Water Rate Pain

Yesterday's Claremont Courier carried a small ad announcing a "Resident's Meeting [sic]" 6pm tomorrow at Apex Imaging Services, located at 720 Indigo Ct. in Pomona. The ad's title said, "CLAREMONTERS AGAINST OUTRAGEOUS WATER RATES! Golden State Water STOP RIPPING US OFF!!!"

Click to Enlarge

The ad was apparently placed by Hal Hargrave, who recently had a letter to the Courier complaining of our water rates. It also pointed readers to the group's Facebook page.

Residents planning on attending tomorrow's meeting are asked to bring a copy of their latest water bill. The meeting's goal is to "set a plan of action to fight Golden State Water."

A noble goal indeed, and one we support. Golden State Water and its parent company, American States Water Co., certainly do a great job of playing the Public Utility Commission rate game by, every three or so years, asking for huge rate increases to cover infrastructure repairs that we're not sure are ever completed. (Did they ever get around to upgrading the water tank up by Claraboya after the water presure failed during the 2003 Grand Prix Fire?)

The PUC, in all its wisdom, shows how fair its judgment is by chopping down the rate increases into digestible chunks - 20%, say, over three years.

Incidentally, Golden State is playing the same game elsewhere in Southern California: Ojai, Orange County, and the high desert.

Of course, thanks to regionalized water rates, Claremont's rate hikes are tied to the Bartow-Victorville area. As we've written in the past, Claremont's water rates got lumped together with Barstow's back in 1998 when the water company (then known as Southern California Water Co.) asked for the rates to be regionalized.  Then-City Manager Glenn Southard claimed to have worked out a great deal for the City, getting discounted rates for municipal water use, along with SCWC leasing the City's rights to 535 acre-feet of ground water per year.   In return, the City signed off on SCWC's regionalization request.

Ironically, in the current fight against rising water rates, the ratepayers' best friend may just be the City of Claremont and other affected municipalities, whose city attorneys will be needed to make a coordinated fight against Golden State Water, whose main goal has always seemed to be to ensure a steady dividend stream to its stockholders, who in turn reward GSW execs with huge salaries and bonuses.

Monday Morning Mailbag

We received a comment in response to our Saturday post in which we quoted a 2000 California First Amendment Coalition press release regarding the City of Claremont's Black Hole Award. The release included some choice quotes from Karen Rosenthal, Claremont's mayor at the time.

As one reason for the award, the CFAC piece cited Claremont's proposal to station a "mental health professional" at City Council meetings to evaluate the potential dangers presented by speakers during public comment. The professional would have provided the City grounds to have offending speakers removed from the council chambers.

In case you've forgotten, the author of the staff report for that proposal was former Assistant City Manager Bridget Healy, who is chair-elect to the Claremont Chamber of Commerce board and who ran unsuccessfully for council in 2009.

Our reader wrote:

Date: Sat, March 26, 2011 5:28:47 PM
To: claremontbuzz@yahoo.com
Subject: crazy

"...its short-lived proposal to have mental health professionals standing by to assess the threat level posed by citizen speakers at public meetings..."

My guess is they dropped the proposal to have mental health professionals at city council meetings because the mental health professionals would have been able to witness the behavior of the city council members. "Yes, I was noticing the unstable person at the front of the room who keeps sighing loudly and rolling her eyes when other people speak. Have your officer keep a close eye on that one -- she covers about thirty pages in the DSM-IV."

(Pause)

"Also, about the man on the side of the dais who keeps turning beet red and screaming threats at people..."

At the end of the note, the reader alluded to Bridget Healy's former boss in Claremont and in Indio. Here we see him in all his red-faced glory as he does self-inflicted damage to his reputation:

Heard This One Before?

Former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard (photo, left) may be settled into retirement, but he continues to cast a long shadow over the city of Indio, where Southard fled to in 2005 after it became clear his days here were numbered.

Just as was the case after he left Claremont, Southard remains a factor in Indio's politics. Southard, you'll recall, engineered a golden parachute for himself earlier this year, leaving Indio to contend with the $9 million budget deficit he left in his wake. Now he's a humble pensioner struggling to make ends meet on $255,600 a year from his CalPERS retirement plan, of which Claremont is on the hook for $131,500, according to the Daily Bulletin.

The Desert Sun reported last month that most of the candidates for Indio's November 2nd city council election are running as fast as they can from Southard's record:

During a meeting with The Desert Sun's editorial board last week, five of the six Indio council candidates distanced themselves from controversial former city manager Glenn Southard.

The only candidate expressing full support was Elaine Holmes, a local businesswoman who helped organize a half-page newspaper ad commending Southard for his work after he retired amid the credit card saga.

Maybe Holmes' support is part of the reason she's also the only candidate to get a $1,000 donation from Southard.

When he was still in Claremont, Southard never shied away from maneuvering behind the scenes in city elections. Perhaps our man Glenn is angling for a consulting gig with Indio and is just trying to ensure he has a friendly face on their council when he makes his pitch. A call to arms has been circulating Indio, and it seem that some citizens there are trying to head Southard off at the pass by removing the incumbents who supported Southard and his policies.

Strange, isn't it, that Southard somehow managed to elicit the same "throw the bums out" fervor in Indio that he did in Claremont? And, just as he did here, Southard slipped off just as things were heating up, leaving the sitting council members to take the fall for the wreckage he wrought. As a result, the Indio voters are feeling mighty chippy:

CITIZENS OF INDIO:

A group of concerned Indio citizens have formed a "Committee to Oppose Melanie Fesmire, Gene Gilbert and Ben Godfrey for Indio City Council, 2010". This committee wants to remind the taxpayers of Indio about the past few years of City Council issues and why everyone should vote against the incumbents.

The issues are simple: honesty, integrity, character, and leadership.

The Indio City Council has repeatedly said "we have $14 million dollars in reserves and we do not have to lay off employees". Even the public spoke out about financial concerns. The incumbents lied to us the taxpayers. They failed miserably to be honest, truthful, with integrity and show leadership. Show up to heal the current City of Indio Council and The People we are hoping to replace them.


COME

Date: October 19th – Tuesday, 6:00PM SCSH Club House

Bring your questions and if you have a broom Sweeping bring it to show that we want to sweep out the Incumbents

See more below the signs and make sure you pass this to everyone you know that votes in Indio. Help save our city !

What are we the voting public to make of this failed leadership?

· Are we to turn our heads?

