Election Tomorrow

The polls open at 7am tomorrow, and a select few voters (less than 20% of the eligible registered voters, if the past is any guide) will have the opportunity to vote for two seats on the Claremont Unified School District Board of Education as well as for the Citrus College Board of Trustees District 2 seat.

If you need to know where your polling place is, check the LA County Registrar-Recorder's website and enter your street address and zip code.

There are two candidates for the Citrus College District 2 position:  incumbent Sue Keith and Tracy Rickman.

The three CUSD candidates are, in alphabetical order, Joe Farrell, Hilary LaConte, and Sam Mowbray.   Farrell is the outsider, having been one of the leaders of the No on CL school bond campaign last year.  LaConte is the incumbent, having been board president when the district tried unsuccessfully to pass the $95 million CL bond.  Mowbray is a former CUSD board member and is seeking to return for a fourth term on the school board.

The Daily Bulletin endorsed Farrell and LaConte.  The Claremont Courier, on the other hand, endorsed Mowbray and LaConte.  Judging from candidate lawn signs, campaign supporter lists, and letters to the Courier, the Mowbray-LaConte combo is the Claremont 400's ticket of choice for this election. The Courier and the 400 seem to have given LaConte a pass on the failed bond, which got less than 40% of the vote a year ago.

The Courier and the 400 have also opted to look the other way with regards to LeConte's possible circumvention of the state's Brown Act sunshine law when she was board president in October, 2010 - something that drew criticism from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Bureau of Public Integrity recently.   This last bit we thought particularly odd for the Courier, which in the past has been something of an advocate for open government.

Through its endorsments the Courier has usually been the most accurate barometer of voter sentiment in Claremont, so we'll see if 2010 CL bond vote or the Brown Act inquiry have much of an effect on the voting. We suspect that it neither issue will matter much at all, but the turnout should tell all.   If CUSD voters are really bothered by enough to overcome their usual apathy, then LeConte might be in some trouble.  

Last Saturday's Courier carried letters from two LeConte-Mowbray supporters, Nancy Tresser-Osgood and Dave Nemer.  Both lamented the low turnouts in past elections (Nemer also had a haiku on the same subject in a prior edition of the Courier).  Tresser-Osgood and Nemer are either terribly naive or just plain ignorant, or both, when it comes to local elections.   The 400's candidates traditionally do best in low-turnout elections.   When election turnout goes over 30%, the vote usually goes against the insider (small "I") candidates.

That's why our City Council elections are in March and the CUSD elections are in November of off-years.   If those elections were changed to general election dates, the turnout would swamp the Claremonster candidates.  In past council elections Llewellyn Miller, Peter Yao, Jackie McHenry, and Corey Calaycay all ran as outsider candidates in what were relatively high-turnout municipal elections.

Similarly, because it was a bond measure, the CL vote had to be held during a general election and was soundly defeated.   Conversely, the City's $12.5 million Measure S Johnson's Pasture bond won because its support base was much wider than just the Claremont 400.  Measure S got over 72% of the vote in November, 2006.

We'll have to wait until after the polls close at 8pm tomorrow night to know the answers.  Check back here to see the final results.

Upcoming Meetings

DRAWING THE LINE(S)


Former Claremont mayor Peter Yao and the California's Citizens Redistricting Commission are coming to town this month for its first public meeting. The City's website explains:

Citizens Redistricting Commission Will Hold Public Meetings In Claremont

The Citizens Redistricting Commission will hold its first public meeting in Claremont at the Claremont Colleges from February 9 to February 13, 2011. The 14 member Commission must draw the state's districts in conformity with strict nonpartisan lines designed to create districts equal in population taht will provide fair representation for all Californians. The 14-member Commission is made up of five Republicans, five Democrats, and 4 not affiliated with either of those two parties but registered with another party or as decline-to-state. The Commission must hold public hearings and accept public comment. After hearing from the public and drawing the maps for the House of Representatives districts, 40 Senate districts, 80 Assembly districts, and four Board of Equalization districts, the Commission must vote on the new maps to be used for the next decade.

You can read more about the CRC, watch videos of its meetings and review meeting agendas on the CRC website.



PLANNING COMMISSION MEETS TONIGHT

Harvey Mudd's amended master plan is on the agenda for tonight's Planning Commission meeting. HMC's north parcel, which used to be part of the Bernard Field Station, gets a very small mention in the amended plan.

Harvey Mudd Master Plan Amendment Review

Residents are invited to attend the upcoming Planning Commission meeting regarding an amendment to the ten-year campus master plan for Harvey Mudd College The Planning Commission will discuss the item at its meeting on Tuesday, February 1, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. The meeting will be held in the City Council Chamber, 225 W. Second Street, Claremont. All persons interested in the master plan amendment are invited to attend the meeting and provide comments.

