A behind-the-scenes look at the news of Claremont, CA. We focus on city hall, city staff, and the so-called "Claremont 400" or "Preserve Claremonters" or "Claremonsters", those goofy, too-serious, power types that run most of the town's service organizations, charities, and city commissions. Claremont is indeed a unique place, and we'll try to bring a flavor of that absurd "uniqueness" to the outside world, as well as spotlighting some of the finer things about our city and region.
Showing posts with label Nick Quackenbos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nick Quackenbos. Show all posts
Why the Bulletin Editorial Sounded LikeRegurgitated Measure CL Talking Points
It was just a little too pat. The phrases had the ring of a familiar cant even if there was nothing of the truth in them: ...energy-efficiency improvements that will save operating costs in the long run ... $45 per $100,000 of assessed valuation ... long-term investment ... sustainability improvements ... construction costs are low ... modern-day computers ...
It was a bunch of pedestrian nouns decorated with jargonish adjectives.
The words seemed to be cut and pasted from the Yes On CL 4-color glossy mailers that have been arriving at about the rate of one per day in Claremont recently.
Take a look at the masthead below. The Bulletin uses an editorial board. Presumably the editorial positions are hashed out by said board, and whaddya know? The name "Nick Quackenbos fairly jumps out at you.
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Could this be the selfsame Nick Quackenbos whose name appears as a supporter of Measure CL? We are pretty sure it is. How many N. Q.'s could there be?
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When we tumbled to this, the similarity of the article to the Measure CL propaganda was instantly explained. We wonder if the Daily Bulletin is willing to reveal whether or not Mr. Quackenbos, a local commercial real estate broker, participated in the discussion leading to the decision of the paper to endorse Measure CL? We think he should have recused himself from that discussion based on his obvious bias and conflict. If not, he should have been excused by Editor Mike Brossart. And if Mr. Quackenbos participated in the decision, did he reveal to the board his public position on Measure CL? And if he participated, was Mr. Brossart careful to include a member, from Claremont, with a counter-balancing bias to ensure robust, informed, and fair discussion?
The Bulletin could clear up any questions about the objectivity of its endorsement of Measure CL by publishing a short statement of the facts of its deliberation and decision.
Meanwhile, we see that the NO on CL people, on their website, have posted a deconstruction of the Bulletin opinion piece. We clip it below along with this link:nocusdbond deconstruction
Although the point and counter-point in the aforementioned deconstruction is lengthy, it is complete. It's beginning to get out, for example, that the first $10,000,000 in bond money, should CL be approved, does not go to the kids, to safety, to technology, to modernization, but rather to bail out the District from a tricky financial scheme it entered into in 2001, where it leased out Claremont High School to investors. This garnered the District an immediate $11,300,000 payment to refurbish the District Offices at 170 San Jose by the 10 freeway but obligates it to an ANNUAL payment of some $930,000. This payment is what the district would like to shift to the taxpayers.
But we digress.
The Bulletin opinion has the air of illegitimacy if Mr. Quackenbos participated in it. But Claremont should not be surprised, The Yes on CL people have their tentacles everywhere in town and, to mix a metaphor, have been assiduously working their traplines in all of the Better Organizations: The Claremont League of Women Voters (endorsed CL without hearing from the opponents), The Claremont Chamber (endorsed CL without hearing from the opponents), Sustainable Claremont (endorsed CL without hearing from the opponents), Claremont teachers' union (endorsed CL without hearing from the opponents and also has a pecuniary interest in its passage), California School Employees Assn (ditto).
Even the Claremont Police Department. Here, here, and here.
The 2009 Claremont City Council race begins this month with the smallest field in many years. Three candidates are vying for two council seats (in alphabetical order): Corey Calaycay, Bridget Healy, and Larry Schroeder.
It's a shame Citizen Michael John Keenan (pictured right, courtesy of CMJK) isn't running this time around. From time to time we get missives from him, and he brings a perspective to these races that's different from most of the other candidates. Sorry, Michael, if we haven't gotten around to posting all the news and info you pass on, but we do appreciate the tips.
We'll know more about the three candidates in this year's council race in a few more weeks. The nominator lists are out, with each candidate having filed their nomintation papers with the City last month. These are lists of the 30 people who nominated their respective candidates for the election, and they offer a preview of the wider support the candidates will end up receiving.
