Dept. of Freudian Slips

or
INSIDERS WHO LIVE IN GLASS HOUSES...

We received a number of responses to yesterday's post on the campaign shenanigans of Rudy Mann and Zephyr Tate-Mann. Our minds must have been on the proposed changes in the dog-walking rules at Padua Park when we were composing Friday's bit.

From the mailbag (or dootiebag, as the case may be):

DATE: Fri, February 11, 2011 10:36:00 AM
SUBJECT: Don't be The Courier
TO: Claremont Buzz

Hi Buzz -

You’ll probably want to edit today’s post (or at least clarify what the Manns are actually doing while they walk):

We hear, but haven't been able to confirm, that the Manns and company will be out walking in two sh*ts from 10:30am to 12:30pm and 1:30pm to 3:30pm, so keep your eyes peeled.

* * * * *

DATE: Fri, February 11, 2011 10:32:53 AM
SUBJECT: Freudian Slip or Precision in Reporting?
TO: Claremont Buzz

For local politics I like the Insider. You usually hit the nail on the head. But I almost spilled my coffee when I read the following quote:

"We hear, but haven't been able to confirm, that the Manns and company will be out walking in two sh*ts from 10:30am to 12:30pm..."

I would like to see that, although I probably would hold my nose. Keep up the good work.

And there were a few more along the same lines.

All we can say is, "Guilty as charged." Forgive the flub and thanks, readers, for pointing out the slip. The Courier, unlike the Insider, is a professional operation, so we strongly doubt that such gross errors (sorry) ever make it to their newsstands.

We at the Insider aren't quite in the same league as Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the English royal printers who were responsible for the so-called Wicked Bible. Ah, but a blogger's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a Blogspot for?

* * * * *

I knew the tyme when great care was had about printing, the Bibles especially, good compositors and the best correctors were gotten being grave and learned men, the paper and the letter rare, and faire every way of the beste, but now the paper is nought, the composers boyes, and the correctors unlearned.

- George Abbott, Archbishop of Canterbury

Dept. of Corrections

A couple readers wrote in to comment about our post on the missing developmentally disabled person who went missing for a few days. We had noted that a reader had written in to ask why the City's CodeRED system wasn't used to notify the public about the missing person.

Turns out the Claremont police did use the CodeRED system as well as its E-Watch email alert system to let people know about the teen they were looking for. However, the reader who wrote in on this point noted this and was actually wondering why the CodeRED alert didn't get to him/her until four days after the person went missing.

Dept. of Corrections

SPEAKER SPOKE

One of our favorite readers, well-known to followers of the Claremont Unified School District, wrote in to correct us regarding a mistake in our post yesterday about Newt Gingrich speaking at Scripps College. We wrote incorrectly that Gingrich was speaking yesterday. Gingrich actually spoke Wednesday night. Sorry for all of you who got excited about the event (whatever side of the political aisle you're on).

The Daily Bulletin covered the event, if you're interested in reading about it.

This is what comes of taking a little time away from the news cycle. Anyway, here's our reader's note:

SUBJECT: perhaps...
DATE: Thu, February 4, 2010 2:40:26 PM
TO: Claremont Buzz

the Claremont Insider should look at a calendar?

Our apologies to our readers for the error, and thanks for the heads up, P.Y. Glad to see you're keeping up with the ol' Insider. Keep on reading!


FRESH & CHEESY

No, not the Insider, though some might tell you otherwise. It's not really a correction so much as a clarification, but another reader wrote in with an update on the coming Cheese Cave and a plug for Fresh & Easy:

SUBJECT: Cheese Cave
DATE: Thu, February 4, 2010 8:19:10 AM
TO: Claremont Buzz

Just read in the Courier (I think, I thought it was your column) that it will be going into the former Travel Co. space across from Walter's.

Fresh and Easy is a great store. We go all the time to the ones on Mountain and 8th in Upland and San Antonio and Foothill.

Glad you're back....