The proposed master plan amendment is based on a maximum student population of 800 (currently 734), 335 faculty/staff (currently 307), and 297 assembly seats (currently 604). This is an increase of 66 students and 28 faculty/staff, and a decrease of 307 assembly seats. The master plan amendment proposes the following:

• no change in the maximum number of students permitted under the existing master plan (800),
• minor revisions to the design guidelines for the campus,
• new policies and guidelines emphasizing the sustainability of the campus,
• the incorporation of recently completed construction projects into the master plan,
• revisions to the campus parking plan to reflect recent changes to the campus, new ampus parking policies and City zoning code,
• deletion of previously approved yet unconstructed projects, and
• addition of new/revised buildings, most notably a new Teaching and Learning Building, which is proposed for the current site of the Thomas Garrett Building.

The Planning Commission is the final decision-making body on this matter.

City staff has completed a detailed environmental review of this master plan amendment and drafted an addendum to the environmental documentation for the original master plan, a mitigated negative declaration, to reflect the changes contained in the proposed master plan amendment.

Click Image to Enlarge

Questions regarding the project may be directed to Senior Planner Christopher Veirs, at (909) 399-5470. Written comments may also be submitted to Mr. Veirs at P.O. Box 880, Claremont, CA 91711.

* View Master Plan Amendment Documents

TREE SUMMIT

Also, the City is having a special tree committee meeting at 6pm tonight at the in the offices of the Community Services Department at 1616 N. Monte Vista Ave. We're not sure which is special, the trees, the meeting or the committee. They'll be talking about the City's tree replacement program.

The Coming Seasons: Holiday and Election

No matter how hard we try to go gentle into that good night (and believe us, we do try), we're always compelled to start yakking again, usually after the powers-that-be start stirring things up.

Now that the Measure CL school bond has come and gone, Shelob-like they've been in their lairs licking their wounds, but rest assured, you'll see many of the old familiar faces back in action in the next City Council election, which should be hitting high gear in another month or so.

If things follow form, we'll see a number of unforeseen issues come to the fore at the next two City Council meetings. These issues will have been carefully chosen to position the insider (small "i") candidates in their campaigns. In the past we've seen things like false rumors of council members harassing city staff or the imminent threat of gravel mining rise up in the months before the election and then fade as soon as the polls close. As always, they'll use a false sense of urgency to instill fear into people - we need to act NOW or else....

We can't wait to see what surprises the next month will bring. We know this much: there will be at least two new faces on the council come next March. Incumbent Sam Pedroza is running, but Mayor Linda Elderkin is not. Peter Yao, the third council member whose term is up, had to step down after he was appointed to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. Incidentally, Yao was named interim chair at the commission's first meeting yesterday.

The city council candidate pool will these people, all of whom have pulled the necessary papers but haven't filed yet:

• Joseph Armendarez, unknown
  
• Robin Haulman, former Architectural Commission chair
  
• Rex Jaime, unknown
  
• Citizen Michael John Keenan, man about town
• Ed Leavell, former Human Services Commission member
• Joseph Lyons, unknown
  
• Opanyi Nasiali, former Traffic Commission member
• Sam Pedroza, incumbent and America's Got Talent 4th Runner Up
  

We've got some thoughts on these folks, but we'll hold those until the race firms up. We'll be curious to see which one(s) will end up as the straw candidates the Claremonsters encourage run in order to siphon off votes from the people they don't want on the council.

* * * * *

In the meantime, there's plenty going on around town, beginning with the City's tree lighting ceremony this coming Friday beginning at 5pm at the Claremont Depot (from the City's website):

Annual Holiday Promenade & Tree Lighting

The evening will include a variety of entertainment throughout the Village, as well as the following activities:

• Photos with Santa and Mrs. Claus at City Hall
• A Tree Lighting Ceremony at 6 p.m. at the Train Depot
• An arts and crafts fair, hosted by Gypsy Sisters, in the Packing House
• Performances by holiday carolers and the Claremont High School Chamber Singers
• Many shops and restaurants hosting "Holiday Cheer Stops"

You won't want to miss this magical Claremont event. Please join us on Friday, December 3 from 5 - 8 p.m. at the Claremont Village Holiday Promenade and Tree Lighting. Enjoy the festive atmosphere and remember to shop Claremont this holiday season.

For more information, please call (909) 399-5490 or visit us at www.ci.claremont.ca.us.