As the election draws nearer, you'll start seeing ads in the Claremont Courier with supporter lists, which typically number in the hundreds of names for viable candidates. Judging from the nominator lists that are out, there's may be some fence mending going on, at least with the Calaycay and Healy campaigns.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND
Incumbent Calaycay, you might recall, ran as a change agent in 2005 and was the target of a uniquely ugly smear campaign that year. That campaign was organized by a group of town fathers and mothers who called themselves "Preserve Claremont." The PC group, which was really an independent PAC, raised nearly enough money to fund a candidate of their own. They used all those thousands of dollars to run full-page ads (at $680 or so a pop) twice a week in the Claremont Courier during the height of the campaign.
Preserve also had a spin-off called "Claremont Business PAC" that got money from people like commercial realtor Nick Quackenbos and Claremont Toyota owner Roger Hogan, who donated $2,000 to the CB PAC (calendar year donations are limited to $250 per person to city council campaigns, but PACs have no such limits). The spin-off was a last minute thing, the brainchild of Human Services Commissioner Valerie Martinez, who used the CB PAC money to send out two city-wide mailers on the Friday before the 2005 election (you've seen the reasons for this tactic before).
Preserve Claremont, incidentally, had a paid city staff member, City Arts Coordinator Francine Baker, as its treasurer, and there seemed to be a number of ways in which some city staffers tried to influence the election. A couple employee unions, for instance, were involved in a parallel political attack on Councilmember Jackie McHenry, who had been critical of then-City Manager Glenn Southard, an attack that featured Valerie Martinez standing up at a city council meeting during the election and calling McHenry "a cancer on this community."
Southard provided the motivation for the twin attacks. He and some of his employees spread the fear that if Calaycay were elected, he and McHenry would team up and cause an exodus of city staff (even though they represented only 2 votes out of 5).
The real reason Southard spread this fear seemed to be his own fear - a fear of a council reining him in and questioning things like his own spending. Everyone forgets the thing that really set Southard off against McHenry was her asking him to provide receipts for his expenses. All of Southard's false claims of harassment that McHenry had created a "hostile work environment" stemmed from that. Keep in mind that Southard's outburst occurred right at the outset of the 2005 campaign and served as the jumping off point for Preserve Claremont in all its incarnations:
GLENN SOUTHARD GOES BERSERK
Southard quickly abandoned his attack on McHenry after seeing that the witchhunt was turning the Councilmember into a sympathetic figure with a lot of citizens, and he left it to his Preserve Claremont friends to press their offensive against Calaycay. Shortly after Calaycay won election in 2005 (along with Ellen Taylor), Southard announced he was leaving Claremont for Indio and was taking his longtime faithful assistant, Bridget Healy, with him.
Like any bully will, after enough people finally saw through the blustering and stood up to him, Southard took his ball and left.
HANDICAPPING THE RACE
Now that Calaycay's been on the council for nearly four years and Southard's been gone for three years and eight months, the ill-will the former city manager stirred up against Calaycay seems to have abated. In fact, some people who didn't endorse Calaycay the last time around, and even some who supported other candidates in 2005, are listed as Calaycay nominators this time around. There is even one name, that of Citrus College board member Sue Keith, that appears on both Calaycay's and Healy's nominator lists. So maybe the peace has finally been made in some backroom in town.
Community Services Commissioner Larry Schroeder's nominator list doesn't have a lot of names we've seen associated with past candidates, so it's difficult to assess at this point where his support comes from or what his stands on different issues are.
When the wider supporter lists come out, the campaign finances are released, and the candidates have had a chance to debate each other in forums, we'll be better able to gauge how the race is shaping up. Conventional wisdom would say that Calaycay and Healy are the favorites, with Schroeder the dark horse. But these are strange times, and the signs can be difficult to read.
Speaking of candidate forums, there are two scheduled that we know of:
Active Claremont Thursday, January 15th, 7pm
Active Claremont will host its candidate forum on the 15th in the Padua Room of the Alexander Hughes Community Center at 1700 Danbury Rd. in Claremont.
Claremont League of Women Voters president Barbara Musselman will moderate but the public can write questions down they want the candidates to answer, said the league's voter services vice president Angela Bekzadian-Avila in a news release.
Once the questions are gathered, Musselman will "choose a range of questions to ask the candidates," officials wrote in the release.
