City Calendar

COUNCIL MEETING TONIGHT

It's the second Tuesday of the May, which means another meeting of the Claremont City Council. Or, if you're the half-full-glass type, only five more meetings until the City's annual August recess for the council and city commissions.

The council convenes at 5:15pm for a special closed session to discuss negotiations involving the Peppertree Square property at 390 W. Arrow Hwy. and with Jerry Tessier and Arteco Partners on price and terms of the lease agreement for the Padua Hills Theatre. That second bit is an odd one - isn't that all settled?

Here's the closed session agenda.

The council's regular session begins at 6:30pm. You can watch it here.

It looks to be a fairly quiet meeting, though agenda item 9 piqued our curiosity. That item concerns a proposal by Claremont Heritage and the Kiwanis Club of Claremont to move from the Garner House in Memorial Park to the adjacent carriage house.

The carriage house used to house a child care program, the Kids Club program, but that ended in 2008, so Claremont Heritage wants to incorporate the carriage house's north half into its lease agreement with the City. The Kiwanis Club wants to renovate the south half and create a formal meeting and exhibit space.

Since 2002, Claremont Heritage has managed the Garner House for the City in exchange for rent-free office space and an agreement to renovate and restore the living room, dining room and kitchen.

City staff is recommending that the council review the proposal, provide some input, and return it to staff for study. Here's the staff report.

One other item of interest is the renewal of the City's agreement with the Claremont Chamber of Commerce. The city staff report recommends renewing the $40,000-per-fiscal year agreement with the chamber of commerce to run the local visitors center. The agreement also calls for the chamber to promote the city and its businesses.


NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING TOMORROW NIGHT

The city of Claremont holds another of its semi-regular neighborhood meetings 7pm tomorrow night at the Joslyn Senior Center. The Joslyn Center is located at 660 N. Mountain Ave. in Larkin Park at the northeast corner of Harrison Ave. and Mountain.

Two councilmembers will be on hand to accept your rotten tomatoes. Hurl them with kindness.

Here's the info:

Neighborhood Forum Set For May 12

The public is invited to a Neighborhood Forum on Wednesday, May 12 from 7 - 9pm at the Joslyn Senior Center. Neighborhood Forums are an opportunity for the community to speak with members of the City Council in an informal setting. The forums are targeted to specific neighborhoods but any residents may attend. For more information, please contact Public Information Officer Bevin Handel at (909) 399-5497.

FRIDAY NIGHTS LIVE RETURNS

Weekly live music returned to the Claremont Village last Friday. The Friday Nights Live! program started May 7 and runs through June 25. Here's the City blurb:

Friday Nights Live is Back in the Village! (May 6, 2010)

The City of Claremont, in conjunction with the Claremont Chamber of Commerce, Village Marketing Group, and the Tolkin Group's Village Square, is pleased to announce that Friday Nights Live is coming back to the Claremont Village! Starting May 7 and running every Friday from 6-9 p.m. through June 25, 2010, two bands will be providing musical entertainment to patrons of Village shops and restaurants. The bands will be located at Second and Yale Avenue, as well as at the Public Plaza. Don't miss this opportunity to enjoy some great entertainment while shopping Claremont's restaurants and stores. Also, every dollar spent shopping in Claremont helps pay for the City's programs and services that makes Claremont the wonderful community it is. For more information on Friday Nights Live, contact the Chamber at (909)624-1681.

Planning Commission Considers Hot Topics

You may have noticed that long-empty property at the northeast corner of Mills Ave. and Foothill Blvd. There used to be a Union 76 gas station there that always seemed three to five cents higher than anywhere else. Some West L.A. folks bought the property and put up a brand new building there, and it has been empty for quite a while now, thanks to the owners' unwillingness to charge anything lower than West L.A. rent for the Inland Empire property.

Here's a photo of the location:

Click on image to enlarge

We heard a few months back that a 7-Eleven was being planned for the site, but we didn't see much going on with the property. We suspected that the 7-Eleven wouldn't be too popular with the residents closest to the location, though students at the Claremont Colleges might appreciate a having another nearby 24-hour convenience store. There are Arco and Chevron mini-marts at Claremont Blvd. and Foothill Blvd, but our town can always use another outlet for 3am strawberry-frosted Pop-Tart cravings.