Department of Corrections

Our April Fool! post was wrong in its entirety and we'd like to apologize to the community for messing this up. You may recall that we spun a fantastic tale about Bridget Healy, that ol' Carpetbagger, being nominated to the Claremont Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, all done in the most light-hearted and whimsical way to give our readership a little April Fool cheer. We fabricated quotes. We made things up out of whole cloth. We went over the top

Well, it turns out that wasn't such a tall tale after all. Arrives now in the mail the April 2009 number of the Chamber newsletter, Business News, and right there on the front page is the notice of "Nominating Committees [sic] Recommendations for Board Members". Down towards the bottom of the first column is the following:

At the meeting in February the Board voted to increase its size to 20 members. The nominating committee suggested:

Ira Jackson, Drucker School of Business Management for a 3 year term expiring in 2012

Jeremy Cooper, Pay-Pro Services for a 2 year term expiring in 2011

Bridget Healy, Consultant for a 1 year term expiring in 2010

click to enlarge

We see that Bridget Healy has been listed as an "Associate Member" of the Chamber so her "consulting" business must be a new one. Guess she needs a little more than her $150K plus per year city pension to scrape by. (See this post, midway down, under "Doing the Pension Math")

Dept. of Corrections: Lamas, Llamas, Lllamamos - UPDATED

Our post on Saturday carried a Thanksgiving troll feast photo uploaded to Flickr by floodllama.

We inadvertently misspelled the last half FL's username with one L, which brought to mind the Baltimore poet Ogden Nash:

The Lama

The one-l lama,
He's a priest.
The two-l llama,
He's a beast.
And I will bet
A silk pajama
There isn't any
Three-l lllama.*

-- Ogden Nash

* UPDATED 12/2/08: A reader wrote in with a comment on lllamas -

Continuing the poem of the Lama, A small boy spoke up and said, "I heard on the news today that there was a big fire downtown, and it was a three-L lama."

Dept. of Corrections

Our post yesterday on the race for the State Assembly's 61st District seat contained one error, as a reader pointed out. Nell Soto was a councilmember for Pomona, but she was not mayor:

Just a bit of info regarding Nell Soto, she was never Mayor of Pomona. Good coverage on Torres.

Dept. of Corrections

John Clifford of Pomona wrote in yesterday to point out that in our post about the Democratic candidates for the 61st State Assembly District, we had incorrectly listed Ruben Ayala as one of the candidates.

We had actually meant to write "Maurice Ayala," who is Ruben's son. Ruben Ayala was a state senator from Chino from 1974 to 1998, and Ayala High School in Chino Hills is named after him.

Wrong Again

Gd speaks. We're glad He's a reader. Does this mean that the nasty-gram sent to Jackie McHenry from the same email account after her failed re-election bid in 2007 was really Him (or His wife) as well? (Link to article in question)

Upon Further Review

Yesterday, we posted an email we got from Vanessa Hua, the author of the San Francisco Chronicle travel piece on Claremont.

We also received this email from April Economides, who like Ms. Hua wanted us to know that the Chronicle piece was not part of the city of Claremont and Chamber of Commerce joint PR campaign.

However, Economides also wrote that the Chronicle article was the result of her own PR work while she was publicist for the Claremont Museum of Art and the Hotel Casa 425 in the Claremont Village Expansion. Ecomonides said that she pitched the story idea to the Chronicle and was also responsible for last year's Huell Howser KCET video pieces on Claremont, as well as other news bits that about Claremont that appeared on CNN and in print media.

Economides wrote that she had no hand in the content of the pieces, which she said was left up to the news outlets. We thank her for that clarification. It does seem to verify our initial reaction that there had to be someone pushing all these stories on Claremont.

We understand the need to gin up business for all these new enterprises going in downtown. Our beef with these sorts of PR efforts is that that they gloss over the real issues in Claremont - for instance, the concern that the changes brought on by the Village Expansion will end up destroying the feel of the old Claremont Village. Further, all this PR noise gives the folks in the Claremont 400 cover to avoid confronting those issues.

April Economides is the founder of the public relations firm Green Octopus. Here is her email:

Hi there,

I saw your post about the SF Chronicle article and wanted to let you know that it actually was not the result of the Chamber/City’s PR effort. I pitched the travel story on Claremont as part of my work as the (former) publicist for the Claremont Museum of Art and Hotel Casa 425 (‘former’ because I’ve retired my PR hat to enter a full-time MBA program). I also landed the Huell Howser shows on the Packing House and Folk Music Center, the recent CNN segments, and many of the regional/state magazine/newspaper articles within 2007, none of which involved City or Chamber efforts.

