City Council Meeting Tonight

The Claremont City Council meets this evening for their last session before the municipal election on March 8. The next time the council meets, it will be to have the three winning candidates sworn in on Tuesday, March 15.

The council will meet in the council chambers at 225 Second St. across from Saca's Mediterranean restaurant (you're welcome for the free product placement).

As always, you can watch the meeting here.

CLOSED SESSION

Tonight's council action starts with a closed session meeting beginning at 4pm. These closed session meetings typically start at around 5:15, so there may be some longer discussions involved in the three items on the closed session agenda.

The first agenda item involves undisclosed potential litigation. The second has to do with negotiations involving the Peppertree Square shopping center at the southeast corner of Indian Hill Blvd. and Arrow Hwy.

The last closed session item has to do with a lawsuit filed in Pomona Superior Court in June last year. We haven't had a chance to run down to the courthouse to review the suit, but the plaintiff is a dentist named Dan Sizemore. The case is a civil rights suit, and the defendants are the Claremont Police Department and several of its officers, the City of Claremont, and a Glendora marriage and family therapist named Ilissa Banhazi:

Case Number: KC058857
DR. DAN SIZEMORE, D.D.S. VS CITY OF CLAREMONT


Filing Date: 06/02/2010 Case Type: Civil Rights (General Jurisdiction) Status: Pending

Future Hearings

02/22/2011 at 08:30 am in department O at 400 Civic Center Plaza, Pomona, CA 91766 Conference-Case Management (M/STRIKE)

Parties

SIZEMORE D D.S. DR. DAN - Plaintiff
BARUCH JOEL W. ESQ. - Attorney for Plaintiff

CLAREMONT CITY OF - Defendant
CLAREMONT POLICE DEPARTMENT CITY OF - Defendant
COSTA J. SERGEANT - Defendant
ABARCA C. OFFICER - Defendant
J. TING. OFFICER - Defendant
MEDRANO J. OFFICER - Defendant
GROSSBERG SCOTT J. - Attorney for Defendant

BANHAZI MFT. ILISSA - Defendant
CAUDILL O. BRANDT - Attorney for Defendant

REGULAR SESSION

Tonight's regular session convenes at 6:30pm. You can see the agenda here.

There's one ceremonial matter, recognition of Jerry Tessier of Arteco Partners, developer of the Claremont Packing House and the Padua Hills Theatre; Jonathan Tolkin of The Tolkin Group, developer of the Claremont Village Expansion; and Harry Wu, developer of the Old School House and Griswold's complex.

After public comment, the meeting moves on to the consent calendar, which includes a couple items of interest:

• The Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs) for the City of Claremont and the Claremont Redevelopment Agency. This is something of particular interest this year thanks mostly to Governor Jerry Brown, who has proposed eliminating redevelopment agencies.
  
  
• A memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Claremont Management Association, unrepresented employees, and the Claremont Employees Association.
  
  The MOUs lock the city into agreements that the employees will start contributing their share of their CalPERS pension payments (a total of 8% per year). The employees will start contributing 2% each year until they reach 8%. CMA safety employees (police management) will end up contributing a total of 9%, which is supposed to be their contribution.
  
  Currently, the employees pay nothing with the City picking up the employees' share. This proposal came out in the Mayor's Ad Hoc Committee on Economic Sustainability's recent report and has been a council campaign issue.
  
  Candidate Opanyi Nasiali, who was a dissenting vote on this matter while on the Mayor's committee, believes the employees' contributions shouldn't be graduated because the City can realize an immediate savings of $1.2 million per year if the employees simply switched to paying their entire contributions - something the city's waste management workers agreed to do in their contract last year.
  
  
• Authorizing NBS Corporation to prepare the City's annual Landscaping and Lighting District (LLD) engineer's report. Always a point of contention, this. We'll undoubtedly have more on this once the report is released. We'll see if the LLD gets increased this year.
  
  
• Request for council approval of a land acquisition agreement for the 150-acre Cuevas Property, which will be added to the Claremont Wilderness Park. The purchase price, "not to exceed $4,850,000," was negotiated by the Trust for Public Land and will be paid through two grants of $2,425,000 each from the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy and from the state's Wildlife Conservation Board.
  

