Here We Go Again

Reporter Tony Krickl has an article in yesterday's Claremont Courier that tells of a post-debate incident at last Thursday's League of Women Voters forum. Krickl's article said that Alexander Sweida, the husband of City Council candidate Robin Haulman, took about 50 fliers belonging to candidate Jay Pocock and threw them in the trash.

Not surprisingly, former Claremont mayor Ellen Taylor, a/k/a The Cookie Monster, a/k/a Queen Ellen, was centrally involved. Taylor (photo, right) is the Claremont LWV chapter president.

Krickl reported that after the LWV forum ended, Betty Crocker, who works for candidate Opanyi Nasiali's campaign, was talking to Sweida when she saw him accidentally drop "about 50 [Pocock] fliers" onto the floor. Sweida scooped up the fliers and by his own admission threw them away. Krickl quoted Crocker as saying "He looked like he got caught caught with his hand in the cookie jar," which turned out to be a apt metaphor, considering Taylor's involvement in Thursday's incident.

Krickl spoke with Sweida, who claimed he took offense to the fliers because "he felt they contained lies about his wife." The article said the part Sweida took exception to was a line that said "Haulman and [Joseph] Lyons support tax increases (DO YOU?)."

For your reference, here's a Pocock flyer insert from yesterday's Courier. It contains the exact quote cited by Krickl:

Click on Image to Enlarge

In the Courier article, Sweida defended himself by saying he checked with Taylor first and asked "if he could dispose of the material because he felt it contained negative claims about his wife." Notice that he did not used the word "lie." Taylor gave the okay, and Sweida said, "I was just complying with the League's policy on negative campaign material...."

Incredibly, Taylor, who was quoted in the Krickl article, said she didn't review Pocock's fliers before giving Sweida permission to throw them away, she just took his work and allowed him to do it.

Well, we just don't know where to start. Setting aside the First Amendment, which Taylor and the LWV apparently support only on a situational basis, from our perspective this incident simply underscores what we've said all along: The LWV is very closely aligned with certain candidates in every election, picking and choosing who wins and who loses, their hypocrisy is embodied in their actions, and anyone considered an outsider in Claremont local politics faces an unlevel playing field.

Taylor tried to claim that the local LWV is an unbiased organization, and she cited the fact that they had San Dimas resident Ruth Currie moderate the candidate forum. Taylor didn't say that this is a new development for the LWV and that during the last City election in 2009, former LWV president Barbara Musselman moderated the LWV's forum. Musselman, along with people like Katie Gerecke, another former LWV president, supports Haulman and Lyons in this election.

If nothing else, this latest incident should put to rest any idea of impartiality or credibility on the LWV's part, at least when it comes to Claremont's local issues. In this campaign, as in every Claremont city election, the LWV is very much in the corner of their chosen ones. For instance, at the beginning of the debate Thursday, Haulman was introduced as the only woman running this time. Odd how the LWV used gender as a factor to single out one of their favored candidates and overlooked race with respect to the only African-American running, Opanyi Nasiali, or Rex Jaime, the only Filipino-American in the contest. Consistency, as is usual with the LWV, is not in evidence.

Now what about Alexander Sweida's claim that the Pocock flyer contained a lie about his wife's position on taxes? We checked the video for the mid-January Active Claremont candidate forum and discovered that the very first question posed by moderator and former council member Jackie McHenry was:

Do you believe that a tax increase is necessary to address revenue shortfalls [in Claremont]? If so, what taxes do you believe should be raised?

The first two candidates to answer were Joseph Lyons and Robin Haulman. Both cited the Mayor's Committee on Economic Sustainability, and both Lyons and Haulman supported a hike in the City's utility tax. So you tell us, where's the lie in Pocock's line about Haulman and Lyons?

Here's video of Lyons and Haulman answering the tax question last month (notice how Haulman refers to her cheat sheet for her response):




Those of you out there in the real world, those outside the Claremont city limits, can see here just how crazy our local politics are. A truth refracted through the narrow lens of the Claremont 400 and the Claremont League of Women Voters becomes a lie, the perpetrator lays blame on his victim. Just as in the case of Haulman's false claims about her involvement in saving Johnson's Pasture, the truth matters not one bit.