When I pitched travel stories on Claremont, nearly every editor I talked with said they were uninterested in doing a story on Claremont because they did one three/ten/whatever years ago. What they were interested about were the new things about the city, like the packing house and museum, for example. This is of course natural, since media usually report on new things. But while my city-wide pitches included the museum, packing house, and hotel, it’s important to understand that most of the bizs/orgs/great places I listed as examples for editors were existing ones (like Some Crust, Harvard Square Café, RSA Botanical Garden, etc.), and I emphasized the city’s quaint village, historic architecture, trees, and great pedestrian life above all else.

It’s a PR person’s job to pitch story ideas, but the media decides what to publish. I know that small local papers don’t always follow these ethics, and sometimes even huge ones (like with national politics!), but, thankfully, this was the case with all of the publicity I mentioned above. My pitches have never mirrored the end result, and I’m happy, because it means the media has done its job by thinking for itself vs. letting me craft the story. Travel pieces in particular bring disappointment to people who know a place, since it’s entirely based on the writer’s tastes and opinions, which of course are unique. I never agree with everything a travel writer recommends.

All of the recent publicity on Claremont brings people to the city that might not have otherwise visited, and these folks end up spending money in both the village and expanded area. For example, a lot of folks flocked to the packing house after the first Huell Howser episode ran, but many of them also walked into the original village and I’m sure spent money there too. Similarly, the Chronicle story will probably bring some new visitors into town and into some of the village’s cafes/shops/etc.

I can understand why you made the assumptions you did. Hopefully my email not only clears some stuff up but also helps you feel more positive about the recent coverage on the city.

Your fellow citizen,

April Economides

Corrections

We got an email from Vanessa Hua, the author of the San Francisco Chronicle article we poked fun on Thursday:

Thanks for taking the time to highlight my article. I enjoy reading your blog regularly.

However, I wanted to point out errors in your post. I'm not Riverside based. I live in Claremont, which the article states. Regarding your other concerns, please note that travel articles typically cover what is new in a locale and the village expansion and the hotel certainly fall under this criteria. There's no other agenda.

If you read the article closely you'll see there are several paragraph devoted to the "original" village, mentioning Viva Madrid, the Folk Music Center and more. In fact, most of the restaurants and all of the shops mentioned in the article are located in the village – not the expansion.

Best,

Vanessa

Our apologies to Ms. Hua. We got her Claremont location mixed up with her school, UC Riverside, which was listed on her website. Our mistake. We've corrected that.

As to our comments on her article, our original post said that "[Ms. Hua's] article pretty much centered on Village businesses," which it did. However, we could certainly see where the emphasis in the piece was on Old Village vs. Village Expansion.

Thanks to Ms. Hua for pointing out that the article was not commissioned by the city as part of its ad campaign. We had wondered when we saw the "Special to the Chronicle" note under the byline.

You can read Ms. Hua's article here.

As always, glad to clarify and correct any incorrect information.

Corrections II

Regarding our earlier "Reefer Madness" post, an astute reader noted:

...in your post today on medical pot you say there was a supreme court ruling in June -- that was in June 2005, not last month. Hire a copy editor already!

Thanks for pointing that out. We've got a fix up.

Correction

We received another email from the erstwhile Citizens Finance Advisory Committee member who was critical of the city's decision-making process for Claremont's Landscaping and Lighting District assessment (a yearly assessment on Claremont property owners that is supposed to pay for maintaining things like city parkways and streetlights).

The former committee member wrote in to correct some information from his earlier note:

Buzz,

I do not know how you handle a correction, but in my letter of a couple of weeks ago, in the second to last paragraph, I mentioned a fellow committee member named Nick P who called and swore at me.

My memory now says that the person was Nick Q. I am proud that you provide accuracy in your blog, I submit my apology, and correction, for the error.

Dave Wishart

We have gone back and made the correction.

Corrections: Judy Loses It

The Courier today has an odd letter to the editor from former Claremont Mayor Judy Wright, who just may be losing it.