· Are we to simply overlook the facts that they chose not to lead by example?

· Are we to settle for City Council members who are not trustworthy?

· City Council members who do not have character?

Are we to believe their word has any value?

So when you hear them say "I'm a leader with honesty and integrity", you know these are untruths and their prior actions speak louder than words. For these reasons SHOULDN'T CHARACTER MATTER?

Our group is supported by donations and we need money to purchase signs -

Call:
THE COMMITTEE TO OPPOSE INDIO CITY COUNCIL INCUMBENTS
PHONE # 760-342-6115
or Email : NOT4INCUMBENTS@AOL.COM

The incumbents of Indio are not deserving of your vote to be re-elected.

SHOULDN'T CHARACTER MATTER?

SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW THAT LIVES IN INDIO TODAY

Church & State, Revisited

From the More Things Change file:

The Insider has learned that the circle of people officially associated with the Yes on Measure CL campaign has widened from the original three - Bill Fox, Mike Seder, and Lee Jackman - to include insurance agent and Claremont 400 heavyweight Randy Prout, former Claremont United Church of Christ pastor and current city Human Services commissioner Butch Henderson (photo, left), and former Human Services Chair Suzanne Hall, wife of the ubiquitous Ken Corhan.

We shouldn't be surprised to see Prout or Henderson or Hall/Corhan, popping up in the Measure CL campaign. All were associated with the 2005 Preserve Claremont campaign that tried to derail the candidacy of Claremont city council member Corey Calaycay. We should also remember that the PC campaign was as much about censoring council member Jackie McHenry and keeping then-City Manager Glenn Southard in charge as it was concerned with barring Calaycay from the council.

That the current school bond campaign and its supporters don't mind twisting the truth shouldn't come as a surprise either. During the 2005 city council election and after, Henderson, who seemed to use his position in our town's main church to unduly influence people to support the Claremonsters' agenda, was a spokesperson for the Preserve Claremont campaign and was quoted in the Claremont Courier on 2/19/05. In that article, Henderson admitted not only that his campaign employed manipulative tactics, but that such games are a natural part of any political campaign, even one involving the Claremont UCC's head pastor:

Mr. Henderson responded to a complaint he had heard that the [Preserve Claremont] ads were "manipulative".

"Of course they are," he said. "That's what politics is all about. Claremonters like things to be real nice. They say, 'Let's do powerbrokering behind the scenes and be real nice.' But politics is about leaders. Mr. Calaycay s running for office and we're trying to get factual information out about him."

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It mattered not a whit that the "factual information" Henderson alluded to consisted of nothing more than rumor, innuendo, and outright lies, much of which was supplied by city staff. But, rather than being shocked that a former man of the cloth would engage in such self-acknowledged manipulations, we should expect it.

We can't help but recall the last Claremont Unified School District Measure Y bond campaign in 2000. During that lead up to that campaign, school district officials held a public meeting at which residents who lived near Claremont High School showed up to protest the planned use of Measure Y money to put a football stadium in at the high school.

When it became clear during the meeting that the football facility plans were going to imperil Measure Y's passage, the district officials took a break, held a quick sideline huddle with Superintendent Keeler calling signals, and then reconvened to assure the audience that no Measure Y dollars would be used for the high school stadium. At that meeting, one Butch Henderson, who happened to live very near the high school, stood up and said he was happy with the district officials' plan to accommodate his neighbors.

With no opposition from the Towne Ranch neighborhood, Measure Y passed by a little more than 100 votes citywide. Within a matter of a few years, the district, flush with Measure Y dollars, installed the permanent football field, lights, and bleachers at the high school. In fact construction workers are installing a second course of permanent seating right now.

So, yes, the neighborhood was lied to. But in Claremont anything associated with the school district approaches a certain religious fervor, complete with a kind of priesthood to deliver CUSD's holy word. The truth is whatever that priesthood says it is. As Pastor Henderson could tell them, all's fair in politics and war.

Not a Stadium

Soon Parted: Hello Fools, Goodbye Money

We and others in the community have been bothered by the fact that Measure CL, the Claremont Unified School District's $95 million November bond measure, has no identified projects in need of all that money. Perhaps we missed something.

We looked again at the bond resolution the CUSD board approved on July 22, and noticed that buried deep in the ballot proposition language was a sentence under the heading "Project List" that says:

The District conducted a facilities evaluation reflected in the [Facilities Master Plan] presented to the Board of Education on January 21, 2009 and incorporated herein by reference...

So there is a project list, CUSD just didn't include it for the voters to review easily. We've confirmed through our back-channel sources that it takes more that a bit of effort to see that list. If you are interested in what that $95 million might be spent on, you have to go to the district office on San Jose Ave. and review a several inches thick binder that constitutes the district's Facilities Master Plan, otherwise known as CUSD's wish list.

It's not exactly the most user-friendly way of discovering the district's intentions for the bond. From what district tout Bill Fox said in the Claremont Courier last Saturday, we can expect the bond campaign committee - Fox, Mike Seder, and, direct from Claremont Heritage and the Claremont Educational Foundation, the ever-reliable Lee Jackman - to cull through that binder and pull out enough poll-friendly projects to add up to $95 million.

But there's no guarantee that whatever bond project list CUSD's campaign cooks up will ever be completed. Buried in the fine print at the end of the resolution is a sentence that says:

In the absence of State and/or Federal matching funds, which the District will aggressively pursue to reduce the District's share of the projects' costs, the District will not be able to complete some of the projects listed above.

The school district doesn't tell you, however, that it will fail to really pursue State and/or Federal matching funds as it assures us it will. Even in failure, the district has a design. If the district opts out of state funds, it also doesn't have to worry about accountability in the form of state spending guidelines and audits. That's why no CUSD official will speak of any bond oversight that is independent of the district. Instead, CUSD and its board will handpick a "citizens committee" with a safe majority of its friends to ensure the bond money is spent as they see fit.

The district's secretive project binder and that fine print at the end of the ballot proposition language demonstrate just how far CUSD Superintendent Terry Nichols, the CUSD Board of Education, and the bond campaign committee are willing to go to conceal the truth of the bond from the voting public. They are betting that if they bury enough qualifying clauses in dense enough prose, they will be able to fool enough voters into supporting this bond.

The Fine Print
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As you can see above, it's not exactly an open, clear, well-articulated plan. It's really more of a lawyerly, CYA paragraph designed to inoculate the school district from blame when the money dries up long before their yet-to-be-released project list is completed.