They'll have a skating rink set up as well, and if you've got any old holiday lights and want to exchange them, you can do that at the tree lighting. Southern California Edison customers can bring in one strand of the old-style lights and exchange them for a strand of LED lights.

* * * * *

It's also the first weekend of the month, which means the City Council will be at the Farmers Market in the Claremont Village on Sunday, December 5, between 8am and 1pm.

Burying the Lede: Disgraced Former Bell City Attorney Has Always Seen Peter Yao as a Man of Integrity

What a Recommendation!

Peas in a Pod

Several readers have taken us to task, and rightly, for burying the lede or missing the most interesting part of the Peter Yao story:

Peter Yao's recommendation letter to the Applicant Selection Panel for the State of California Citizens Redistricting Commission was written by none other than Edward Lee, the disgraced/resigned/fired former City Attorney of Bell. Yao thus far has made the cut of the 120 names to be winnowed to 60 names by October 1, 2010.

Shortly after the Bell salary and governance scandal was publicized by the Los Angeles Times, Edward Lee was removed as Bell City Attorney, fired as Downey City Attorney, and resigned from Best, Best and Krieger. The city of Covina removed Lee but kept BBK. Best, Best and Krieger, which continues as Claremont City Attorney, has been subpoenaed by Attorney General Brown in the Bell scandal.

See the letter from Lee below:

15322

Imagine having the guy who signed off on the obscene salaries of the Bell City Manager, Assistant City Manager, Police Chief, and four of the five councilmembers, say this about you [emphasis added]:

I firmly believe that Peter possesses the skills to balance the competing interests of the State. His experience in his professional and political arenas make him uniquely qualified to weigh and understand the issues which redistricting the State will present. My knowledge of his integrity and honesty also speak to his valuable qualifications to present the views of all segments of our diverse State.

While the corruption at Bell may or may not directly affect Claremont, certainly a good bit of the stink has rubbed off on Peter Sunway Yao.

You can't pick your relatives, but you can pick your friends.

Chairman Yao Under the Radar

Chairman Yao

It came to our attention recently that Claremont's own Peter Yao has made the cut and has been accepted into 120-member pool for interviews and possible membership on the State of California Citizens Redistricting Commission.

This action was taken on July 19 by the Applicant Review Panel, but we haven't seen it in any of the local media--maybe with vacations and all...

from the minutes of the Review Panel meeting:

Ms. Camacho moved to interview the following 40 applicants who are affiliated with the Republican Party:

Christine Allcorn, Kathleen Beasley, Robert Gonzales, Larry Kerr, Leilani Kimmel-Dagostino, Martin Lax, Nancy Lyons, Sandor Mayuga, Davin McAndrews, Gabriel Morales, Henry Norton, Lilbert “Gil” Ontai, Roy Salume, Christine “Chris” Shipman, Gina Simas, Charles Starr, James Vidal, Evelyn Volpa, Michael Ward, Mary Werthman, Cecilia White, Ronald Wilczynski, Peter Yao, Gene Lee, Jeffrey Kwong, Peggy Huang, Jodie Filkins Webber, David Ikari, Michael Briggs, Vincent Barabba, Edward Duran, Evelyn Zneimer, Bev Perry, Alan Jorgensen, Donna Beers, Orrin Banta, Suzanne Levy, Daniel Seagondollar, Susan Miller, and Wesley Hussey. Ms. Spano seconded. There being no public comment or opposition, the motion carried.

Ms. Spano moved to eliminate from the applicant pool the remaining Republican applicants. Ms. Camacho seconded. There being no opposition, the motion carried.

Panel counsel reported receiving two written comments both of which were supplied to the panel members and available at the back of the room. [We especially like how at the State level written comments are provided the commission members after the vote is taken.]

Still, this process should get more notice than it has been getting.

It's fairly lengthy, but see councilmember Yao's supplemental application. Letters of recommendation (glowing) can be found here, including one from an attorney at the City's law firm, Best, Best, and Krieger.

These resume or personal history-type things tend to be exercises, in self glorification. Yao's application tends to be nothing much more than auto-hagiography. It doesn't stray far from that template. We list below a few quotes from Yao's application. We believe they should be compiled into a little red book we could carry around. Hey!--we could call it "The Sayings of Chairman Yao":

• The challenge of working on a meaningful task, solving a tough problem to secure a just representation for Californians and working with a high performance team entice me to apply...

• I treasured solving problems.

• I have always found satisfaction in solving tough problems. Redistricting is a very tough and complex political problem.
  

• I consider exposure to new knowledge and experience as the reward of commission assignment.

• In life, one is obliged to play with the cards you are dealt.

• I am efficient in using spreadsheet programs including the first VisiCalc in the 1960’s.