As to adminstrative items, the council will also receive and consider the City's Youth Sports Facilities Needs Assessment report, of which we'll try to have more at a later date.

There's also a police department staffing report that will disappoint some of the candidates and the police officers' union with it's assurances that the police department should be able to get along fine at its current staffing level. The police officers and some of their allies in the Claremont 400 have been working hard to put a scare into the public about understaffing as the City prepares to negotiate the CPD officers' contract.

Lastly, there's a recommendation from the Council's Ad Hoc Committee on Commission Appointments (council members Larry Schroeder and Corey Calaycay) to appoint residents Donna Lowe and Glen Hood II to the Community Services Commission.

Dashed Hopes

Last September Chef Jeff gave us the "heads-up" that a new burger place was opening next to Trader Joe's. Since then we've been watching, every time we went to TJ's to shop, as the former drab high-ceilinged industrial space that was to be the Burger Bar turned into the multi-colored high-ceilinged industrial space that is the Burger Bar. Finally, a month or more ago, the first week it opened, we stopped by for a hamburger, figuring that if you wanted it good, if you wanted it done right, if you wanted best effort, you ought to go while they are still trying to impress.

Until Tony Krickl brought back the nearly-suppressed memories of this dining experience with his blog entry last week, we had almost managed to forget the aforesaid dining experience. We hadn't written about it on the theory that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Like Krickl's meal, ours was just south of ten bucks for a gourmet soda in a gourmet paper cup, gourmet fries, and the eponymous burger.

Perhaps because it was their first week open, we were treated to a floorshow of sorts with various employees, bosses, lead-people, and--it seemed--owners, darting in and out of a closet that graces the main dining area and first removing, then returning a portion, then sorting, then stacking, and finally re-stacking a bunch of folded cloth items that might have been cook's aprons, all the while people coming and going and mumbling darkly and nearly inaudibly to each other except in the case of the lady owner or at any rate high-priestess who barked a couple of low-level employees into temporary silence.

This performance lasted most of the time we were there.

The burger was unmemorable. Now a month later, we can't recall exactly what was on it. We think it was the first item on the menu--some sort of specialty burger which, again, if they were featuring it, our thought was that they must be pretty proud of it. Seems it had the meat, lettuce, avocado, maybe bacon, possibly tomato, and a dollop of dressing, all on an undressed, barely- or un-warmed bun. None of the flavors melded; the meat was dry and fairly tasteless; the bacon had been cooked probably that morning; if it had mushrooms we don't remember them. The thing leaned precariously as it was handed over, and splayed apart like a blackjack deck being fanned as we set it on the table. We ate the burger but left half the fries.

We remember thinking that we could've gotten a much much better burger for half the price at In-N-Out. (as a parenthetical remark, you can get a much better burger for twice the price at the Back Abbey. Or could a couple of months ago. We had one hamburger there, a half-order of fries, and a soda--and left $25 lighter [that is not a typo: twenty-five].)

The reviewers that Tony Krickl cited on his blog pretty much have it right about the Burger Bar.

Still, we wish the place well if they can get their act together. Claremont is altogether too twee and precious in what it offers. A good burger joint would be welcome. This isn't it.

Candlelight at Candlelight

Reporter Will Bigham posted an article on the Daily Bulletin's website that said Tuesday night's closed session discussion over possible future litigation had to do with the Candlelight Pavilion located next to the Old School House and the Claremont Doubletree Hotel.

According to the article, the theatre has lost revenue because of the construction at the Old School House complex and has fallen behind on its rent:

Harry Wu, owner of the property on which the theater sits, says the dispute stems from the inability of the Candlelight Pavilion to pay its rent.

General Manager Mick Bollinger "has some back rent that he needs to pay, and he was trying to seek" financial assistance from the city, Wu said.

Attendance at the Candlelight Pavilion has been affected by construction projects going on in its immediate vicinity at the Old School House, Wu said.

City staff is apparently concerned about the possibility of a lawsuit by the theatre to recoup the lost revenue. The Pavilion might look to the city because of its involvement in the rehabilitation of the site through the Claremont Redevelopment Agency.

