorial sad face and arrow.)

Bring Your Balls!

We are not making this up.

The back pages of the Inland Empire Weekly are always good to educate the person and to stimulate the...brain cells. Ads abound for offerings from the "Medical Marijuana Patient Center" in Riverside to "Madison Burbank Medical Center Inc. Medical Cannabis May Help!"on Indian Hill and San Jose to "Sassy Cassee at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club: Little 2'9" " in Redlands. But this ad, for "Full Contact Softball Sunday at Cahuilla Park" in Claremont especially caught our eye:

click image to enlarge

Wow! We knew Jeff Porter and Mercy Santoro in the Claremont Human Services Department were developing new and innovative programs for Claremont kids, but we'd never seen anything like this. We are fortunate that the current city council is working so hard to light up every park in Claremont so that your neighborhood, too, can have Full Contact Softball from noon to 3 a.m. (so reads the ad) on a warm summer afternoon and evening, and night. Don't forget the post-game show!

Be sure to make your plans: Cahuilla Park, corner of Indian Hill and Scripps, just north of the high school, Sunday at noon for some real infield action. Bring the Kids! The Insider will definitely be there!

Looks to us like the Claremont Fastpitch girls are growing up.

[The above ad was scanned from page 50 of the July 10-July 16, 2008 number of the Inland Empire Weekly, available on the rack outside the Home Kitchen Cafe on Foothill between Towne and Garey. (We have seen racks at Heroes, Raku, The Press, and Rhino in Claremont.) The ad is on the same opening as ads for "Red Panties: Come On In Your Fun Shop", the "Pimp 'N Ho Party", the "Pole Princess Contest", "Looking for a hot date? Free to Try", and of course that amazon of small proportions, the above-mentioned Sassy Cassee. Oh. We almost forgot. "Every Wednesday the 10 min Teaser in the VIP room $50". Notwithstanding our usual practice of taking great liberties, we made no changes to the ad other than to slightly increase the contrast for better readability.]