Let's not let the Claremonsters confuse the issue. The central point in this instance is not whether a given candidate does or does not support tax increases; the heart of this matter lies in the sorry ethical behavior of those who control the reins of power and in the corresponding actions of those who would be kings and queens of this ridiculously small and silly fiefdom.

Debatable Tactics

Claremont 400 Marionette

Elections bring out the worst in the Claremont 400, who would do just about anything to keep control of this silly little town. Some of the campaign theatrics seem to have been lifted directly from infomercials or patent medicine salesmen. For instance, at the 2009 election kick-off party for former Claremont Assistant City Manager Bridget Healy, one of her supporters, Ken Corhan of Measure CL fame, got up and asked a question, acting as if he were just some random member of the public rather than one of the people who signed Healy's nomination papers.

Witness the traditional candidate forums, of which there are many. The most important of these, or at least the ones with the largest attendance, are the Claremont Chamber of Commerce, Active Claremont and the League of Women Voters of the Claremont Area.

The first two of those organizations have already held their events. The LWV candidate forum is Thursday, February 17, in the Padua Room of the City's Alexander Hughes Community Center.

In the past, the LWV forum has seemed to favor the Claremont 400 candidates, often by picking questions that highlighted their candidates' issues and by avoiding those that might bring their friends harsher scrutiny. In contrast, the Active Claremont forum has been something like the People's Choice Awards, with the audience presenting questions to the candidates.

The AC website has video of their January 19 forum posted online. You can download the video file and, if you're into self-flagellation, you can watch the entire one hour and fifty-four minutes. One interesting change the AC board made this year was to allow the audience members to ask the questions themselves, rather than writing them down on index cards as has been the past practice.

This change worked out well for one audience member, Mel Boynton (photo, right). Boynton took the mic and asked the following:

I'd like each of the candidates to address what you know about the Youth and Family Committee and its 11 goals for working with the school district, the City and non-profits and what you'd bring to the table to make that, uh, increase the quality of life for our youth and family [sic].

How many candidates would be able to enumerate even one of the those eleven Youth and Family Master plan goals, which appeared in the amended YFMP in 2007? Of all the many issues facing Claremont how could a candidate have known to prepare for a question like the one posed by Boynton?

It turned out that only one of them could give the sort of answer Boynton was fishing for. That person was Robin Haulman, who ticked off nine of the 11 Youth and Family Committee goals, virtually word for word, from page 15 of the YFMP's action plan. Haulman didn't even bother to memorize the 11 goals. She just turned to a page in the notebook she referred to throughout the debate and, with the aid of her reading glasses, simply read straight from the YFMP action plan.

Even with the aid of crib notes, Haulman got only nine of the 11 goals and didn't even bother to answer the second part of Boynton's question. So, while we can count on Haulman to know some of the goals, if elected she won't do anything to improve the quality of life for our youth and families. The takeaway was that Haulman does fine when she can recite text, but she can't put an answer into context, which qualifies her as the perfect Claremont 400 marionette.

Here's a video clip of Boynton's question, followed by Haulman's response (watch Haulman looking for the right page to read from as Boynton asks his question):




And, just for your reference, here's the section of the YFMP that Haulman lifted her answer from. If you print it out and read along as you watch the video, you can see just how closely her answer matches the list:

Click Image to Enlarge

How do we know Boynton is hooked up with the 400? Well, for one thing, Boynton was listed as a Bridget Healy supporter in 2009. And he's supporting Sam Pedroza, Robin Haulman and Joseph Lyons this time around.

Coincidentally (or not) Boynton is on the board of the Pomona Valley chapter of the United Nations Association of the US, which had as its last speaker Joseph Lyon's campaign treasurer, J. Michael Fay. Fay, you'll recall, was also the treasurer for the Yes on CL school bond campaign last November. Another board member (and current president) is Katie Gerecke, who has served as a Claremont League of Women Voter's president and whose husband Bob is a past president of the Claremont Democratic Club.

Also, as he said in his introduction to his question, Boynton is a member of the City's Youth and Family Committee, which includes Butch Henderson as a member. Henderson, along his wife Rosemary, is an honorary co-chair of Robin Haulman's election committee.

Boynton's question itself wouldn't be an issue if it weren't coupled by that quite specific response by Haulman. How could Haulman have known to include that one specific page out of the thousands of pages of city staff reports, memos and correspondences without some advanced notice?