The first sentence in the fine print, for instance, says, "The listed projects will be completed as needed." In other words, if needed we will decide that items previously deemed priorities really aren't necessary, and we'll use the money on other unspecified things - whatever we want.

As we've pointed out several times in the past, in the case of CUSD's $48.9 million Measure Y bond one of the main projects listed, La Puerta Elementary School, wasn't ever built because it was deemed unnecessary. Instead, the district threw the money away on such urgent, non-educational items as Claremont High's track and football facilities.

With Measure CL, the district also seeks to circumvent its own bond language. On the one hand, the last paragraph states, in all caps for extra emphasis:

NO ADMINISTRATIVE SALARIES. PROCEEDS FROM THE SALES OF THE BONDS AUTHORIZED BY THIS PROPOSITION SHALL ONLY BE USED FOR THE ACQUISITION, CONSTRUCTION, RECONSTRUCTION, REHABILITATION, OR REPLACEMENT OF SCHOOL FACILITIES, INCLUDING THE FURNISHING AND EQUIPPING OF SCHOOL FACILITIES, AND NOT FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE, INCLUDING TEACHER AND SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR SALARIES AND OTHER OPERATING EXPENSES.

But just a couple sentences above that, the full ballot language claims:

Proceeds of the bond may be used to pay or reimburse the District for the cost of District staff when performing work on or necessary and incidental to bond projects.

So, how does one square those two contradictory statements? The district doesn't intend to. That last paragraph is merely something they are required to include but which they will never follow. If you need further evidence, check reporter Landus Rigsby's article on page four of the August 11 Claremont Courier. Rigsby wrote:

"Any [extra] money that comes in [from the state] or money from a bond needs to go to salaries," said CUSD Director of Human Resources Kevin Ward. "If the district receives an increase in base revenue higher than what is [currently] projected, then before the district can spend on other things, a certain percentage will go back to salary restoration for all the employee groups."

Ward was simply being honest, even if what he said ran counter to the bond's ballot language. The bond money will be used for salaries, no matter what the district says during the bond campaign. Now, it would be illegal for the district to simply take the money and dump it directly into teacher salaries. So CUSD will wash the money through its project list and pay for the salaries that way rather than asking employees to make some temporary sacrifices to help balance the district's budget.

No one thing irks us more than the disregard and contempt the district, its board of education, the teachers' union, and the bond campaign committee have for language, bending it as they please to suit whatever momentary meaning they require. They intend to use words not to further their educational mission but to manipulate the public into supporting something they've intentionally misrepresented as a needed facilities repair and construction bond.

It's a poor example for the very students they claim to care so much about, and no wonder why, even under the best of circumstances, Measure CL supporters and their highly paid campaign consultants will have a fight ahead of them. Without the truth on their side, it'll take a lot of doublespeak to get the 55% of the vote needed for the measure to pass.

Of that sort of talk, though, the district and its various representatives have no shortage. These are, after all, many of the same people who gave us Glenn Southard, the Parks and Pasture Assessment (lost 44% to 56%), Preserve Claremont, and failed city council candidate Bridget Healy, the retired Claremont assistant city manager who's currently raking in $166,700 a year from a CalPERS pension.

Given the stagnant economy and the level of joblessness and foreclosures in our area, they'd be wiser to ask for far less and sacrifice more before asking property owners to pay off a $95 million debt. They'd also be well advised to stick to the truth in the future if they're going to ask people for that amount of money.

(In the coming days, we'll have more on that debt, how much larger it will be than the district has portrayed it, and how the bond proponents intend to finance the bonds over the next 55 years - far enough in the future for all of them to be safely dead long before the extent of their folly is revealed.)

Sunday Corrections

We had a couple emails come in that warranted posting.

The first was a note about our post from last Wednesday on the Claremont Unified School District's and school board member Jeff Stark's tendency to obfuscate:

DATE: Thu, August 12, 2010 10:44:03 AM
SUBJECT: and it's just that simple
TO: Claremont Buzz

"...at the July 22 school board meeting, Jeff Stark (apparently the voice of authority on the bond issue) claimed it would take a long time to get that information....

"The assessor's report for 2009 on page 28 of the PDF file lists the assessed valuation for the city of Claremont as $3.55 billion."

I love how well you do that, and I know why it pisses people off. Never stop.

By the way, after reading that email, we noticed an error in Wednesday's post. The page we referenced from the LA County Office of the Assessor's report was page 16, not page 28. We've corrected that mistake.

* * * * *

Then there was this from a reader who wanted to set us straight on the matter of now-retired Indio city manager Glenn Southard. Earlier, we speculated that Southard's annual pension might be significantly larger than his final year's $300,000 salary. We thought that Southard might be able to use some of his $162,000 in unused vacation and sick time towards the number used to determine his CalPERS pension.

The reader, who has a good deal of expertise in municipal retirement finances, says that we were in error when we indicated that Southard could have used any bonuses, vacation, or sick time to enlarge his retirement. The reader also states that Indio's own finance director would have been ethically bound to advise the Indio council of the improprieties of allowing Southard to count such extras towards his retirement payouts.

The reader goes on to say that the real budget buster for municipal pensions is public safety workers (police and firemen). The reader makes a number of good points there that are very much overlooked, by us and by others who follow public pensions.

Here's the reader's letter:

DATE: Wed, August 11, 2010 11:40:32 AM
SUBJECT: CalPERS fact check
TO: Claremont Buzz

A couple of things you did not get quite right. I'm no fan of Glenn Southard, but your article does have some factual errors. As to spiking, CalPERS is pretty good about not allowing it, unless the City Council is complicit in the spiking scheme (ala Bell). Overtime, bonuses, and sick leave and vacation payouts are NOT used to determine final compensation. The only way accrued sick, and vacation time could be used to spike the final years salary, is if the City Council approved, a salary increase, in lieu of paying out the accrued leave, That would have to be done at a public meeting, and if found by CalPERS would result in the benefit being reduced. CalPERS finding it, and doing something about it (as in Bell) is not likely. But a City's finance director, would know that this is a prohibited practice, and would be ethically bound to advise the Council against taking such an action.

