Coming Attractions

Some items of interest from the City's website:

CPD CHECKPOINT SUNDAY

The Claremont PD will be out tomorrow night conducting another DUI checkpoint beginning at 6pm.

DUI / License Checkpoint

Claremont, CA – On Sunday, January 23rd, 2011 the Claremont Police Department will be conducting a sobriety checkpoint at an undisclosed location within the City. The checkpoint will start at 6:00 p.m. and conclude at 2:00 a.m. Drivers will be stopped long enough to ensure they are not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Officers will also ensure that drivers are wearing their seatbelts and possess valid driver licenses. Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

WALKABOUT

If your New Year's resolutions included getting fit and losing weight, you might want to take advantage of the City's Generation Fit series of intergenerational walks:

Generation Fit Walking Program

The teens at the TRACKS Activity Center (TAC) will be challenging the Claremont adult community to a series of four walking excursions. "Generation Fit" will run four weeks on Tuesdays from January 25 through February 15, from 2:30-4:00 p.m. Both teens and adults will form a unified team in front of the Joslyn Center, 660 North Mountain Avenue, and walk a series of planned routes through the Claremont community to raise heartbeats, health awareness, and increase intergenerational socialization. Walking routes will average 1-2 miles each day. For more information, please call (909) 399-5488.

I CAN HAZMAT?

And if you've been stockpiling old batteries, cans of oil or paint, TVs or computer monitors, you can off load that stuff in two weeks when the City and the County of Los Angeles hold their next local hazardous waste roundup:

Household Hazardous Waste Roundup

Claremont and other Los Angeles County residents can dispose of household hazardous waste including unused pharmaceuticals, antifreeze, car batteries, used motor oil, paint, pesticides, and universal waste including household batteries, fluorescent light bulbs, and electronic waste (e-waste) such as TVs and monitors, computers, VCRs, stereos, and cell phones at the next free Countywide Household Hazardous Waste Roundup. It will be held in Claremont at the Claremont Corporate Yard, 1616 Monte Vista Avenue, on Saturday, February 5, 2011 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Residents can bring up to 15 gallons or 125 pounds of household hazardous waste per vehicle to the Roundup.

DUI Check Tomorrow

If you're out and about tomorrow evening, make sure you don't drink and drive. The Claremont Police Department will conduct another DUI checkpoint tomorrow evening, August 8, from 6pm to 2am.

The checkpoint will be at an undisclosed location in town.

There will be another of these next Sunday, August 15. According to CPD, the checkpoint is funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, via a California Office of Traffic Safety grant.

Friday in Claremont

Now that the pro forma approval of the bond measure resolution by CUSD's board is done, we can get back to little city news:

DRIVEN TO DRINK

The Claremont Police Department is having another DUI checkpoint tonight at an undisclosed city location from 6pm tonight to 1am Saturday morning. The checkpoint is funded by grant money from the California Office of Traffic Safety.

So, even if watching the Claremont 400 run the City's and the school district's finances into the ground has you reaching for another Manhattan, take it easy in and around Claremont.


COMMUNITY (DIS)SERVICES

The Claremont Courier reported in Wednesday's edition that City Hall is having to reorganize as part of its cost-cutting measures. The Courier article noted that the City's staff is down 20% from its peak numbers.

Community Services, which has been without a permanent director since Scott Carroll left, has been rechristened the Community/Public Works Department and will be under City Engineer Craig Bradshaw. Community Services currently runs Claremont's trash service, and that may end up being outsourced (more on that subject in a moment).

If trash service is contracted out to a private company, one wonders what will happen to that Community Services building at 1616 Monte Vista Ave.. The City dedicated the building with much fanfare in 2005. When you think about it, it has turned into boondoggle of the highest order. The construction was beset by cost overruns that were only vaguely explained by then-City Facilities Manager and champion blowhard Mark Hodnick, and the structure ended up costing well over $10 million. The building also leaked when it first opened because the City failed to account for groundwater movement around the building.

It also turned out that the City, with its usual competence, figured the property lines incorrectly, so that a corner of the building jutted into Upland. Additionally, the entire second floor of office space has never been used. That's right. A whole floor has essentially sat empty for the building's short life. So, now the City may use the building as a police station, or it may lease out the space.

Good use of that ten-plus million, eh?


LOSING MY RELIGION

Raise the subject of outsourcing our town's police or garbage services, and you'll be greeted by plaintive howls and a chorus of boos. Claremont city services hold roughly the same devotional status as the the Virgin of Guadalupe does in Mexico, and the threat of the loss of those services inevitably elicits keening and self-flagellation from Claremont's true believers.

