APRIL FOOL!

All "facts" asserted here are lies used only for comedic effect

Remember, it's April Fool

Bridget Healy Back from the Dead:
Nominated to Chamber of Commerce Board

click to enlarge
Failed City Council candidate Bridget Healy, who really hasn't lived in Claremont for four years, and who doesn't own or operate a business in town, has been nominated to the Board of the Claremont Chamber of Commerce. "Why not?" quipped Chamber president Barbara Jefferson, a middle manager at the Claremont University Consortium, "Heckfire, I'm not a business person, and David Cash, CUSD superintendent, certainly isn't. Nor is Ann Joslin of the Botanic Garden. Sometimes these real business people get kooky ideas like a Transient Occupancy Tax isn't for them, or maybe the crazy thought that the Village shouldn't have a 'Business Improvement District'. That's why we need Bridget: to keep these folks out of the leadership positions and toeing the Claremont Chamber Party Line."

"Plus, we've got to give her something to do in town to burnish her resume for the next City Council election."

"Of course, we had to pack the board to make a place for her, so we are adding three new positions. Another guy from the Colleges, another non-retailer, and Bridget."

Said Maureen Aldridge, Chamber CEO, "It's quite like Parliament: The House of Lords, with Bridget's elevation, and the House of Commons, with the vulgar cash-register commoners. The cream will rise to the top, you know."

Word is, Bridget's first task is to "Hammer" through either the Transient Occupancy Tax or Bid'ness Improvment District, whichever incoming Chair and Former Mayor Paul Held decides he wants to go for.

* * * * *

These are just fantastic speculations and obvious fabrications motivated by a frenetic need to construct a quasi-humorous April Fool post on-deadline. We made all of this up. Nothing here has any bearing on reality. None at all. Really.

No, we mean it.

Local News

There's some bad weather due in later today, so be careful out there. The rain is supposed to begin this afternoon and continue on through Sunday. Snow levels are supposed to drop to 4,000 by Sunday.

Here's the National Weather Service warning for the next few days.

* * *

Will Bigham writes in the Daily Bulletin that some Claremont businesses are not satisfied with the Village-centric nature of the latest city and Chamber of Commerce marketing campaigns. They've formed their own group called the Claremont Marketing Group to promote businesses located outside of the Village.

This complaint of our town being overly concerned with the Village is not new. It colors everything from the dissatisfaction of South Claremonters with how their part of town has been maintained to the affordable housing discussion - why no affordable housing component in the Village Expansion? Aren't they just segregating the lowest income people to outlying areas of town, away from transit and shopping?

With the exception of the Claremont Auto Center and the Old School House redevelopment, businesses outside the Village seem to feel neglected. The Bigham article reported:

Ruby Schmer, founder of the Claremont Marketing Association, said the group is courting businesses north and south of the Village, as well as home-based firms.

Schmer, owner of Biz2Biz Design & Printing, said she plans to send all non-Village merchants an association membership application in the next two weeks.

When the Village Expansion opened, Schmer said, "It made it more challenging because that's where the city and developers put the most money. So obviously a lot of advertising dollars, business-wise, need to go there.

"But we need to make sure that businesses' advertising goes outside the Village."

Schmer and several other non-Village business owners were rankled by a recent ad campaign, paid for by the Claremont Chamber of Commerce and City Hall, that promoted holiday shopping in the city.

The first newspaper ad of the campaign featured background images of the Laemmle Theatre, the Packing House, and Casablanca Mediterranean Bar & Grill - all in the Village Expansion.

Assistant City Manager Tony Ramos and Claremont Chamber of Commerce CEO Maureen Aldridge are both quoted in the article as saying the recent marketing campaign represented all Claremont businesses.

Three Valleys Gone Missing on Claremont Chamber Website

It's been the contention of the Claremont Insider for a long time that the Claremont 400 control the levers of power in our community and subtly (well--sometimes not-so-subtly) use these levers to control the public debate and perception. (See, e.g., the paragraph below the title of this blog page above.)

We mentioned a week or so ago how the Chamber of Commerce Board was handmaiden to the proponents of the ill-fated "Parks and Pasture" Assessment District, but could not bring itself to endorse Measure S, the successful bond measure that ended up providing the bulk of the funding for Johnson's Pasture.

With Three Valleys Municipal Water District so recently in the news, we thought we'd check the information for Three Valleys on the Claremont Chamber website. The director elected from the Claremont (and La Verne) area is Brian Bowcock (picture, right), a knowledgable and energetic former water resource manager from our neighbor to the west.

The problem is this: although the Claremont Chamber website lists every other elected official affecting Claremont, from President Bush down through Sue Keith on the Citrus Community College District Board, there is no mention of Director Bowcock or the Three Valleys Municipal Water District. Maybe water issues are not too important a problem for the Claremont Chamber of Commerce. We think, though, that it is more due to the fact that Director Bowcock had the bad form in 2002 to run against and defeat Claremont Patron Saint and Icon Nick Presecan, husband of current CUSD Board member Joan Presecan. Presecan died in 2005 and a monument was constructed to him, requiring special action by the Claremont City Council, in the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park.

So, Executive Director Maureen Aldridge (picture, right) just forgets to mention the Three Valleys District and our director, Brian Bowcock. Erase it from the public memory until we can elect a director whose name can be used in polite society.

Call the Insider paranoid if you will; we prefer to think of ourselves as perceptive.

Here is a screenshot of the bottom of the website where we'd expect to see Three Valleys, along with CUSD, the City of Claremont, and the community college district. Look for the chamber to make a change.