The letter is in reaction to an exchange that began back in early June over Claremont's Landscaping and Lighting District assessment, a controversial municipal revenue source.

Wright's letter in the Courier today is the second one she has submitted recently. On June 12th, she, former Mayor Diann Ring and former Councilmember Bill McCready submitted a letter to the City Council and to the Courier at a time when the Council was voting on how much they should increase the LLD.

That earlier letter by the three former Councilmembers had a number of factual errors, which we pointed out. You can read the text of the Wright-Ring-McCready letter here.

To recap, in our view, the Wright-Ring-McCready letter contained the following inaccuracies and misstatements:

• The letter failed on its second sentence: "As three members of the city council (the other two are deceased) who passed the Benefit Assessment District in 1990...."
  
  In fact, only one of the other two Councilmembers who voted on the LLD in 1990, Nick Presecan, is dead. The other, Dick Newton, is alive and well and still resides in Claremont. Wright, the historian, surely knows this.
  
  The letter attacked Courier Editor JamesCourie for not researching the background on the LLD. In fact, Wright, Ring and McCready need to take a good long look in the mirror. People in glass houses, you know.
  
  
• The letter writers were selective in the numbers they cite to support their claims of vast community support for both the 1990 LLD and the later Utility Users Tax (UUT). For example, they claimed that 32 0f 35 speakers asked for a utility tax at a town meeting at Bridges Auditorium in December, 1992, on the campus of Pomona College.
  
  In fact, the minutes for that 12/12/92 meeting showed only 16 people getting up to speak at public comment. Of those, only three gave clear support for the UUT.
  
  And in their arguments in favor of the LLD, the letter writers ignored the 3/6/1990 mail count report submitted to the City Council. As of that date, the city had received 60 letters supporting the LLD, 475 opposing, and 14 withdrawing opposition.
  
  Additionally, a citizens group headed by a man named Les Boring, collected 7,000 signatures opposing the LLD. No mention of that in the letter.
  
  Wright, Ring, and Claremont 400 die-hards like former Police Commission Chair Helaine Goldwater (who spoke at last Tuesday's Council meeting in favor of increasing the LLD assessment) constantly ramble on about responding to citizens. They cite the number of public meetings held on one issue or another, they manipulate the events to try to steer the discussion towards what they want, then, if the debate doesn't go their way, they ignore the record of those meetings.
  
  
• The letter writers didn't just ignore public speakers, they ignored the recommendations of city committees and commissions. Wright, Ring and McCready ignored the fact that the city's Citizen Finance Advisory Committee (CFAC) on 11/28/89 strongly recommended sunseting the LLD, which was imposed because of a budget crisis in the early 1990's.
  
  
• The letter rewrote the actual history of events. The writers claimed that there was never any discussion of sunseting the LLD and assert that "We repeatedly and specifically said that we believed that this assessment would be permanent."
  
  Yet, an examination of Claremont City Council minutes from 1989 and 1990 when the LLD debate was going on, showed no such statements. As our analysis on 6/17 showed, the record of those meetings showed statements by both CFAC Chair Dennis Smith and repeatedly by Judy Wright in favor of sunsetting the LLD.
  
  The letter writers claimed no such statements ever occurred. One suspects they would say anything to justify an action, relying on the short memories and apathy of a disaffected, disillusioned electorate to allow their false promises to go unfulfilled.

_______________________

Now, in her current letter (she apparently lost her two co-signers from the first missive), Wright digs herself a deeper hole.

Wright begins with the worst sort of propagandist's trick: by purposely misrepresenting her opponents' arguments. Wright claims that "Only once, not repeatedly, (see 11/28, p. 446) did I suggest a sunset [for the LLD] and it was never a motion nor picked up by my colleagues."

In fact, the claim was not about Wright "repeatedly"making a motion for a sunset clause. The actual claim was that Wright repeatedly mentioned sunsetting of the LLD beginning in 1989 and as late as 1993.