Of course, I don't know if your question will be picked or if it will be answered but go and find out.
That last bit about Musselman picking and choosing the questions points up one of the problems with the League of Women Voters' forum. Musselman, who was a big Glenn Southard and city staff defender back in 2005, is far from unbiased and will be the gatekeeper at the LWV forum. Additionally, the jungle drums are saying LWV member and former Claremont Police Commission member Helaine Goldwater (the woman who gave us Cookiemonster Ellen Taylor) is one of the behind-the-scenes people responsible for Healy's candidacy. So don't expect any questions that might make Healy look bad.
The odds for real questions to be asked are much higher at the Active Claremont event simply because they tend to just read the questions that are submitted, though they do combine multiple questions on the same topic into one.
Here's a useful experiment:
If you have the time, go to both events and submit the same question at each one. Then see if it gets asked. Something about city pensions might be a good. Claremont's own employee pension account with CalPERS is underfunded by several million dollars, thanks to some generous benefits that Healy, in her former capacity as Claremont's Assistant City Manager, helped push.
The public pension question is a big one, with several California cities facing bankruptcy because of the benefits they lavished on city workers when times were good. As the Wall Street Journal recently noted, the city of Pacific Grove is close to bankrupt because of its employee pension plan.
The city of Vallejo is even worse off, having already declared bankruptcy. Vallejo is trying restructure some of its employee contracts, and, if successful, other California municipalities may use Vallejo bankruptcy as a template to get out of employee contracts and benefits they can no longer afford. It would interesting to hear how Healy, who as an employee benefited greatly from the city's generosity to its staff, would handle such benefits as a councilperson in the current fiscal crisis. Also, would Healy's status as a former assistant city manager raise any conflicts of interest if, as we assume, she is elected?
In the past, important issues would never be fully addressed, at least not at the League of Women Voters event, which generally attracts the largest crowds. The LWV has usually offered up softball questions to the candidates it privately supports and has avoided posing the tough questions in their candidate forums, much to the community's detriment.
We received a couple responses to yesterday's post about the letter in the November 12th edition of the Claremont Courier from one Laura Jaoui, who claimed that she had received no response to two calls she made inquiring about leasing space in the Claremont Village Expansion.
Jaoui's letter was followed by a response, again in the Courier, on November 22nd from Jonathan Tolkin at the Tolkin Group, the Village Expansion developer.
One person who contacted us yesterday was interested enough to take some photos of the empty shop space at the Expansion, that area west of Indian Hill and between Bonita Ave. and First St. Our other respondent was Nick Quackenbos, the project's listing realtor.
In the interest of both conserving valuable blog space and maximizing irony, we've combined the photos with Quackenbos' email.
Is Nick being sarcastic in his note to us? Sexist? We can't tell:
DATE: Wednesday, December 3, 2008 5:43 PM SUBJECT: Claremont Village Expansion FROM: "Nick Quackenbos" TO: Claremont Buzz Cc: pweinberger@claremont-courier.com, jtolkin@tolkingroup.com
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Gentlemen:
I have noted with interest your comments regarding the response to Ms. Jaoui’s letter to the Editor of the Courier, Mr. Tolkin’s response to her calls and my supposed lack of response. I state unequivocally that my office has never received a call from Ms. Jaoui: it is only in our self-interest—financially, if for no other reason—to return all calls. Each is a potential lease, a potential deal, potential income. We don’t let things like that slide by.
Now, please read the letter below, sent to Ms. Jaoui on November 19. To date, no response. Interesting. Also, to date, no response to Mr. Tolkin’s letter to the Courier. Even more interesting. Perhaps if you are able to contact the lady you could encourage her to follow through, as we have. As I say in my letter to her, perhaps she has useful ideas which we would love to hear.
We will appreciate your help with this matter.
Sincerely,
Nicholas C. Quackenbos,
November 19, 2008
Ms. Laura J. Jaoui [Address redacted] Claremont, CA 91711
Dear Ms. Jaoui:
I read you letter to the Courier concerning the Claremont Village Expansion and the lack of communication from the Developer. I can only presume that your calls were made during the earlier stages or the wrap-up stage of the project and in the flurry of that activity your messages were mislaid.
In any event, I am now the listing broker for the project. I would be pleased to review with you its current status, show you the available spaces and, most importantly, listen to your ideas on what might help make this a better development. It is often input from observers such as you—I’m presuming you are outside of the real estate industry—which give us insights that we do not have or gloss over.