You can read more about the history of the site in the Old Schoolhouse/Claremont Inn Specific Plan.

(Click to Enlarge)

Image taken from Old Schoolhouse/Claremont Inn Specific Plan, page 18

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

We missed another eminent domain story yesterday, but thanks to a regular reader who passed it on to us.

______________________

Former City Manager Glenn Southard, as we've written in the past, is indeed an ongoing gift. You almost have to wonder if Southard took some sort of perverse pleasure in leaving behind landmines to explode years later.

There was the $17.5 million settlement for the October, 2003, fire that destroyed homes in Palmer Canyon, Padua Hills, and Claraboya. The fire burned through the City of Claremont's Wilderness Park, which homeowners claimed had not been properly cleared of brush. The city had a Vegetation Management Plan for the park to address the areas bordering homes, but failed to implement the plan fully, according to the plaintiffs in the suit.

Then, there was the $675,000 paid out this year to the developer of the Village West expansion project, The Tolkin Group, because Southard and his staff had put the utility connections in place long before anyone decided on the actual details and locations of the buildings going in. So the developer had to pay to have the hookups moved around.

And let's not forget that instant $10 million pension deficit Southard created by pushing a city employee pension upgrade in the year before he left. (The pension increase, based on years of service, was retroactive back to each employee's date of hire.)

There are other problems that have come up since Southard left. Just yesterday Will Bigham had an article about Harry Wu, the developer of the DoubleTree Hotel and the Old Schoolhouse project on Foothill Blvd.

According to the Bigham article, Wu is unhappy because he would rather own the DoubleTree property than lease it. He has not been able to negotiate a purchase, and in the article yesterday he complained that in early 2005, before leaving Claremont for Indio, Southard had given Wu private assurances that the city would use eminent domain if needed to help Wu obtain the property.

Wu told Bigham that he would not have sunk $10 million into the DoubleTree without Southard's assurances.

Sound familiar? At the same time Wu says Southard was promising the use of eminent domain, Southard's staff also worked with Roger Hogan, the owner of Claremont Toyota, to assist Hogan in obtaining the old Chili's site in South Claremont. The threat of eminent domain against the property owner was raised during those negotiations because of the tax advantages to the seller if eminent domain was threatened. Southard left, and the eminent domain talk died down.

And last year the Johnson's Pasture owners complained that they, too, had been promised a threat of eminent domain by the city during early 2005 to give them a tax advantage.

Southard, naturally, denied making any eminent domain promises to Harry Wu. Bigham quoted Southard's response:

"I couldn't do that as city manager anyway," said Southard, who is now the city manager of Indio. "The only people who can issue a notice of condemnation are the City Council at a public meeting and with public notice."

Notice Southard didn't said, "I didn't do that." There is no flat denial. He only says, "I couldn't do that...." Yet, there does seem to be a pattern of eminent domain talk floating around in early 2005 as Southard was exiting Claremont.

Back in March this year, we received an email from Mike Vasilove, one of the Johnson's Pasture owners. Vasilove said in his note:

We have in our possession, a letter from the City signed by the City Manager dated April, 2005 telling the owners of JP the City is interested in purchasing the Pasture and will recommend to the City Council the
use of eminent domain against us if we don't agree to sell the Pasture under the price and terms set forth by the first appraisal and agreement. We agreed to sell under those terms and price. The City backed out of the contract due to the adjustment made by the State regarding the appraisal.

We asked Vasilove for a copy of that note, but he never provided it to us. However, it seems odd that both Wu and Vasilove would complain of the same promises from Southard in different transactions.

Bigham also interviewed former city employee Scott Miller for yesterday's piece. Miller, unlike Southard, did acknowledge the fact that eminent domain had come up during the discussions with Wu in 2005, but Miller claimed that though the subject did get mentioned, it was not promised. Miller was the city's assistant executive director (to Southard) of the Claremont Redevelopment Agency.

In the Bigham article, the city acknowledged having sent a letter to the owners of the DoubleTree property saying that Wu had promised to pay the costs of any eminent domain proceeding--so it had indeed come up, and in the form of a letter, just as the Johnson's Pasture owner had claimed.

Of course, the city, and Southard and Miller, would argue that a mention is not a promise.