• Diversity is California’s competitive advantage in commerce, scientific and technological research, and in securing a truly democratic society.

• As a working engineer, I understand and employed dense and technical written material... [anyone who has read Yao's unedited writing, or heard him speak, will go along with part of this observation.]

It's worth noting several features of the 120-member applicant pool in which Yao swims. It seems to be made up disproportionately of third-tier local officials or government employees. One who made the cut but who has dropped out in the last month is retired Los Angeles County Recorder Conny B. McCormack, for a prima facie ineligibility. See here, and here.

Another, from northern California, is Nancy Lyons, who works in the Governor's office. See here.

Another, we noted in passing was a public agency lawyer.

Yao interviewed with the panel on August 24, 2010, and it's a regret of our young life that we missed that performance. Interviews were apparently streamed in the Internet.


The process from this point forward is this: by October 1, 2010, the State Auditor (responsible for winnowing the 30,000- strong initial applicant pool) must reduce the pool of 120 to a pool of 60--20 Democrats, 20 Republicans, and 20 "Other". These names go to the Majority and Minority Leaders of both the State Assembly and State Senate, and each may strike up to 2 names from each of the three sub-pools. This will be done prior to November 20, 2010.

If the legislative leadership exercises all of its "strikes", there would be 12 names in each pool for a total of 36. By November 20 the Auditor will select 8 names randomly from these 36. By December 31, 2010, those 8 will select the remaining 6 members of the commission from the remaining names in the applicant pool of 28.

Chairman Yao still has a steep hill to climb to reach the Final Fourteen, but, as he says, he thrives on tough challenges.

Pension Tension

To follow on Friday's post about Bell, CalPERS, and Glenn Southard, we came across a New York Times article by Ron Lieber titled "The Coming Class War Over Public Pensions." (The NYT has toned the title down to "Battle Looms Over Huge Costs of Public Pensions.")

Lieber writes that our labor force is evolving into a two-class system. On the one hand are public employees, who continue to receive generous, taxpayer-funded defined benefit pensions with built-in cost of living increases. On the other are private sector employees, most of whom do not have pensions but who may, if they work at the right place and happen to be savers, have 401(k) or IRA accounts in which they, not taxpayers, bear all of the risk.

According to Lieber, taxpayers will likely be asked to rescue underfunded public pension plans for cities and states when those begin to go underwater. As Claremont city council member Peter Yao said a couple weeks ago, our own employee' CalPERS pension account is underfunded to the tune of up to $50 million, something that the majority of the council (Elderkin, Pedroza, and Schroeder) and the Claremont 400, refuse to admit.

Claremont's pension problems are just one small part of a national problem. How much money are we talking about? Lieber tells us:

At stake is at least $1 trillion. That’s trillion, with a “t,” as in titanic and terrifying.

The figure comes from a study by the Pew Center on the States that came out in February. Pew estimated a $1 trillion gap as of fiscal 2008 between what states had promised workers in the way of retiree pension, health care and other benefits and the money they currently had to pay for it all. And some economists say that Pew is too conservative and the problem is two or three times as large.

So a question of extraordinary financial, political, legal and moral complexity emerges, something that every one of us will be taking into town meetings and voting booths for years to come: Given how wrong past pension projections were, who should pay to fill the 13-figure financing gap?

As Yao could tell Lieber, here in Claremont we won't be having those public meetings until the City is at the verge of bankruptcy. The same is true with nearly every other municipality in the state and nation. As a result, the people Lieber calls "have-nots," private sector workers, will also be the ones asked to bear the burden of maintaining the lifestyles of our current public sector retirees, who for the most part refuse to give any concessions on their benefits.

Our public sector pension costs are compounded by the practice of pension spiking, in which public workers in their final year of employment manipulate the rules to drive up the value of their pensions. CalPERS offers a couple different ways of determining pension payments. Under many, such as in the city of Bell, the amount is determined by the employee's final year of compensation. If employees game the system by working a lot of overtime or by cashing out unused vacation time, their pensions can end up significantly higher than their final base salary.

Those spiked pensions cause additional problems for already underfunded CalPERS plans because the employees end up earning much more than can be covered by the money they and their employers actually paid into the system.

To no one's surprise, former Bell city manager Robert Rizzo has become the poster boy for outrageous public pensions. The Daily Bulletin ran an article Saturday by reporter Sandra Emerson, who explained that as a result of how CalPERS formulates pension payments, the city of Rancho Cucamonga, where Rizzo worked for about eight years, will be on the hook for about $125,000 of Rizzo's estimated $650,000 a year pension, assuming Rizzo survives his tarring and feathering long enough to collect.