Please call to arrange a meeting or to at least have a chat on the phone.
Sincerely,
Nicholas C. Quackenbos, Broker Quackenbos-Bell Commercial Real Estate
Cold Stone Creamery in Claremont's westside-of-Indian-Hill development (the name for which nobody can agree on) closed Sunday, the latest in a string of failures there that includes children's clothing store Chloe and Hunter and women's clothier Peyton Grey.
(Tally for Men, meanwhile, has had a "going out of business" sale since last spring. It's like a hammy death scene that goes on and on.)
Allen remarked that he was glad to see that if only one ice cream parlor could survive, he was glad it was Bert and Rocky's. Amen to that, David.
A couple weeks ago we wrote about some of the criticisms the City of Claremont and the Claremont Chamber of Commerce have received regarding the way they have marketed Claremont. One Claremont Courier reader, Laura Jaoui, complained about the lack of response she'd received from the Claremont Village Expansion leasing people (Quackenbos-Bell and Nick Quackenbos, presumably).
Jaoui's letter prompted a response in last Saturday's Courier from Jonathan Tolkin at the Tolkin Group, the company that built and runs the Village Expansion. Tolkin wrote that he'd heard about Jaoui's letter and seemed to want to make amends:
Tolkin Group takes great efforts to return all telephone calls and email inquiries, and most importantly to carefully and diligently pursue all leasing inquiries. I would appreciate your being kind enough to pass along my contact information to Ms. Jaoui so that she can contact me, as Ms. Jaoui's phone number appears to be unpublished.
Maybe Tolkin might want to think about finding a different leasing agent, since that seems to have been one of the problems. Quackenbos may be a fine person if you're one of his fellow Claremont Rotarians, but if he or his business are costing the City prospective new businesses, we'd be better off looking elsewhere to find a leasing agent who has the time to return calls.
In the last week or so, there's been a spate of letters and an opinion piece in the Claremont Courier commenting on the City's possible branding initiative. On November 12th, the Courier had a letter from former Claremont resident and frequent visitor Carrie Young. Young argued that the City needs to look outside Claremont to find advertising talent with "major branding experience." Young also suggested the City not try to do their branding initiative on the cheap.
I read that some retailers are leaving the Claremont Village West. I was not surprised. As a former apparel importer and wholesaler, I phoned the developer twice to inquire about leasing space and never received a return call.
I also felt that the exuberance for high end retailers was misplaced since much disposable income in Claremont was garnered from debt such as home equity loans and the like. I think that Claremont could forgo perusing (and paying) for consultants if the town focused on inviting youth oriented retailers to the vacant stores in the Village West. I can imagine a Buffalo Exchange store, a store like Wacko on Melrose Ave. in L.A., a sushi business that is not high end, but is affordable, such as you find in other college towns, a fine cheese store like the Cheese Store in Beverly Hills, and maybe a trendy high end clothing boutique a la Fred Segal’s.
And yesterday, the Courier had a letter from reader Margaret Kreidler, who thought that rather than spend money on branding Claremont, we need to target a younger demographic:
Don’t spend money on slogans, get a few college students (pay them if you need to), maybe a few high schoolers and listen to them. My college students come home, want to go out with friends, but where? Heroes—older crowd. Village Grille—closes early. Pizza n’Such—older. Walters? All the new ones in Village West—expensive and older crowds. The new pub—actually great, but crowded and lots of “olders” tend to stake out the tables reading, and visiting for so long that others give up. We need more like that, though.
Meanwhile, Claremont business owner Chas Seward had an Op-Ed piece last Saturday, November 15th, responding to Carrie Young's letter urging the branding initiative. To Seward's thinking, it doesn't make much sense to toss money down the marketing drain at a time when the economy has gone into the toilet. Seward also writes that the larger new retailers in the Village need to step up and help with some of the marketing costs:
There are people in Claremont who did not fall off the turnip truck yesterday and have wonderful, creative suggestions just like Ms. Young. Unfortunately, they usually require dollars to execute. The sad reality is that there are no major retailers in the Claremont Village willing to support a sustained marketing effort and it has fallen on the underfunded City staffers to become makeshift marketers, along with a small group of volunteer merchants. Chico's, American Apparel and Laemmle — marquee brands lured by the City— have left it to the "mom & pops" to come up with the marketing bucks.