We couldn't help but notice, too, that Boynton's LinkedIn page used to list "political strategies" as one of his specialties (he deleted that particular specialty after we posted this):


Boynton's CV also lists some of the organizations he belongs to. These include the Claremont United Church of Christ, where Butch Henderson was the senior pastor, and the Claremont Democratic Club, which has become the Claremonsters' tool for election outreach in what is supposed to be a non-partisan election.

So, to recap, here's what we learned from the Active Claremont forum:

• Mel Boynton? Smooth operator.
• Robin Haulman? Not so much.

Base Line Project Notes

Saturday's Courier had a letter from former Claremont League of Women Voters president Katie Gerecke, who along with her husband, Claremont Democratic Club president Bob Gerecke, are pushing hard for the Base Line Rd. affordable housing project.

The same letter also appeared today in the Daily Bulletin.

Katie Gerecke's letter argued that the health concerns regarding the project are negligible. The letter was notable for what it did not address: The section of the project's environmental impact report (EIR) that mentioned the USC Keck School of Medicine study that found that children who live within 500 yards of major highways have an significantly increased chance of lung impairment.

Gerecke, rattling off the main talking points of the project proponents (mainly the League of Women Voters), did not discuss the USC study at all. Instead, she focused on the cancer risk at the Base Line site. You're seeing the Ol' Misdirection again. Gerecke did this because she is intentionally trying to confuse the two issues, to blur the distinction, because she cannot credibly attack the USC work, which looked at 11,000 subjects over a 10-year period. The study is also unassailable by Gerecke because it was peer-reviewed and published in the British medical journal The Lancet last year.

Rather than dealing with the area that raised the most health concerns, Gerecke ignored the USC study and just beat on the cancer risk drum, claiming that "a variety of mitigations" would take care of the problem. She concluded by presenting her unstudied opinions as fact:

I believe that the physical health of all children living near freeways (not only those in the Baseline Road development) can be protected through a variety of mitigations and that the participation of these children within our city not only benefits them but enriches the city. I believe that there are overriding benefits in intellectual, emotional and social health to children living in Claremont. By locating the affordable housing throughout the city, (including the BAHD) rather than just in the south area, the new children will be more influenced by the community and will have fewer problems than if they are all in one area.

Don't be surprised if you see the language of Gerecke's letter adopted by the city's staff and City Attorney Sonia Carvaho in the form of a proposed statement of overiding concerns that would supersede the EIR's findings.

Gerecke's last sentence reveals another yet false statement. The project proponents have been arguing for fairer geographic distribution of affordable housing. They have also claimed that it would take too much time to build the project on an alternate site.

Yet, word comes to us from several readers that The Olson Company, the developer of the 67-unit condo project proposed for the old Courier building on College Ave. may be open to putting an affordable housing project there. This alternative would solve all of the opposition's concerns and would end up creating more units than the Base Line site.

The condo project at College Ave. is on hold because of the deteriorating housing market, and one can easily see why Olson would be open to something that might get construction going rather than having the site just sit there until the market rebounds.

So why not build the affordable housing project on that site, where the air quality concerns would be none existent and where an EIR might not be needed?

Gerecke and the League won't consider that more reasonable approach because they do not really want the affordable housing project in the Village. They really don't want to provide a responsible project that would be close to public transit and shopping, and which would really provide an opportunity to integrate the project residents into the community.

Gerecke's and the League's posturing about housing inclusivity is a lie when you come right down to it. Their approach is to have the Base Line project or no project at all. What they seem really to want is to segregate the project and its inhabitants as far as possible from the center of town.

If they were really as concerned about equity and inclusivity as they claim, the League and Gerecke would be joining with the people who've opposed the Base Line Rd. project and would be sitting down with them to meet with the College Ave. developer to get the project done there.

Instead, you will continue to see them make false and insupportable arguments that cherry pick what information supports their shaky conclusions.

Here's a hint for dealing with Gerecke's and the like's arguments: Ignore the patter and just keep your eye on the peanut.

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The Base Line project is supposed to come back to the Claremont City Council for approval on February 12th. We're still waiting to hear what all the closed session meetings with the Base Line developer, Mark Gelman, have been about. Is the city going to sign on for a bigger monetary commitment?