As we said Friday, when former Claremont city manager Glenn Southard retired from Indio, his base salary was $300,000 a year. However, Southard also could have earned as much a $30,000 performance bonus, and he cashed out $162,000 in unused vacation and sick time. If Southard's pension is based simply on his final year of earnings, and if any bonus and accured vacation/sick time count towards that amount, he could end up with a pension well in excess of his salary.

Whatever pension Southard gets, because of CalPERS' crazy rules, Claremont will be on the hook for a considerable portion of his pension. Because Southard worked here for 17 years, Claremont will have to pay for those 17 years, but the payout will be based on his final year in Indio. For Claremont's share of his retirement, Glenn will qualify for 2.5% of whatever that final Indio figure was times 17 (each year that he worked here).

The California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility (CFFR) has a website that takes public information from CalPERS and CalSTRS (the California State Teachers' Retirement System) and posts the names and annual pension payments for anyone getting more than $100,000 a year.

Southard isn't on there yet because the figures haven't been updated since his retirement earlier this year, but another familiar Claremont personality did have her information posted. Our own Bridget Healy, Southard's right-hand woman in Claremont and Indio, retired in 2008 .

CFFR puts Healy's CalPERS pension at $166,701.84, of which Claremont will pay around $100,000 for Healy's roughly 18 years in Claremont, based on her $220,000 final year's salary in Indio. Healy, who seems to be maneuvering for another run at a Claremont city council seat, never has explained how she would manage her conflict of interest when it comes to pension matters here. However, we're going to guess that Healy's the pull-the-ladder-up-after-me type and probably won't have any qualms when it comes to cutting future employee benefits.

Here from CFFR are the Indio retirees in the six-figure club, soon to be joined by our friend Glenn:


And, in case you were wondering about our fair city, here is our $100,000+ CalPERS club:


We also present the Claremont Unified School District's CalSTRS pension high rollers:



There will be others joining these lists. Former Claremont Human Services Director Dick Guthrie, for instance, isn't on Claremont's CalPERS list, though his pension has to be well over $100,000. Former Claremont Community Services Director Mark Harmon and former Community Facilities Manager Mark Hodnick, too will join the exorbitant pensions club.

We're also struck by the presence of a number of prominent Claremonters on these lists. Council member Larry Schroeder is represented on the city of Lakewood's CalPERS pension rolls. Also, two influential members of the Claremont League of Women Voters own hefty public pensions: Bridget Healy and Anita Hughes, the wife of the late former Claremont mayor and CUSD assistant superintendent Alexander Hughes.

Yet another person, LWV president and Claremont Police Commissioner Barbara Musselman, is a former San Bernardino County Human Resources Director and receives a large San Bernardino County Employees' Retirement Association pension (SBCERA doesn't make its individual pension payouts readily available for the public).

Claremont's unsustainable pension obligations are the number one long term threat to our city's financial security. Yet, no one in any position of power, with the exceptions of Council members Yao and Corey Calaycay, are willing to deal with that threat. Instead, groups like the local League of Women Voters, who remained preoccupied with rehabilitating former Claremont mayor Ellen Taylor's image and helping Healy get elected to the council, are content to allow the City fly into a fiscal abyss.

One would expect people like Musselman or Healy to express a little more empathy and gratitude toward the people who fund their wealthy lifestyles. Instead, we constantly see them pushing this or that costly toy - a trolley, say - that only adds to the burden borne by the working stiffs who have to pay for for Musselman's and Healy's retirements as well as their own.

Lost in all this is the unfairness of forcing the public, the majority of whom do not have the luxury of unearned, spiked pension benefits with automatic cost-of-living increases, to rescue these underfunded public pension systems when they become insolvent. If our local and state elected officials and their supporters continue on their present course, that class war that Ron Lieber wrote of will move very quickly from metaphor to reality.

Golden Eggs

HEADED FOR A FALL

As we said last week, the scandal in the city of Bell will probably end up being a good thing for California municipal governments. Right now, they have to worry about the unusual attention their residents are devoting to cities' financial affairs.

That is, in fact, what's happened in our own town. At the July 27 meeting of the Claremont City Council, Mayor Linda Elderkin went to great lengths to contrast Bell's $100,000 city council annual salaries with Claremont's $4,800 per year for council members. Claremont city staff also made some salaries available online as a show of fiscal transparency.

But in the long run, cities like Claremont will weather the current scrutiny, public attention will fade, the LA Times and other media won't have anywhere near the staff and resources to cover every area of Southern California, and things will revert to the status quo.

Bell represents the far extreme, and their council and city management were caught because they allowed greed to get the better of them. In a town like Claremont, financial losses result from poor decision-making rather than outright fraud or embezzlement, and simply looking at employee and council salaries doesn't begin to capture the full impact of the money flowing out of city coffers.