Now, a great CalPERS/ public safety union scam has to do with police and firefighters. Uniform allowances, education pay, and special assignment pay (like being a detective, or a truck captain) are counted as part of final compensation, which is paid at about 98.6 % in retirement starting as early as age 50. Where else can you get paid after retiring for uniforms you don't wear, a speciality bonus for work you no longer do, and for getting an education which allowed you to advance through the ranks, to the level of pay at which you retire at. And if you are a firefighter you get paid to sleep, and as a police officer you get paid for your meal times. This is were the pension system is bleeding. Oh, and guess what. CalPERS has recently completed new actuarials on age. The average public safety worker will live to 82.5, while the average general employee lives to about 81.7. This finally answers the myth that police, and firefighters don't live very long after retiring--therefore they should get better pensions.

You really ought to look into this, instead of focusing on management, as public safety retirement benefits are what are creating the large unfunded liabilities.

I should know. I am a former finance director for a large California city.

We stand corrected, though we are still puzzled by a couple things. The Claremont Courier's Tony Krickl reported last week that Southard's retirement payments, according to Indio's records, were $309,000 a year. Since this is above his final contract's salary, something must have been added in.

We looked at another blog's post that showed a 2007 amendment to Southard's Indio contract (posted here). Included with that contract amendment was a letter from CalPERS regarding Southard's retirement that states: "69.625 days unused sick leave have been credited to the member's account. If all of this information is correct, no action is needed." The letter was dated March 18, 2010. So at least some portion of that sick leave appears to have been used to bump up Southard's pension.

One other point. In Indio, Southard's finance director was Michael Busch, who had the same position under Southard in Claremont. We can't speak to his ethics, but Busch was always a Southard yes-man. We don't see him opposing anything that would benefit Southard.

Southard Redux

Former Claremont city manager Glenn Southard is the subject of a Steve Lopez column in the LA Times today. Lopez holds Southard up as an example of the excesses in the city manager profession.

In addition to the perks we and others noticed, Lopez noted that Southard, who went to the city of Indio in 2005, received a $30,000 signing bonus with his 2007 contract. Lopez also went to lay out some of the other hidden benefits Southard got while in Indio:

Southard's contract called for a $50,000 life insurance policy and a second policy, for good measure, valued at $500,000. In addition to city contributions to his pension with the California Public Employees Retirement System, "City agrees to deposit the maximum sum allowed" into a separate, deferred retirement fund known as a 457. That put the city on the hook for as much as $22,000 a year more.

He was given 30 days of vacation time the day he started work, with 30 additional days (six weeks) per year. "Such vacation may be carried over, if not used, with unlimited accumulation," said the contract, which allowed him to accept cash, instead, for up to 120 hours of vacation time each year.

In addition, the contract called for 90 days of sick leave, health insurance, a $600 monthly car allowance, 13 paid holidays and two personal days annually.

Besides all of those generous gifts, Lopez says that Southard was also able to buy two years worth of retirement (part of a golden parachute Southard engineered under the cover of downsizing Indio's city staff). That meant that, as Lopez writes, Southard got seven years of retirement credit for five years of work.

As we noted previously, Southard was also able to accumulate the equivalent of $162,000 in unused vacation and sick leave, which he cashed out upon retirement. We're still trying to run down how much of that accrued time counted towards his final year of salary, the figure used in determining Southard's pension payments.

It's not Robert Rizzo territory, but it still stings, especially when Claremonters are stuck with a good portion of the unfunded part Southard's CalPERS retirement bill.

Pension Tension

To follow on Friday's post about Bell, CalPERS, and Glenn Southard, we came across a New York Times article by Ron Lieber titled "The Coming Class War Over Public Pensions." (The NYT has toned the title down to "Battle Looms Over Huge Costs of Public Pensions.")

Lieber writes that our labor force is evolving into a two-class system. On the one hand are public employees, who continue to receive generous, taxpayer-funded defined benefit pensions with built-in cost of living increases. On the other are private sector employees, most of whom do not have pensions but who may, if they work at the right place and happen to be savers, have 401(k) or IRA accounts in which they, not taxpayers, bear all of the risk.

According to Lieber, taxpayers will likely be asked to rescue underfunded public pension plans for cities and states when those begin to go underwater. As Claremont city council member Peter Yao said a couple weeks ago, our own employee' CalPERS pension account is underfunded to the tune of up to $50 million, something that the majority of the council (Elderkin, Pedroza, and Schroeder) and the Claremont 400, refuse to admit.

Claremont's pension problems are just one small part of a national problem. How much money are we talking about? Lieber tells us:

At stake is at least $1 trillion. That’s trillion, with a “t,” as in titanic and terrifying.

The figure comes from a study by the Pew Center on the States that came out in February. Pew estimated a $1 trillion gap as of fiscal 2008 between what states had promised workers in the way of retiree pension, health care and other benefits and the money they currently had to pay for it all. And some economists say that Pew is too conservative and the problem is two or three times as large.

So a question of extraordinary financial, political, legal and moral complexity emerges, something that every one of us will be taking into town meetings and voting booths for years to come: Given how wrong past pension projections were, who should pay to fill the 13-figure financing gap?

As Yao could tell Lieber, here in Claremont we won't be having those public meetings until the City is at the verge of bankruptcy. The same is true with nearly every other municipality in the state and nation. As a result, the people Lieber calls "have-nots," private sector workers, will also be the ones asked to bear the burden of maintaining the lifestyles of our current public sector retirees, who for the most part refuse to give any concessions on their benefits.

Our public sector pension costs are compounded by the practice of pension spiking, in which public workers in their final year of employment manipulate the rules to drive up the value of their pensions. CalPERS offers a couple different ways of determining pension payments. Under many, such as in the city of Bell, the amount is determined by the employee's final year of compensation. If employees game the system by working a lot of overtime or by cashing out unused vacation time, their pensions can end up significantly higher than their final base salary.

Those spiked pensions cause additional problems for already underfunded CalPERS plans because the employees end up earning much more than can be covered by the money they and their employers actually paid into the system.

To no one's surprise, former Bell city manager Robert Rizzo has become the poster boy for outrageous public pensions. The Daily Bulletin ran an article Saturday by reporter Sandra Emerson, who explained that as a result of how CalPERS formulates pension payments, the city of Rancho Cucamonga, where Rizzo worked for about eight years, will be on the hook for about $125,000 of Rizzo's estimated $650,000 a year pension, assuming Rizzo survives his tarring and feathering long enough to collect.