The reader who sent in the photo of the site also wrote to tell us that there will be a public hearing tonight at 7pm tonight regarding the 7-Eleven:

SUBJECT: Public Hearing for proposed 7-eleven (Foothill & Mills)
DATE: Mon, February 15, 2010 7:24:49 PM
TO: Claremont Buzz


Hello,

...I am a Claremont resident. A few days ago, I took a walk around the neighborhood and noted a sign (small) alerting residents of a public hearing held Tuesday, Feb. 16 at 7pm for a proposed 7-eleven on 601 Foothill (corner of Foothill & Mills).

I just moved to the area last year and I am not sure what exactly this means but in an effort to alert more informed residents, I pass this along to you. We definitely don't need or want a 7-eleven which may impact the area negatively.

As an aside, please keep it up. I enjoy reading your blog and keeping myself informed about my neighborhood via your site.

--
Regards,

The hearing the reader is referring to is a regularly scheduled meeting of Claremont's Planning Commission in the City Council chambers at 225 West Second St. in the Claremont Village. The 7-Eleven applicant is seeking a conditional use permit (CUP) to operate the business. The matter is the third item on the agenda.

Here is the staff report for the 7-Eleven CUP.

* * * * *

Residents concerned about the 7-Eleven may have to wait a bit to be heard. Item number two on the agenda is a proposed ordinance to allow drive-throughs in Claremont.

The issue is a contentious one and represents a collision between the City's desire to help balance its books by bringing in a drive-through Walgreens pharmacy and Fresh & Easy grocery store to the Peppertree Square shopping center at Arrow Hwy. and Indian Hill Blvd. The City really needs the sales tax revenue those stores represent, but traditionalists in town feel that part of Claremont's charm is that there are no drive-throughs allowed.

The local group Protect our Neighborhoods falls into the latter category, and they've lined up against the proposed revision, according to an article by the Daily Bulletin's Wes Woods II:

Residents Peter Farquhar, Andrea Farquhar and Colleen O'Brien spoke out against the drive-through ordinance at that meeting, as did Ray Fowler, representing Protect Our Neighborhoods. Fowler gave the city a letter from the group's attorney.

Fowler read to the commission from a statement to that he later read at the Dec. 8 City Council meeting.

"We believe that a recently proposed ordinance that would allow the development of banks and pharmacies with drive-throughs would be in conflict with the city's goal of becoming a sustainable community because it seeks only immediate, not long-term, economic gains and it forgoes consideration of the negative environmental impacts of allowing such development," according to the statement.

The article said that PON also had their attorney, Amy Minteer, send the Planning Commission a letter outlining the group's concerns. The City is hinting that retaining the drive-through ban will cause Walgreens to scuttle its plans to move into Peppertree Square, and that in turn may cause Fresh & Easy to pull out as well, ending any immediate prospects for South Claremonters to get that grocery store they've been waiting for.

There should be plenty of debate on this one as well as the 7-Eleven, so the planning commissioners will probably be for a long night. They just may have to send out for Pop-Tarts.

Goings On

FORMER SPEAKER TO SPEAK

Tony Krickl reminds us that former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich will speak 7:30pm tonight at Garrison Theatre on the Scripps College campus. The theatre is located at 231 E. Tenth St. For more information, call (909) 607-9372.

Gingrich will be speaking as part of the Elizabeth Hubert Malott Public Affairs Program. There's no charge, and there will also be a book signing. The Scripps College website had some information on the event:

Gingrich's speech, "Effective Leadership for Real Change," will address the nature of leadership, what he has learned from his active political career, policy changes in environmental protection, and health care policy from beyond a partisan divide.

This past week or so has a good one for political speech on both sides of the aisle. Last week, the Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke at the Marian Miner Cook Atheneum at Claremont McKenna College.