Ms. Young is now in favor of spending taxpayer's money on high-priced consultants to perform a branding study and tell us about our "essence" while Village merchants are out purchasing 'for lease' signs. The City helped build a new shopping precinct in the West Village and the mistakes it has made are well documented. Throwing money at a branding campaign during the economic meltdown is ill-advised and not necessary. It should have been done before the Village expansion opened, along with an ad campaign, strategic signage, and agreements from the new major retailers to spend advertising dollars. Now Ms. Young recommends entrusting this same administration to re-brand Claremont. Wait six months and the Village will have re-branded itself.
tThe Daily Bulletin had a couple pieces on local Claremont news:
BYOF: BRING YOUR OWN FINANCING
The Peppertree Square shopping center at Indian Hill Blvd. and Arrow Hwy. is getting a facelift, according to the Daily Bulletin:
The center, at the southeast corner of Indian Hill Boulevard and Arrow Highway, has been a source of consternation in recent years because its owner, who lives overseas, hasn't performed basic upkeep, city officials say.
"Fifteen years ago it was a pretty nice neighborhood center, and it's really just deteriorated," said Brian Desatnik, housing and redevelopment manager.
Four of its retail spaces sit vacant, including two of its largest - a space that used to house a small market, and another that used to be a music store.
Nick Quackenbos, a commercial real estate agent who is responsible for leasing in the center, said renovation plans could be presented for city approval by the end of the summer.
You may recall that Quackenbos is also the realtor trying to broker the sale of the land adjacent to the Claremont Auto Center on the south side of the 10 Freeway. A portion of the land is the former site of a Chili's Restaurant, and the City sunk several hundred thousand dollars into infrastructure improvement as part a deal to help Auto Center owner Roger Hogan acquire that land back in 2005.
That deal was sold to the City Council by then-City Manager Glenn Southard and his staff with the promise that Hogan would expand the Auto Center onto the Chili's property, which would lead to increased auto sales tax revenue that would give the city a great return on their investment.
In 2005, the city mediated the sale between the Chili’s property owner and Mr. Hogan, who had plans to expand his dealership there. A financial review of the agreement shows that the city may have gotten the short end of the stick, while Mr. Hogan appears to be the bigger beneficiary of the deal.
As part of the agreement between the 3 parties, the city’s Redevelopment Agency was required to invest $200,000 in street and signage improvements. It also purchased an operating agreement for $100,000 “that requires the new land area be used for the Toyota dealership for at least 7 years,” a September 2005 city staff report reads.
The report indicates that the return on the city’s investment could be between $600,000 and $700,000 annually for the first 5 years as a result of Toyota auto sales taxes, with millions more to follow in years after. But it remains unclear if the city made back its hoped return on its initial investment.
When Claremont Ford shut down in January, Claremont Toyota’s expansion plans shifted from the Chili’s property to the Claremont Ford property, which already had some infrastructure and equipment on site. The Chili’s land today remains unused by Claremont Toyota, except for the display of some used cars at the site.
In addition, doubts remain that any future use of the property will generate the level of sales tax revenue for the city that a successful auto dealership is capable of.
As with most of these sorts of things, the city staff report painted a wonderful picture of the revenue stream that would issue from the deal. The land was never developed for additional auto sales, and now Hogan is selling a large chunk of the land with the prospect of making several million dollars off the deal.
At the time the Chili's land purchase was debated, Councilmembers Corey Calaycay and Jackie McHenry expresed reservations about the deal and questioned whether it would pay for itself. Calaycay and McHenry were criticized for their dissent and were labeled as being negative. A number of Claremont luminaries, including former Mayor Judy Wright, stepped up to the council podium urging the city to make the deal. And Sam Pedroza, who was not on the council at the time, had a letter published in the Courier in support of Hogan and all he's done for Claremont. The letter was clearly written to add pressure on Calaycay and McHenry.
Well, time has proved the negativists right. And Wright, Pedroza, and the rest were just your typical Claremont 400 dupes, throwing your money away needlessly, foolishly.
At least Quackenbos can make a buck off helping sell Hogan's land, a good portion of which the city helped him buy. Incidentally, Quackenbos is a former city commissioner and was a contributor to the "Claremont Business PAC" mailer that was part of the Preserve Claremont smear campaign in 2005.