As we said Friday, when former Claremont city manager Glenn Southard retired from Indio, his base salary was $300,000 a year. However, Southard also could have earned as much a $30,000 performance bonus, and he cashed out $162,000 in unused vacation and sick time. If Southard's pension is based simply on his final year of earnings, and if any bonus and accured vacation/sick time count towards that amount, he could end up with a pension well in excess of his salary.

Whatever pension Southard gets, because of CalPERS' crazy rules, Claremont will be on the hook for a considerable portion of his pension. Because Southard worked here for 17 years, Claremont will have to pay for those 17 years, but the payout will be based on his final year in Indio. For Claremont's share of his retirement, Glenn will qualify for 2.5% of whatever that final Indio figure was times 17 (each year that he worked here).

The California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility (CFFR) has a website that takes public information from CalPERS and CalSTRS (the California State Teachers' Retirement System) and posts the names and annual pension payments for anyone getting more than $100,000 a year.

Southard isn't on there yet because the figures haven't been updated since his retirement earlier this year, but another familiar Claremont personality did have her information posted. Our own Bridget Healy, Southard's right-hand woman in Claremont and Indio, retired in 2008 .

CFFR puts Healy's CalPERS pension at $166,701.84, of which Claremont will pay around $100,000 for Healy's roughly 18 years in Claremont, based on her $220,000 final year's salary in Indio. Healy, who seems to be maneuvering for another run at a Claremont city council seat, never has explained how she would manage her conflict of interest when it comes to pension matters here. However, we're going to guess that Healy's the pull-the-ladder-up-after-me type and probably won't have any qualms when it comes to cutting future employee benefits.

Here from CFFR are the Indio retirees in the six-figure club, soon to be joined by our friend Glenn:


And, in case you were wondering about our fair city, here is our $100,000+ CalPERS club:


We also present the Claremont Unified School District's CalSTRS pension high rollers:



There will be others joining these lists. Former Claremont Human Services Director Dick Guthrie, for instance, isn't on Claremont's CalPERS list, though his pension has to be well over $100,000. Former Claremont Community Services Director Mark Harmon and former Community Facilities Manager Mark Hodnick, too will join the exorbitant pensions club.

We're also struck by the presence of a number of prominent Claremonters on these lists. Council member Larry Schroeder is represented on the city of Lakewood's CalPERS pension rolls. Also, two influential members of the Claremont League of Women Voters own hefty public pensions: Bridget Healy and Anita Hughes, the wife of the late former Claremont mayor and CUSD assistant superintendent Alexander Hughes.

Yet another person, LWV president and Claremont Police Commissioner Barbara Musselman, is a former San Bernardino County Human Resources Director and receives a large San Bernardino County Employees' Retirement Association pension (SBCERA doesn't make its individual pension payouts readily available for the public).

Claremont's unsustainable pension obligations are the number one long term threat to our city's financial security. Yet, no one in any position of power, with the exceptions of Council members Yao and Corey Calaycay, are willing to deal with that threat. Instead, groups like the local League of Women Voters, who remained preoccupied with rehabilitating former Claremont mayor Ellen Taylor's image and helping Healy get elected to the council, are content to allow the City fly into a fiscal abyss.

One would expect people like Musselman or Healy to express a little more empathy and gratitude toward the people who fund their wealthy lifestyles. Instead, we constantly see them pushing this or that costly toy - a trolley, say - that only adds to the burden borne by the working stiffs who have to pay for for Musselman's and Healy's retirements as well as their own.

Lost in all this is the unfairness of forcing the public, the majority of whom do not have the luxury of unearned, spiked pension benefits with automatic cost-of-living increases, to rescue these underfunded public pension systems when they become insolvent. If our local and state elected officials and their supporters continue on their present course, that class war that Ron Lieber wrote of will move very quickly from metaphor to reality.

Desert Update

More news from the desert city of Indio:

The Desert Sun reports that the Riverside County Grand Jury has questioned some current and former Indio City Council members for reasons unknown. There's no telling what this may be about. The Indio city government has taken a lot of heat recently with regards to its credit card policy, its hiring of former Finance Director Michael Busch and Busch's consulting company, its extremely large budget deficit, and the golden handshakes it extended to a number of city employees.

When one considers the former Claremont employees who went over to Indio in 2005, one can't help but think, there but for the grace of God....

A 2/14/10 Sun article said:

It is unclear what the grand jury is looking into or whether a full investigation has been launched — or if the matter is civil or criminal. But the questioning comes at a time when city leaders are under fire by residents and community members for spending habits — the city faces a multimillion- dollar deficit — and early retirement deals, including one to City Manager Glenn Southard. He is the highest-paid city official in the Coachella Valley and plans to retire April 1.

“I'm concerned, yeah,” Councilman Glenn Miller said about the grand jury examination.

Miller is aware of the probe by a “grand jury committee” but said he has yet to be subpoenaed for an interview.

The article indicated that former Indio city councilmember Mike Wilson acknowledged he was interviewed by the grand jury twice last month, but Wilson could not disclose any details of those inquiries. The article went on to say that if the investigation is a civil matter rather than a criminal one, there could be questions of the propriety of something Indio officials did without the act being necessarily illegal.

Either way, it looks like our friend and former Claremont City Manager Southard bailed out at just the right time. But then, timing (and bailing, for that matter) was always Glenn's strong point.

Local Accountability

TIGHT MONEY

With the city of Claremont and the Claremont Unified School District both facing even more budget cutting, both agencies are reaching out to the community for help in solving their money problems. Although the City and the CUSD are pursuing similar strategies, their goals are very different.


DESPERATELY SEEKING OPINIONS

The City seems to have moved on a little from its Glenn Southard days and is actually trying to solicit real opinions that it will try to incorporate into its decisions. Claremont held the first of two community budget workshops last week, and the second is scheduled for tomorrow night, February 16, from 7-9pm in the Padua Room of the Alexander Hughes Community Center at 1700 Danbury Rd.

The City has also posted its Powerpoint budget presentation along with an online survey that will be used to determine budgetary priorities. The survey needs to be completed before Monday, February 22, if you want your responses to be included in the budget discussion.

Tony Krickl reported on last week's budget workshop in Saturday's Claremont Courier (sorry, no link available):

Residents were asked to provide their opinions on the most deserving programs and projects for the city's revenues. Some of the top priorities identified at the meeting include fiscal responsibility, public safety, high building standards and sustainability.

But city officials warn big expense projects on the scale of Padua Park are likely off the table in the near future. "We don't have a lot of extra money lying around to do big capital projects," City Manager Jeff Parker said.