That kind of financial leakage flourishes on the local level, mostly because, even when citizens are paying attention, elected officials refuse to deal with problems with long time horizons or because city officials refuse to release all of the information needed for a full public accounting.

Consider that July 27 council meeting.

Item number 7 on the consent calendar was a request by staff for the council to adopt a resolution implementing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City and the Claremont Police Management Association. The CPMA agreed to conceding a 1.9% cost of living increase for the current fiscal year and to the implementation of a two-tiered CalPERS pension system. Current safety employees receive a 3% at 50 pension (that is, at the age of 50, 3% of their final year's salary for every year of employment).

In return for those CPMA concessions, the City agreed to continue paying for the employees' 9% CalPERS contribution. You can see the discussion here (at around the 57:40 mark).

Councilmember Peter Yao (photo, right) asked for the MOU to be pulled for discussion. Yao, who has been on top of the City's the unfunded pension liabilities, put that amount in the tens of millions and said that by his personal calculation, it was closer to $50 million. (The Courier and Daily Bulletin later reported the unfunded liabilities as $40 million.)

Yao pointed out that the City doesn't possess $50 million in assets, which Yao said meant that "by definition we're insolvent." Yao's problem with the MOU was that, although it introduces a two-tiered pension system, one for current employees and one for future employees, the MOU defers any actual details of the new pension tier until next year. He added that the new tier wouldn't have any effect on the CalPERS problem for anywhere from 15 to 30 years from now, when new employees would be entering retirement.

We might add, too, that there's a hiring freeze on right now and that could extend for several years if the economy doesn't turn around soon. That means that any savings from the new pension benefits wouldn't apply quite a while.

Yao was also unhappy with council members Elderkin, Sam Pedroza, and Larry Schroeder for their failure to address that 9% employee CalPERS contribution the City continues to cover. Elderkin's and Pedroza's refusal to ask the employees to pick up their own 9% contribution was almost certainly out of self-interest. They, along with Yao, could be campaigning for reelection. Linda and Sam may be figuring there's no sense in angering the employee union gods at this point, even if it imperils the City's solvency.

Schroeder's reluctance to correct the CalPERS problem is more puzzling. Schroeder spent 10 years in banking and 19 years as a finance director for the cities of Lakewood and Glendora. And in the July 27 pension discussion, Schroeder acknowledged that "we do have a pension problem." Should that not be a huge red flag, especially coming from Schroeder?

In the end, Schroeder, perhaps because he himself is a CalPERS pensioner, voted along with Elderkin and Pedroza to implement the MOU. Council member Corey Calaycay voted with Yao against the MOU, citing the City's responsibility to not make promises it cannot keep (an ethical sticking point that has never bothered Elderkin, Pedroza, and the Claremont 400).


THE GOOD LIFE

Today's LA Times had an article in its LA Extra section about concerns that CalPERS authorities failed to notify the California attorney general's office in 2006 when they discovered a 47% increase in Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo's salary while conducting an audit of Bell's .

That increase raised Rizzo's salary to $447,000. According to the Times:

Documents released by CalPERS on Thursday show that the fund was also informed of a 42% raise for the assistant city manager and nearly 38% raise for City Council members. That brought council members' pay to $62,000 by 2005 for part-time jobs that in other small cities pay about $400 per month. The newly released records include Bell's explanation to CalPERS of why its officials were worthy of such salaries.

Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia told CalPERs in writing in October 2006 that the city manager's salary was hiked "to reflect his contributions to the city," which included helping Bell resolve a multimillion-dollar deficit. She said her own pay hike was "provided to reward her for her efforts and new responsibilities" related to a promotion the city had given her.

"It should also be noted that the City Council, also members of the Executive Management classification, were compensated accordingly for their contributions and efforts toward the City's dramatic financial recovery," Spaccia wrote.

The Times said that CalPERS found Bell's documentation sufficient and never did any subsequent audits. CalPERS has already been criticized for using overly optimistic rates of returns in figuring how much local governments and their employees should contribute to their pension accounts. CalPERS has also suffered from a scandal involving a former CalPERS executive and a former board member.

So if you're a public employee, there's no time like the present to retire, if you are eligible. There will be a day of reckoning for California public employee pensions, and chances are that day will arrive sooner rather than later.

One recent retiree familiar to us is former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard. You'll recall that Southard went to Indio for five years following 17 years in Claremont. He retired from Indio earlier this year.