Quackenbos is also pretty well connected to City Hall, having endorsed Mayor Ellen Taylor and Councilmember Sam Pedroza. Maybe he can land a gig as the city's leasing agent for any future city affordable housing since Taylor and Pedroza were the ones who selected the new Affordable Housing Task Force.
NEW AND IMPROVED SOLICITATION LAW
Tuesday night the Claremont City Council approved a new municipal ordinance governing door-to-door salespeople, who will now be required to obtain permit and ID from the city.
The ordinance is the city's second attempt at regulating the such visitors. According to another Daily Bulletin article by Will Bigham, a previous law was too restrictive and applied to religious and political solicitors as well as commercial ones. Bigham tells us that in 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that such laws were unconstitutional.
Bigham explained the new ordinance:
The law, characterized by city officials as one of the toughest of its kind in the nation, was in response to two rapes committed by door-to-door magazine salesmen in the last year and a half, officials said.
For commercial solicitors - those going door to door selling goods - each salesman must undergo a background check and be issued an ID card from the city.
All solicitors - both commercial and noncommercial - must obtain a permit from the city before going door to door.
The new law also establishes a "do not knock" registry that allows residents to sign up requesting that solicitors stop visiting their homes.
The latest solicitation ordinance also carves out an exception for people with religious and political purposes.
The Party Parade is a sort of serial fundraising event, with various events hosted by different community members. The CCF began a dozen years ago and raises money that it doles out to various community organizations.
Mostly, the Party Parade is an excuse for the elitesofClaremont to get together and do what they do best: socialize. Oh, and they do raise a little money, which they give back to charities run by mostly by themselves.
The Bulletin's Sproul puts a good spin on the festivities, though:
The Claremont Community Foundation is throwing a party - well, make that parties - and you're invited.
The foundation has hosted Party Parade for 12 years, and it has proved both effective and successful in raising needed donations and helping to establish friendships. Party Parade 2008 shouldn't be an exception.
Taking advantage of leap year, the fun actually got started Friday with a jewelry design get-together, but the busy schedule of events takes off in earnest tonight with a "retro-metro" dinner described as an "atomic era meal" served at a private hillside Claremont home. And the ball keeps rolling throughout the rest of this month with various parties scheduled. They are as diverse and interesting as the community supporting them.
Want proof? How about tours of several noted Inland Valley artists' homes, a dinner showcasing the talents of Spaggi's chef Henry Gonzales, a night of dancing with members of the National Championship Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance Team or a sunrise stroll in Johnson's Pasture? There shouldn't be any excuse for not going to one of these delightful mini events.
The Claremont Community Foundation stands by its name, encouraging the community to get involved with raising money that ends up back in the community, according to Nickie Cleaves, executive director.
The CCF is one of those things that the Claremont 400 love to create - a non-profit that raises money for good causes, so that they can feed their egos. It's really confession for the non-Catholic, absolving the givers of guilt for all the bad things they've done over the years while at the same time getting together for an ego boosting good time.
You wonder, especially with a possible recession coming, if Claremonters will be cutting back on donations to our plethora of local charities: the CCF, Friends of the Library, House of Ruth, the RFB&D, Uncommon Good, to name a few.
The CCF's current board of directors describes itself thusly:
Our Board is broadly representative of our diverse community. Board members commit their time, talent and financial resources in service of their community. New Board members are nominated and elected by the current Board, serving 3-year terms, up to a maximum of 6 consecutive years. Board members are expected to attend monthly board meetings, along with a variety of committee meetings and community events.
Board of Directors, 2006-2007
Suzanne Hall, Chair - (Former Human Services Commission Chair) Brenda Barham Hill, Vice Chair Phil Hawkey, Vice Chair Barry Ulrich, Secretary Jack Miller, Treasurer OpokuAcheampong Marilyn Bidwell Dawn Grimes Tim Harrison Bernadette Kendall Al Leiga (Former Mayor, 3-Term Councilmember) Sue Likens Marshall Taylor (Husband of current Mayor Pro Tem Queen Ellen Taylor)
The CCF'sArgus Commission is made up of former board members and includes many former councilmembers and city commissioners, including such Insider favorites as Glenn Southard, Randy Prout, Nick Quackenbos, Karen Rosenthal, Diann Ring, and Judy Wright.