The second part of the sentence claiming that Wright's one suggestion for an LLD sunset was never a motion and was never picked up by her colleagues, is untrue, pure and simple, and Wright has apparently been selective in the supporting documentation she sent to the Courier with today's letter. The editor's note to the letter indicates that Wright submitted 126 pages of documentation but omitted the one set of city council minutes from 1/23/90 which noted on page 15:

"Mrs. Wright requested the resolution be amended to include,'It is the city council's intention not to continue this assessment district beyond June 30, 1995, without first holding a protest hearing.'"

As Courier noted today, the motion was passed by Ms. Wright and her colleagues, including Diann Ring.

_______________________

The last two paragraphs in the Wright letter today make us wonder if Judy has really crossed over into non compos mentis territory. One involved a remark that:

No the LLD did not kill Dick Newton, it probably aggravated Alex Hughes’ heart condition and killed him.

As we noted above, in the Wright-Ring-McCready letter from June 12th, the writers claimed that of the five councilmembers who voted to institute the LLD, only three (the letter signers) were still alive. In fact, a fourth, Dick Newton, is very much alive and kicking. So, the Courier noted this, and we made a joke of it, saying they "killed Dick Newton." Judy obviously missed the joke and at the same time admitted Alexander Hughes, who was on the council when the LLD was being studied and debated, was done in by the her precious LLD.

_______________________

The last paragraph of Wright's letter today was particularly odd because it had nothing to do with the Courier. It appeared to addressed to us here at the Insider. Wright says:

By the way, I was not present at The El Barrio Park dedication. I was present at the Rosa Torrez Park dedication. That was a wonderful day! Where were you?

Wright seems to be referring to a June 8th Insider post where we incorrectly placed her at the El Barrio Park dedication in May. We apologize to Ms. Wright and have corrected that point. We obviously confused that with the Rosa Torrez park dedication. We stand by the rest of the post.

Point of Clarification

Yesterday's post on the City of Claremont's Landscaping and Lighting District (LLD) was incorrect on a couple points. The issue is a complex one, but we thought we'd try to wade in again. As we noted, the city enacted the LLD in 1990. In November, 1996, California voters passed Proposition 218, which required such local assessments as the LLD be put before voters for approval if they had not already been subject to a vote. The LLD was originally enacted by the City Council without going before the voters.

After the passage of Prop. 218 in 1996, Claremont had until July 1, 1997, to either put the LLD to a vote during the next municipal election, or to restructure it and have it voted on by property owners only, as happened with last year's failed Parks and Pasture assessment district. If the city did neither, it would have had to drop the LLD. As long as the LLD vote was held before the July 1st date, it was only subject to a straight majority of registered voters.

What we consider disingenuous on the part of Claremont's former City Manager Glenn Southard and the City Council at that time was the combining of the LLD and Utility Tax votes into one referendum, Measure A, which appeared on the March, 1997, city ballot. In fact, Southard's analysis of the problem for a 11/25/96 study session concluded that the Utility Tax did not require a vote at all.

So why have a vote involving the Utility Tax? Southard, as always, had a strategy. Combining the LLD and Utility Tax in one referendum made the potential hit to the city's budget appear much bigger than the LLD alone. In the discussions preceding the Measure A vote, Southard presented only the totals of the tax and the assessment, saying that they added up to $4.5 million out of the $12.6 million General Fund at the time.

At no time does Southard split the amounts and state what the LLD alone was responsible for. He was very careful to repeatedly use the $4.5 million figure and to subtly raise the spectre of what cuts in services the city might have to consider. And in his reports to council on the matter at in November and December, 1997, he was clearly steering the matter to what he wanted--a single vote on the LLD and the Utility Tax, which is what he eventually got in Measure A.

The problem with combining the two, as we see it, is that it gave voters a false choice. The LLD and the Utility Tax are two very different funding mechanisms and rightly should have been voted on separately. Combining the two allowed the city to play the "poor, poor, pitiful me" card and say that if Measure A lost, Claremont would have to drastically cut services because it would have lost both of funding sources.

One can easily see a scenario where the Utility Tax might have passed, and the LLD, which remains very unpopular to this day, lost. But Southard never allowed the option of having them voted on separately to receive any serious consideration. He decided early on what his strategy was going to be, then he set about shaping the debate to get the desired outcome.