When folks here talked tentatively about maybe looking into contracting for trash service, we heard endless variations on the same story: "So-and-so's great-aunt Tilde lives in Laguna, and they outsource there. Anytime someone goes on vacation, they get robbed because those lowdown contract waste haulers tell their criminal drug-fiend friends about the empty houses."

Well, to rebut some of those more outlandish claims, we point to a New York Times article about the city of Maywood outsourcing most of its municipal services. The article appeared in the NYT earlier this week and was titled "A City Outsources Everthing, Sky Does Not Fall."

Keep in mind, though, that this experiment is only a few weeks old, and Maywood outsourced its police services to Bell, which has been on the front page of the Los Angeles Times for its scandalously huge municipal salaries - $787,000 a year to City Manager Robert Rizzo (more than twice what US President Barack Obama earns), $457,000 to Police Chief Randy Adams (about half again as much as LAPD Chief Charlie Beck), and around $100,000 to all but one city council member.

Bell now replaces Pomona as the community Claremonsters will point to whenever someone wants to try to change anything here - as in "Do you want us to be like (fill in the blank)?"


A READER WRITES

Finally, one of our more astute readers saw a Claremont-centric post on a blog called Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis. The post had a note from a Mish reader who is from Claremont. The reader, Gregory Levine, gave his analysis of the sidewalk renovation in the Claremont Village.

The sidewalk work was pushed by city staff, who got some federal stimulus money for the project. It was not popular with a lot of the Village merchants, whose businesses suffered from the construction. Levine concluded:

My second point regards the cost of the project. I conducted informal interviews of eight business. All but one suffered major revenue losses. Most reported being closed for 2-4 days with some suffering losses for five or more days.

Business owners estimated revenue losses from $2,000 to $3,700. The average loss was $2,850. Total revenue losses to businesses comes to $2,850 X 96 = $273,600.

How much did the project cost? $1,497,232.

And guess what? The contract was awarded to an out of town construction company. So in the short run, Claremont businesses suffered $273,600 in losses for prettier sidewalks. Most say it was not worth it, especially in this economy.

City Hall strikes again.

DUI Checkpoint Tonight

Watch out all ye revelers. If you're planning on hitting any Claremont drinking establishments tonight, make sure you're good and sober before you get behind a steering wheel. The Claremont PD will be conducting another sobriety checkpoint tonight from 6pm to 2am, according to the City's online information:

DUI/License Checkpoint on Friday, May 29, 2009

On Friday, May 29, 2009, the Claremont Police Department will be conducting a sobriety checkpoint at an undisclosed location within the City. The checkpoint will start at 6:00 p.m. and conclude at 2:00 a.m. Drivers will be stopped long enough to ensure they are not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Officers will also ensure that drivers are wearing their seatbelts and possess valid driver licenses.

Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Let's hope this one doesn't get off the script the way last week's checkpoint on Foothill Blvd. did through no fault of the CPD.

TV Today

A reader asked us to pass this on:

There's a Claremont angle on the Dr. Phil show today. Carrie Stewart-Dixon, whose daughter Courtney Stewart was killed after the car she was riding in was struck by drunk driver last month, will be Dr. Phil's guest. Angel pitcher Nick Adenhart and Henry Pearson was also killed in the collision.

The show, KCBS Channel 2 today at 4pm, focuses on the problem of DUI drivers:

Monday - May 18, 2009

DUI Outrage

A drunk driving fatality happens approximately every 40 minutes. The rate of alcohol-related accidents is 22 times higher than the death rate for American soldiers killed in the Iraq war. Why is a person with one, two or more DUI's allowed to get behind the wheel of a car? Is the system failing to protect us? Recently, Nick Adenhart, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, was killed in a crash involving an alleged drunk driver. But he wasn't the only person who lost his life. His friends Courtney Stewart and Henry Pearson were also killed, and Jon Wilhite was left in critical condition. Hear Courtney's mom, Carrie, tell the tragic story of how her only daughter was "murdered" by a man who was reportedly driving with a suspended license and had one DUI conviction. Next, Mary was in the car with her husband and 22-year-old son when they were hit by a drunk driver, and her was killed. Mary is now a representative for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Then, Dawn is a repeat offender with two DUIs. She spent a night in jail, had a breathalyzer installed in her car and paid over $12,000 in legal fees, but says she still occasionally drives after drinking. Will she put down the bottle after Dr. Phil gives her a wake-up call, and she meets Carrie and Mary? Also joining the discussion is Jeanine Pirro, a hard-hitting, lock-'em-up judge who says Americans should be outraged and repeat offenders should behind bars, and Neil Shouse, a high-powered DUI defense attorney who says people are overzealous in prosecuting drunk drivers. Are drunk driving laws harsh enough? You decide. And, do you know when you've reached the legal blood-alcohol limit? Dr. Phil gives you pertinent information so you know when you've tossed back too many.