The article also indicated that city officials were surprised by the severity of the recession, and had to deal with a General Fund (the portion of the budget that is funded by things like sales and property taxes) that in the past year was reduced from $22 million to $20 million. In addition, as you probably know, the city has had to cut back on services and reduce the number of employees by almost 15 percent.

City Manager Parker also said in the Courier article that the City could lose between $50,000 and $100,000 in sale tax revenue if Claremont Toyota's sales suffer from any backlash to Toyota's problems with accelerator and brake controls on many of its models.

The biggest surprise to us is that city officials didn't foresee any of these financial problems and went ahead with a number of costly projects. For example, the City spent about $2.6 million building the aforementioned scaled-down version of Padua Park, and borrowed $527,000 from its General Fund reserve in the process. That one project therefore accounted for virtually all of the city's budgetary problems. You would have thought the responsible thing would have been to wait until the economy and the city's finances improved before proceeding with such a large capital outlay. The City was really no different than a family that decides to go ahead with remodeling their kitchen right before their income is reduced by half because of a job loss. Yes, they couldn't foresee the problem, but still, they have to reduce spending when it happens.

Claremont is certainly in much better shape than some cities, but it's still accountable for having created its own problems at the cost of the very municipal jobs and services it holds so dear.


CUSD BOMBS OUT

As we predicted last week, rather than a self-examination of how it managed to misspend $48.9 million in Measure Y bond money, Claremont Unified is gearing up for a revenue enhancement campaign by laying a guilt trip on taxpayers. CUSD board president Hilary LaConte was quoted in Saturday's Courier on this point (again, no link):

"I think one of the questions that will come out of this is that what does the community really value in education our children?" Ms. LaConte said. "Many other districts are turning to their communities for help and we are doing the same. We really want to get a sense of where the community lies before we go forward."

In other words, if Claremonters don't want a bond (CUSD's funding vehicle of choice), they don't value their children's education.

To help CUSD determine the level of public support for either a bond or a parcel tax, the district hired TBWB Public Finance Strategies, LLC, to poll residents. The problem with that consultant, in our view, is that this is not like hiring the Gallup Poll. Polling is not their single area of expertise. Rather, TBWB advertises itself as being expert at getting financing measures passed. They are more of a campaign consultant than a pure polling company, and CUSD hired them in 2000 to help get Measure Y passed.

This all leads us to believe that the real purpose behind CUSD's bringing in TBWB is not to seek public opinion but to determine the best ways of marketing a future bond or tax to voters. The polling results will be used by the district to shape its future financing election campaign. The CUSD board (with the exception of boardmember Steve Llanusa) has almost certainly already decided what it wants and couldn't care less about what we the public believes is important.

Unlike the City's public opinion survey and community budget meetings, CUSD (which remains the Claremont 400's playground), already knows what it will do. The rest, community meetings, polls, Claremont Courier puff pieces, is simply window dressing.

Fiscal accountability has come up very little or not at all in the discussions. Worse, if we end up with a bond measure, none of that money will go towards hiring a single new teacher or underwriting existing salaries and benefits. A bond will only be used for new construction, remodeling, and upgrades of existing facilities - something that we did only 10 years ago with Measure Y. And, incidentally, we are still paying off Measure Y today (check your property tax bill for last year).

Really, when you think about it, CUSD's board is a kind of neutron bomb of public agencies, keeping all the buildings standing but eliminating people. They're really concerned with having the newest goo gaw rather than investing in hiring and keeping good teachers. We understand that California's school districts have been hit very hard - harder than most cities - by the state's never-ending budget deficits, but CUSD and almost all of its boardmembers, current and past, have thrown away millions over the years and will do so again if given the chance. They must be held accountable first, then we can talk about finances.

News Roundup

A few bits of news from Claremont and elsewhere:

• If you've got any cans of old paint, used motor oil, used batteries and such taking up garage space, now's your chance to get rid of the stuff. The City of Claremont is holding a Hazardous Household Waste Roundup this Saturday, February 6, from 9am to 3pm at the Claremont Corporate Yard located at 1616 Monte Vista Ave.
  
  
  
• We didn't see it on the City of Claremont's community events calendar, but this Sunday is the first Sunday of the month, which has in the past been the day the City Council sets up its booth at the Farmers Market in the Claremont Village from 8am to 1pm.
  
  We don't know if the council booth is another casualty of City Hall's budget cutting.
  
  
  
• Meg at M-M-M-My Pomona says the annual Laura Ingalls Wilder Gingerbread Sociable is tomorrow from 1pm to 3pm in - where else? - the Laura Ingalls Wilder room of the Pomona Library at 625 S. Garey Ave. in downtown Pomona. There'll be storytelling, gingerbread, cider, and more. Kids of all ages, from one to 100 and older, are welcome.
  
  
  
• The Fresno Bee has an article about Claremont High School track star Kori Carter signing a letter of intent with Stanford University. Carter will be competing in the high school division of the Run For the Dream Indoor Track & Field Invitation at Buchanan High School in Clovis.
  
  While she's there, Kori can give Claremont's regards to former CUSD superintendent David Cash, who left us for Clovis Unified last year.
  
  
  
• The Sacramento Bee's Kevin Yamamura reports that California not only has the worst Standard & Poors credit rating of any of the 50 states, it is also worse than several countries:
  

  At A-, California still has the worst credit rating of all 50 states. Illinois comes closest to California with an A+ rating.
  
  Countries in the Times' chart with the same A- rating as California include Estonia, Libya and Poland. That's better than Thailand and Greece (BBB+) but not as strong as Botswana, the Czech Republic and Israel (A).

  
  Another sign that Claremont's and CUSD's budget woes won't be going away anytime soon.
  
  
  
• Following up our friend Glenn Southard and his sidekick Michael Busch, we read in the Desert Sun that Glenn's retirement includes almost $162,000 for unused vacation days and sick time he's banked in his time at the city of Indio.
  
  Here's what the Sun said about the details of the deal:
  

  Indio's Glenn Southard is the one of the highest-paid city managers in the state, which is part of the reason for his large final payment. He makes more than $300,000 a year.
  
  According to estimates provided by the city Tuesday, Southard has banked 582.35 hours of vacation, 1,118.55 hours of sick leave and 2.5 hours of administrative leave.
  
  Under the terms of his contract, Southard is entitled to all of the vacation time and half of the sick leave when he leaves City Hall.
  