Not all of the board and Argus Commissioners are what we'd consider hardcore Claremonsters, but you have to wonder how diverse the board can really be when they are self-selecting their successors. Sounds like more of that echo chamber effect that has dominated most aspects of our city government.
You can check out the upcoming events on the CCF's website. Sam and Julie Pedroza and Amy and Wade Mathieson host a "Rockin' Lobster" party March 22nd. Diann and Robert Ring host a "Quintessential France" dinner April 5th with Nick Quackenbos and others lending a hand. Those and many other events allow you to see many of the 400 in their native environments. Enjoy!
There's lots of local news in the Daily Bulletin and the Los Angeles Times to pass on today:
AFFORDABLE HOUSING OPTIONS
Will Bigham reports today in the Bulletin that the problem with affordable housing in Claremont isn't funding - the thing that killed the Base Line Rd. project. Rather, Bigham's article says the sticking point is lack of options in a built-out city.
Bigham quotes Claremont commercial realtor and former city commissioner Nick Quackenbos and city of Claremont Housing and Redevelopment Manager Brian Desatnik in his article.
Desatnik, especially, has not been the most reliable source on these matters, and he has seemed more an instrument of the people pushing the Base Line Rd. project than a neutral bureaucrat seeking the best possible solution. We'd take anything he had to say about affordable housing with a grain of salt.
GOLD LINE STILL DEAD
The Bulletin has and article by Fred Ortega reporting that the MTA Gold Line extension from Pasadena to Claremont remains stuck in unfunded limbo, though it seems that most of the cities along the proposed route are going forward with their respective transit center developments:
"It puts a major portion (of these projects) up in the air with respect to economic viability," [Azusa City Manager Fran Delach] said, adding that there is about $40 million to $50 million in development near his city's other planned station, on Citrus Avenue, as part of the massive Rosedale housing development.
Despite Metro's decision, Delach said his city is proceeding as planned in the hopes that the project will eventually be built.
"We are obviously concerned that the projects will suffer (from the delays), but we are going to continue because it is obvious the Gold Line is drastically needed along the 210 corridor," Delach said, adding that the Metrolink line along the 10 Freeway corridor has been extremely successful and should be replicated in the north Valley.
"Frankly, I don't understand what is wrong with the MTA," he said.
Officials in Monrovia and Glendora, which also have development planned around their respective stations, vowed to push forward with their projects.
"There's the issue of the Vehicle Code, about excessive honking, but there's also the issue of freedom of expression," said Stephen Patten, one of the ticketed drivers.
Mayor Peter Yao said the ticketing sent "the wrong message to the community."
Cooper and City Manager Jeff Parker met and decided to void the tickets, because "we felt the people who were honking weren't doing it intentionally to violate the law."
BODY RECOVERED IN VAN NEAR POMONA
The LA Times had an article today about the family of a woman reported missing in Covina. The family received a call from Pomona police telling them that the woman's van had been found parked illegally near the Pomona police station.
When the family went to pick up the van, which had not been checked by police, they were shocked to discover the woman's body in the van. The family was naturally upset with the Pomona PD for not having searched the van, which was found with its windows rolled down.
Pomona Police Chief Joe Romero defended the department, and Pomona Mayor Norma Torres also weighed in, according to the article:
Pomona Police Chief Joe Romero defended his department, saying officers had followed proper protocol. When the van was located, Romero said officers were sent to inspect the vehicle. After running a check of the license plate, they learned it was part of a missing person's report filed in Covina.
He said the officers called Covina police and were told to release the van to the family or it would be impounded, Romero said.
"There is no way the officers could have known" there was a dead body inside, Romero said. "There's no mistake on our part. We have no right to go inside the vehicle."
But the victim's family disagreed. They said that because Ponce-Orta was missing and in possible trouble, police had an obligation to conduct a thorough search of the van.
Pomona Mayor Norma Torres said she wants to know more about the department's protocols in dealing with such cases.
"It's certainly upsetting to hear, and my heart goes out to the family, who had to discover the body," Torres said. "I have a lot of questions that require follow-up."
The Courier decided against endorsing candidates this election, although we hear that the editorial board may have been ready to endorse three people (none of them Pedroza or Elderkin). The family that owns the Courier intervened and decided they would simply not endorse, using Martin Weinberger's recovery from surgery as an excuse.
Today, the Courier ran responses from the seven council candidates to two different questions:
What has been the most difficult or challenging aspect of running your campaign?