We were curious about Glenn's retirement. It couldn't possibly be near Robert Rizzo's $600,000-plus annual retirement pay. Figuring pensions is guess work, though there is a website called CaliforniaPensionReform.com that does post a searchable database with all of CalPERS' six-figure pensions. Glenn isn't on their yet, but he will be the next time CPR updates its records.

Southard's base salary his last year in Indio was $300,000. That's important because CalPERS uses that last year when figuring retirement payouts. That's why you used to see certain CHP employees putting in a lot of overtime during their last year of work.

We were able to find an estimate on the size of GS's retirement after a reader alerted us to a blog called Inflection Point Diary that had a couple recent posts about Glenn's compensation. IPD carried a thorough breakdown of Southard's Indio contract, which IPD posted along with the analysis.

As IPD notes, most people, including our local papers, only focus on base salaries when they examine public employee compensation. But buried in the details of their contracts are things like bonus agreements that can add a good chunk more to a fellow's pension. IPD reveals that in addition to the $300,000, Indio also agreed to give Southard an annual bonus of up to 10%, or $30,000 for Southard's last year.

The analysis goes on to say that Southard was eligible for a deferred compensation account with an apparent maximum contribution of $16,500 a year, paid entirely by the city of Indio. There's also the matter of unused vacation time, for which Southard also received compensation. In fact, IPD posted a follow-up on Southard that said he cashed out around $80,000 worth of unused vacation during his time in Indio.

IPD also cited a Desert Sun article from February 24 that said in 2008 Indio overpaid by $5,949.52 for 40 hours worth of vacation time he didn't have, an error that wasn't caught until Southard was getting ready to retire.

IPD estimated that Southard's final year's salary could have been closer to $400,000 the the $300,000 base. Upon retirement, the Desert Sun said, Southard was also supposed to get $162,000 for 136 hours of accumulated vacation and sick time. All in all, not a bad payday for a man who left Indio sitting on a $13.5 million budget deficit. Good thing he didn't stick around for his 2010 performance bonus.

City Council Meets Tonight

The Claremont City Council meets tonight at 6:30pm (no special closed session this week). You can watch the meeting online here, or you can go on down to the council chambers at 225 Second St. in the Claremont Village.

This is the last meeting before the council and the town's various commissions take the month of August off. Here's tonight's agenda.

We noticed a few things that grabbed our interest:

• Item 7 on the consent calendar is a recommendation by staff that the council adopt a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Claremont Police Management Association. If approved, it would cover the fiscal year that runs from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011.
  
  The MOU includes the union's concession of a 1.9% cost of living increase for this fiscal year. It also includes the implementation of a two-tiered CalPERS retirement system as a nod to the unsustainability of the present 3% at 55 pension plan for police officers. The MOU gives no specifics on the proposed two-tiered pension, and it only says that the details are subject to negotiation with the CPMA for the MOU for the 2011-2012 fiscal year.
  
  The MOU also continues the City's payment of the each employee's 9% contribution to CalPERS. It also continues the City's annual adjustment of it's portion of each employee's health insurance premiums.
  
  It certainly looks as if the council has done nothing more than push dealing with the employee pension problem out another year, and they've left it open to the CPMA to dictate what new employees would receive for their pensions.
  
  The refusal on the part of the council to make the tough decisions needed to fix the coming pension storm shouldn't be surprising. Three of the council members, Peter Yao, Sam Pedroza, and Linda Elderkin, are up for re-election next March. Pedroza and Elderkin are of the belief that they need to placate city employees, no matter what long-term damage their lack of action causes the City's finances. Neither, after all, are the brightest when it comes to financial issues (see Padua Park, which Pedroza and Elderkin pushed).
  
  You'd think that council member Larry Schroeder, being a retired municipal finance officer, would be able to tell the extent of the pension problems are out there on the city's financial horizon. On the other hand, he does receive a CalPERS pension himself as a former city of Lakewood employee, so perhaps he's willing to let the City take a hit out of some misplaced sense of solidarity..
  
  Pension reform has long been one of Council Member Yao's pet issues, so it will be interesting what, if anything, he has to say on the issue tonight.
  
  
  
• Staff is also asking the council to approve having liens totaling $83,624 placed against 16 abandoned, bank-owned properties. The properties all have delinquent fines that were levied by the City because of the owners' failure to properly maintain the properties.
  
  Among the deadbeat institutions are Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and US Bank (which took over PFF Bancorp).
  
  
  
• Items 12 and 13 on the administrative items portion of the agenda have to do with requests by staff for the council to approve Community Development Block Grants to two Claremont Packing House businesses - the Packing House Wine Merchants and Hip Kitty Jazz & Fondue Lounge. The grants are $50,000 each.
  