  Administrative leave — a perk relatively common for city managers — cannot be cashed out, so he would have to use it before leaving, according to assistant to the city manager Mark Wasserman.
  
  That means Southard, who makes $148.74 an hour, would be entitled to 1,087.625 accrued hours of leave — worth $161,773.34.

  
  The Desert Sun tells us that Indio's golden handshake did get approved, by the way, and some people in there are not too happy about that, not that they are people who count for anything.
  
  Coincidentally, the Desert Sun also had an article about how to avoid being a scam victim.

GIGO*

THE OL' REVOLVING DOOR

You may have seen the series of articles the Los Angeles Times wrote last year about the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and its use of highly compensated consultants called placement agents who help steer CalPERS to various investments.

The initial article in the Times on 11/3/09 focused on Alfred Villalobos, a former CalPERS boardmember. The Times piece reported that over a seven-year period, Villalobos earned over $53 million from private equity firms who hired Villalobos because of his ability to give them a friendly introduction to the decision makers at CalPERS.

The Times article laid out Villalobos' sterling qualifications for the business of public employee pension investments (think Peter Principal):

In 1993, newly elected Los Angeles Mayor Richard J. Riordan, a Republican, tapped Villalobos as his deputy mayor for economic development. Villalobos resigned five months later after a series of damaging disclosures in The Times.

The paper reported that Villalobos had declared personal bankruptcy in 1982, writing off $350,000 in debts instead of trying to work out a court-sanctioned repayment plan.

Seven years later, Villalobos bounced $30,000 in checks to pay a weekend's worth of gambling debts in Lake Tahoe, which he refused to pay until the casino sued him.

After leaving City Hall, Villalobos shifted his focus to Sacramento, where, a year earlier, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson had appointed him to the state Personnel Board. That panel, in turn, named Villalobos as its representative to the 13-member CalPERS board, where he served from 1993 to 1995.

The Times article raised the issue of that $53 million Villalobos earned from his investment firm clients. Remember, the cost of all those consultant fees get passed on to the customer - in this case CalPERS and all of its current and future pensioners, as well public agencies like our fair city.

The article also shined a spotlight on public officials at all levels of government who don't appear to be as concerned with the public good as they are with lining their pockets with taxpayers' money, and that's another cost that ultimately gets passed along to the citizens of California. People like Villalobos seem to seek public service merely as a stepping stone to a much larger payday once their time in whatever position they've been elected or appointed to is over.


A READER WRITES

Speaking of revolving doors, we wrote last weeks about Claremont's former city manager, Glenn Southard, and his announced retirement from his current job in Indio. Southard spun taking a "golden handshake" as a sacrifice he made in order to help Indio deal with the multi-million budget deficit that was Southard's gift to Indio.

A reader wrote in regarding a rather obvious point that we completely overlooked. The sort of golden handshake savings Indio is looking for come about because the people stepping down don't get replaced. Cities are willing to foot the expense of golden handshakes because it saves them money in the long run by reducing the number of workers. In fact, Claremont used this strategy to deal with its own budget deficit. However, Southard will be replaced by another city manager with his own six-digit salary.

And, of course, Southard also wants his own consulting gig, seeking to continue to work for Indio after he retires in order to help the city complete the projects he started. It maybe not as lucrative as the one Alfred Villalobos landed, but it's one that Southard will be sure to milk for as much as he can squeeze out of the poor fools on Indio's council, as well any other cities willing to contract Southard's services.

Here's our reader's note:

SUBJECT: Southard PAYOUT
DATE: Saturday, January 30, 2010 12:26 PM
TO: Claremont Buzz

Perhaps you have already mentioned this in a previous posting, but Southard taking the golden handshake is totally inappropriate and will not save the city of Indio any money, as golden handshakes are supposed to do, as the city will be hiring another city manager to take his place. Golden handshakes are primarily given to move on senior employees and then NOT fill their jobs, therefore saving money. So, Glenn gets the gold, perhaps even more money by consulting back with the city, plus the retirement he will draw on top of that, and taxpayers in Claremont will foot the majority of that retirement bill as he worked here the longest. As I have always said “Glenn Southard, the gift that keeps on giving”, except what he gives people is usually the shaft.

THE GANG'S ALL HERE

The Indio-Claremont revolving door came full circle when Indio announced it was considering turning to former Claremont Finance Director Michael Busch to come in and help the city "right size" its government by determining what areas can be streamlined or even eliminated. You may remember that Busch followed Southard from Claremont to Indio.

The Desert Sun's Xocticl Pena had an article yesterday that explained exactly what Indio was hoping to accomplish:

Michael Busch, a former Indio finance director who also worked with City Manager Glenn Southard in Claremont as the treasurer and finance director, will be tasked with creating a “fiscal recovery plan” that could include everything from a forensic financial audit to identifying positions for layoffs. And his work could be shielded from public scrutiny, given the attorney/client privilege clause in the proposed contract

According to the article, Busch is now president of a company called Urban Futures, Inc., a company that appears to be composed almost entirely of former local government employees. Indio will pay Urban Futures and Busch $14,000 per month under the proposed contract, the Desert Sun said.

The Desert Sun has posted the proposed UF contract here. As the newspaper points out, if hired, Busch would work 20 hours per week. The monthly $14,000 would work out to $175 per hour - more than Southard himself was paid. Marvel at the irony in this. Busch helps Southard oversee an operation that ends up with a deficit that runs as high as $14 million, then gets hired on to help fix said problem. You wonder how many others at UF have called on their former employers for contract work.

With money like that flying around, it can't be long before Southard himself signs on with a firm like UF. You'd think that some of Southard's other flunkies would get into the act as well. Or maybe they already have:

(Click image to enlarge)

Should we be looking out for a future UF contract here in Claremont?


*Garbage in, garbage out, as programmers say.

Desert Update

Well, it turns out that the Indio City Council did decide to offer some of its employees, including our friend Glenn Southard, golden handshakes as a way of reducing its payroll. As expected, Southard, having designed the very package he desired, took it.

The Desert Sun reports that Southard has announced his decision to retire from Indio, leaving the desert town with a $5 million budget deficit. Southard gets high marks from many in Indio for all the things he accomplished in his five years there. The Sun article lists those good works, some of which included revamping of the city's water system, repaving Indio's roads, and revitalizing of the city's downtown area.