What do you feel is one of the most pressing issues affecting Claremont and how would you solve this?
The Courier website didn't post the story, so we can't provide a link to it.
The answers were for the most part what you'd expect: safe, motherhood-and-apple pie responses. Peter Yao did have an interesting comment regarding CASM when he talked of "running a clean and positive campaign while enduring the below-the-belt hits from a misguided, well-financed group with its own lawn signs and massive mailers."
Sam Pedroza's response to the first question was curious: "There were some learned lessons from my campaign two years ago, where I came in at 168 votes shy of winning. Claremont experienced some of the worst electioneering in our history. Although I and my campaign had nothing to do with negative campaigning that took place, we did vow to run a very positive campaign focused on the positive and my qualifications."
One thing Pedroza ignored was the fact that he came in 168 votes short of Corey Calaycay primarily because Calaycay was the sole target of what Pedroza called "some of the worst electioneering in the history of Claremont" by Pedroza's friends at Preserve Claremont. Further, in that election in 2005, Pedroza, while running a "clean campaign," also refused to denounce the smear campaign Preserve Claremont ran. Why? Because Pedroza benefited from having others do his dirty work.
This time around, Pedroza is not being so coy. He has taken to bad-mouthing McHenry and Calaycay (who is not up for re-election) off the record. Pedroza has repeated several untrue rumors to voters in an effort to undermine his opponents. And then he has denied doing that when confronted with his statements. Further, Pedroza has taken direct support from Preserve Claremont. His supporter list includes the following people who were listed in Preserve Claremont's smear ads:
Bo and Laura Bollinger--donated $500 to the Preserve Claremont campaign
Suzanne Hall and Ken Corhan--$200 to Preserve Claremont
J. Michael Fay--donated $100 to "Claremont Business PAC", now Honorary Co-Chair of Pedroza's campaign
Paul and Kay Held--Paul Held was spokesperson for Preserve Claremont, donated $100 to "Claremont Business PAC"
Frank Hungerford--$200 to Preserve Claremont
Valerie Martinez--$250 to Preserve Claremont, $100 to "Claremont Business PAC"; spokesperson for Preserve, treasurer for Claremont Business PAC
Lissa Petersen
Randy and Rhonda Prout--$200 to Preserve Claremont
Nick Quackenbos--$150 to "Claremont Business PAC
Jil Stark--$200 to Preserve Claremont
Roger Hogan--his business gave $2,000 to the "Claremont Business PAC" in 2005; his family gave $1,000 to Pedroza in 2007
Patrick Sullivan--$250 to Preserve Claremont
(The dollar figures listed above come from the 2005 city election campaign filing documents on record with the Claremont City Clerk.)
So, all of the above were unabashed Claremonsters, and none ever disavowed their involvement or condemned it. And Pedroza now takes their support. This would seem to make his concerns about running clean campaigns seem to ring hollow. Pedroza benefited from their interference in the 2005 election, and he is dependent upon their support this time around. Nothing has changed, not Pedroza's dependence on the Preserve Claremonsters, nor his dishonesty about it. Pedroza's simply trying to play a game of "Good Cop/Bad Cop."
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Speaking of supporter lists, today's Courier featured an ad for Linda Elderkin that listed her campaign committee. Among those listed were:
All of the Preserve Claremonsters listed above for Pedroza.
Michael Fay, a non-Claremont resident who is also an Honorary Co-Chair for Pedroza.
If you were appalled by the Preserve Claremont campaign of 2005, if you were opposed to the the witch-hunt they conducted against McHenry and the lies and rumors they spread and published against Calaycay, then you cannot possibly support Elderkin or Pedroza, who are so clearly the children of Preserve Claremont today.
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
When we tumbled to this, the similarity of the article to the Measure CL propaganda was instantly explained. We wonder if the Daily Bulletin is willing to reveal whether or not Mr. Quackenbos, a local commercial real estate broker, participated in the discussion leading to the decision of the paper to endorse Measure CL? We think he should have recused himself from that discussion based on his obvious bias and conflict. If not, he should have been excused by Editor Mike Brossart. And if Mr. Quackenbos participated in the decision, did he reveal to the board his public position on Measure CL? And if he participated, was Mr. Brossart careful to include a member, from Claremont, with a counter-balancing bias to ensure robust, informed, and fair discussion?
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