The combining of the two was wrong then, and, as we said yesterday, with the city continuing to play games with LLD, voters may yet take matters into their own hands.

Dept. of Corrections

In Saturday's post we incorrectly reported that the Claremont City Council tomorrow evening would be considering raising the Landscaping and Lighting District (LLD) assessment 5.63%.

The LLD is on tomorrow night's agenda, but the council will only be accepting the LLD engineer's report. The actual vote on the LLD increase won't be until June 12th.

Corrections

In response to Joslyn Jane's 4/7 post about Rhino Records, an astute reader writes in to say:

You new contributor "Joslyn Jane" really is cracking me up. Ameoba Music is at the intersection of Sunset and Cahuenga -- squarely in the heart of Hollywood! West LA is the other side of the 405. But I do agree that Rhino is great!

The reader is correct. Amoeba Music is located at 6400 Sunset Blvd. between N. Cahuenga and Vine St. We've updated Jane's post to reflect the reader's information.

___________________________

Centinel over at Foothill Cities also wrote us last week with comment posted on the Mayor Sam 2 blog. The comment stated:

For all intents and purposes, Alhambra is a suburb of the eastside of L.A. Without a "real" city like Los Angeles to hang onto the skirt tails of and drive their economies, these little "independent" cities that carry so much self-important pride (while they look down their noses at L.A.) - like Glendale, Alhambra, South Pasadena, El Monte, West Hollywood - even Pasadena, Santa Monica, and Long Beach might as well be Needles or Tucumcari, New Mexico.

They're as captive and indentured to the real city here, as is Hollywood and the SFV.

Are towns like Claremont mere lesser satellites of Los Angeles? Do we over-compensate for our place in the world by inflating Claremont's importance (à la Judy Wright's historical bits and the Claremont 400's constant chatter about the need for "continuity" in our elected leadership)?

Or is Centinel right in saying that the commentator has no idea what goes on along in our foothill towns? You tell us.

From the Ombudsman

We here at the Insider never set out to be publishers. Yet, a reader yesterday pointed out that we are, at least sort of, in a non-commercial, outside-the-margins sense.

We've recently posted a several brief pieces from the Daily Bulletin in their entirety, which as the reader pointed out, might not constitute a fair use of material, as this information from the University of Texas System website outlines. We have adjusted them accordingly and have replaced the respective postings with links to the Bulletin's website.

We have also corrected a piece from we reprinted from the Claremont Courier, a commentary by editor Rebecca JamesCourie on the recent city council election. The JamesCourie piece is not available online, so we could not provide a link to that.

Finally, with regards to the recent Peyton Manning video we posted in its entirety, that was listed on YouTube directly by NBC Universal, Inc. with the understanding that it would likely be posted in the "blogosphere." NBC in 2006 signed a strategic agreement with YouTube and has been posting its content there.

Thanks to our reader for providing that helpful information.

Claremont in the News

Bits and pieces found in the Daily Bulletin:

Police stopped a trio of home young burglars, reports Melissa Pinion-Whitt.

The Claremont United Church of Christ has an anti-Iraq War art statement set up in front of it, according to a brief article by Will Bigham the Bulletin's "The Buzz" section.

[NOTE: This post originally contained the entire briefs from the Daily Bulletin's reporters Pinion-Whitt and Bigham. A reader has pointed out that these items are copyrighted and should not be reproduced in their entirety without the paper's permission. We have corrected accordingly.]

Correction

Yesterday's Event Calendar incorrectly listed the city's Centennial Kick-Off party as this coming Friday. It was actually earlier this month. Sorry, our bad.

Upcoming Events

The Daily Bulletin noted today that there will be a free health screening for people over 55 along with an informational faire at the city's Joslyn Senior Center this Friday.The center is located at 660 N. Mountain Ave. in Claremont. For more information, call the city at (909) 399-5488.

_______________________

Bulletin reporter Sahra Susman also noted that the Claremont Unified School District (CUSD) is having a Principal for a Day event.

[NOTE: This post originally contained the entire brief from the Daily Bulletin's reporter Susman. A reader has pointed out that this item is copyrighted and should not be reproduced in its entirety without the paper's permission. We have corrected accordingly.]