As ever with Southard, there is always a price to pay, and the Desert Sun article also noted Southard's downside:

In recent months, however, Southard's leadership has drawn sharp criticism from council members and valley residents:

In October, Southard asked council members to withdraw consideration of a change to his contract that would have given him more than 10 weeks of vacation a year. He said the issue and swirling questions “became a distraction.”

The city jeopardized $1.5 million in federal funding — earmarked for a major road project and for improving community housing conditions — when two different agencies questioned how the money was spent or the city's actions leading up to it.

City Hall revoked most of its credit cards and drafted new oversight requirements after a Jan. 3 Desert Sun report showed the city's 62 cardholders had charged more than $805,000 since January 2008. That included nationwide travel, frequent meals out and tickets to three national sporting events.

So, Southard sails off into the municipal managment sunset, taking with him a $300,000-plus yearly CalPERS pension, to which he'll indicates he'd like to add consultant fees, hoping that Indio will bring him to let him help with some of the city's unfinished projects.

All this just goes to show the truth in the old saying: when the going gets tough, Glenn gets going.

Where Are They Now?

Former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard was back in the news recently. Southard, who is now the city of Indio's City Manager, seem to have gotten into hot water over his and his staff's use of city-issued credit cards.

Two reporters for the Desert Sun, Erica Felci and Xochtil Pena, have covered the issue in a series of articles this month. According to the a January 4 Sun article, Indio's city staff spent around $805,000 on its credit cards in a two-year period beginning January, 2008. The Desert Sun article said:

A Desert Sun review of nearly 1,000 pages of credit card statements, however, shows that through October, the city's 62 cardholders spent at least $43,000 more than they had during the same period last year.

The newspaper's investigation also found:

• Tens of thousands of dollars in credit card bills were racked up monthly with charges to local restaurants, NFL and major league baseball teams — even a a women's clothing store. City administrators have repeatedly refused to explain the purpose of these charges.
  
  
• About one in five employees has a card. Records show the cards were issued to employees at all levels, including a front desk receptionist and the five members of the city's executive team.
  
  
• Statements are not seen regularly by City Council members. After reviewing The Desert Sun's findings, the mayor [Gene Gilbert] said he feels “blindsided” and believes some spending liberties were “abused.”
  

With Indio facing a current $5 million budget deficit, the Indio City Council took a lot of heat for the credit card expenses, which included the cost of a trip to Quebec for Southard's wife Gale, who accompanied Southard on an official trip. Southard claimed the matter was a mix-up. He had no defense, however, for the cost of a $15 airline baggage charge for Gale for a trip to Sacramento.

Mayor Gilbert's shock came as something of a surprise. Another Desert Sun article noted that in 2006, an accounting audit recommending a review of Indio's credit card policy:

In January 2006, city officials released an audit that showed 18 areas where accounting standards needed to be tightened. That included a notation that receipts were not always included with card statements, making it difficult for the city to determine if a charge was valid.

The following year, the auditor did not include any reportable conditions.

Still, the City Council in 2006 formed a subcommittee to review the issues raised in the audit — including Indio's credit card policy.

Councilwoman Melanie Fesmire was one of two council members on the subcommittee. Former councilman Mike Wilson, a frequent critic of the city's spending habits, was the other.

“2006. Wow. I can't remember doing it,” Fesmire told The Desert Sun last week. “I don't remember being on the committee. I don't remember the audit frankly. If we met, I assume we came out with a report. I don't recall any of it frankly.”

Wilson told The Desert Sun the subcommittee never met.

The Desert Sun also showed the credit card statements to former Indio City Manager Tom Ramirez:

Ramirez recently met with The Desert Sun to review the city's credit card statements, noting the documents contained “big red flags.”

“There is no way in hell they can justify buying Minnesota Viking tickets,” Ramirez said, pointing to a $1,156 charge in October 2008 on the card issued to assistant to the city manager Mark Wasserman. “Nobody at the top is setting the standard for performance. You're talking about taxpayer money.”

Naturally, Southard defended the credit card policy (or in this case non-policy) as the normal way of doing business.

So, once again, Southard creates a problem for a city council, and that council has to take the public heat. Southard's solution, as always, is to runaway. As part of their cost-cutting efforts, Southard and his staff have recommended offering golden handshakes to employees to get them off the payroll. Part of the deal includes giving employees who are over 50 and who have over 5 years of service (read: Glenn Southard) the option of buying up to two additional years of CalPERS retirement credit.

Southard, who has wrangled similar retirement options in his prior places of employment, has never missed chance to feather his nest. The Sun reported that Southard, who has worked for various cities for 36 years, actually has 40 retirement years.

Let's say that Southard can average 2.5% of his salary for each of those years (he gets 2.5% from Claremont and 2.7% from Indio but has also worked for San Clemente and West Covina*). And let's also assume that Southard buys the extra 2 years he is proposing for himself and the rest of his eligible employees. That would give Southard a yearly pension of 2.5% times 42 years, or 105% of his $300,000 annual salary (actually an average of his highest years of salary), along with yearly cost of living increases.

Southard has indicated that if the Indio City Council adopts the golden handshake to balance their budget, he may sacrifice himself by taking it. Southard, as always, is two steps ahead of the rubes he works for. He is turning a self-created crisis into a golden opportunity for himself.

All of this takes us back to Glenn's year in Claremont. Recall that he attacked then-councilmember Jackie McHenry because she questioned Southard's refusal to submit receipts for his reimbursed expenses. Then, he had a majority of the council on his side, so he could afford to take the offensive. This time, though, the Indio City Council is having to take a harder line because of the bad press they've gotten, and Southard is having to step more carefully.

Indio has already recalled most of its city-issued credit cards (though not Glenn's, we suspect), and there will likely be other reforms in the offing. We suggest one more. Go ahead with the golden handshake for all except senior management. It's worth it to eat the cost of firing him rather than rewarding Southard for his constant refusal to implement commonsense financial checks-and-balances.

It's worth it here to take a trip in the Insider Wayback to Claremont in January, 2005, when Southard staged a fight with former Councilmember McHenry in order distract the public from the questions McHenry was raising about Southard's receipts. Time just may be proving McHenry right.

For your viewing pleasure:





*CORRECTION: Southard actually worked for San Juan Capistrano, not San Clemente.

They're Baaaack!

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

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

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

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

The letter was notable for a couple omissions:

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

History is once again erased in Claremont.

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

Remember, voters: No clothes, no clothes.