CGU ANNOUNCES TUFTS AWARD WINNERS

Claremont Graduate University has announced the winners of the 2010 Kingsley and Kate Tufts poetry awards. The Kingsley Tufts Award and the $100,000 that accompanies it will go to Bay Area poet D. A. Powell for his collection "Chronic."

The Kate Tufts Discovery Award, which comes with $10,000, goes to Beth Bachmann for her first published collection "Temper."

Here's what the CGU press release had to say:

Powell is the author of Tea (1998), Lunch (2000), and Cocktails (2004). His most recent book, Chronic, is also a finalist for the NBCC Award in Poetry, and was named a Best Book of 2009 by Publishers Weekly and the Kansas City Star. He teaches at the University of San Francisco and lives in the Bay Area.

The Kingsley Tufts prize was established in 1992 to honor work by a midcareer poet. Powell is 46.

Bachmann won the Kate Tufts Award for her first book of poetry, Temper. The Kate Tufts Award is given to a poet for their first book of poetry.

Temper, was selected by Lynn Emanuel as winner of the AWP Award Series 2008 Donald Hall Prize in Poetry. Her poems appear in American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, and Tin House, among other journals, and have been anthologized in Alice Redux: New Stories of Alice, Lewis and Wonderland and Best New Poets 2005 and 2007. She holds graduate degrees from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and Concordia University in Montreal and teaches creative writing at Vanderbilt University.

CGU will give out the awards 6:30pm on April 22 at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. The event is free, but you need to RSVP if you're interested. To do so, call (909) 621-8974 or point your browser to http://www.cgu.edu/tufts.


COMING SOON

We hear through our sources that a Walgreens drugstore and a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market may be going into the Peppertree Square shopping center at Indian Hill Blvd. and Arrow Hwy., which most South Claremonters should appreciate.

The Fresh 'N Easy should save on drives to the grocery stores on Foothill for people in the south part of town, though Meg at M-M-M-My Pomona reminded us that there is also the Hoa Binh Market at 1093 E. Holt in Pomona for the more adventurous.

We also hear we may be getting a Cheese Cave. We'll let you figure that one out. We're not sure exactly where this one might go, but it sounds like a place that would fit in the Village Expansion.

Peppertree Square Facelift in the Offing

Peppertree Square, the small shopping center at the southeast corner of Arrow Hwy. and Indian Hill Blvd., is almost ready for its long-overdue renovation. The City's website has all the information, along with a couple watercolor renderings of what the center will look like.

Here's what the City has to say about the matter:

Peppertree Square Redevelopment Plans (Jan 21, 2010)

The City of Claremont is working closely with the property owners and broker of the Peppertree Square Shopping Center, located at the southeast corner of Indian Hill Boulevard and Arrow Highway, to improve the site and attract new tenants. Based on feedback from the community, the City, property owners, and broker have developed a plan to renovate the center and bring in two anchor tenants and several small retail shops. In a gap analysis performed earlier this year, residents expressed a desire for a grocery store in the southern portion of the city.

The broker is in negotiations with a major pharmacy and grocery store to occupy the two proposed major vacancies. The grocery tenant's lease is conditioned upon a pharmacy locating into the center. The pharmacy interested in the site requires a drive thru. Staff will be bringing a drive thru ordinance to the City Council which would allow bank and pharmacy drive thrus in the City upon securing a conditional use permit.

Wheeler Architects is preparing the design for the renovation which will be reviewed by the Architectural Commission, Planning Commission, and Council before final approval. The proposed renovations will include new construction and renovation of some of the existing retail space.

The Peppertree renovation has dragged on for almost two years now, and the drive thru may be a sticking point. Claremont bans these, and we suspect that a few people - former mayor and self-appointed town historian Judy Wright comes to mind - would strongly oppose an ordinance allowing for drive thrus. We'll see if the need for sales tax revenue trumps the desire to maintain Claremont's ban.

Local News Briefs

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.

Tony Krickl in the Claremont Courier reported on the possible sale of the land earlier this month. Krickl's article said:

The right decision?

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.