  The Hip Kitty grant would be used to pay for expansion into the space formerly occupied by the EMW Limited Gallery. Staff justifies the grant by saying it would create two full-time employee jobs.
  
  Jerry Tessier, whose company Arteco Partners restored the Packing House, has told staff that getting the grant would allow Tessier's Linus Partners LLC to obtain $45,000 more in financing to complete the Hip Kitty expansion.
  
  The Wine Merchants grant would be used to expand the business into the space that had formerly housed the Claremont Forum's book store. As with the Hip Kitty money, Jerry Tessier and Linus Partners LLC would use the $50,000 to qualify for $50,000 in additional financing and would use the total to complete the Wine Merchant's expansion.
  
  The funding for Claremont's CDBG program comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. These two grants follow a $150,000 CDBG last December to the new Casa Moreno Grill in the Village Expansion. Since the CDBG money comes from the federal government for job creation, it doesn't cost the City anything. Still, you have to wonder what factors City Hall uses to determine who gets the grants and who does not.
  
  Also, is there any favoritism involved? Because Tessier's fortunes and the City's are so completely intertwined in the Packing House and the Padua Hills Theatre, would they favor him over another equally deserving business?
  
  In the past, the City seemed to favor the Candlelight Pavilion when the council loaned them $175,000 in 2000 and again in 2006 when they had to renegotiate the loan terms after the Pavilion's owners had trouble making their promised payment.
  
  
• Administrative item 14 on tonight's agenda is proposal from staff to allow City Manager Jeff Parker enter into a lease agreement with Three French Hens and its owner Brenda Monahan. The lease is for the space in the Village Expansion parking structure that had been occupied by Bedol What's Next. The City would charge Monahan $1.50 per square-foot, or $1,800 a month for the 1,200 sq.-ft. space.
  
  Staff is also giving Monahan a $300 break on rent in exchange for her functioning as a "City Concierge," a duty that the staff report explains:
  

  Prior to opening staff will work with the tenant on creating the concierge space, which will provide an opportunity for guests to receive and view information on the City's businesses and the services and products they offer. They will also have a calendar with all of the things to do in Claremont on a monthly basis. They will provide in store space for other businesses to advertise its products especially in the food drink and entertainment arenas.
  

  
  Here we have to wonder why we're paying the Claremont Chamber of Commerce $40,000 a year to do much of what the City is asking Monahan to do at $3,600 a year? Do we really need that Chamber visitor's center on Yale Ave? Perhaps the City ought to be thinking about pulling the plug on that Chamber contract.
  
  Three French Hens should certainly benefit from the extra foot traffic generated from being a City Concierge, but, as with the Packing House grants, we wonder how the City decides when they get into the business of choosing economic winners and losers.
  
  
  
• The council will also consider recommendations from their Ad Hoc Commission Selection Committee, composed of council members Larry Schroeder and Corey Calaycay. These are the appointments suggested by the committee:
  

  Architectural Commission
  Mark Schoeman - reappoint to a four-year term
  James Sink - reappoint to a four-year term
  Henry Perera - appoint to a four-year term
  
  Community Services
  Pauline Bourne - appoint to a four-year term
  Antonia Castro - appoint to a three-year term
  
  Human Services Commission
  Robin Gottuso - reappoint to a four-year term
  Robert Miletich reappoint to a four-year term
  
  Planning Commission
  Jeff Hammill - reappoint to a four-year term
  Tom Lamb - reappoint to a four-year term
  
  Police Commission
  Barbara Musselman - reappoint to a four-year term
  Sayeed Shaikh - reappoint to a four-year term
  Laura Fragoso - appoint to a two-year term
  
  Traffic Transportation Commission
  Rob Poy - reappoint to a one-year term

  
  
  
  

The Bill Comes Due

It was difficult for Claremont officials to paper over the bad news at last week's State of the City luncheon. The event, hosted by Claremont Chamber of Commerce, was by all accounts well-attended, and all five councilmembers took shots at finding silver linings in Claremont's fiscal state.

Mostly, they had to point to projects already under way or recently completed, from mundane things like road resurfacing to grander projects like the Padua Ave. Park or the College Ave. affordable housing development (thanks, Sam Pedroza, for that bit of sunshine).

The council was wise to tout its public works now. With the City already facing a $2 million budget shortfall for Fiscal Year 2009-10 because of falling sales tax revenues and the state poised to borrow more local funds to balance its books, it may be a while before the Council can spend as freely as they've become accustomed to. The Claremont Courier quoted Councilmember Peter Yao (right), who acknowledged the City's budgetary realities:

“Despite the best efforts of the city council and staff earlier this year to balance the budge, the economies of California and Claremont have continued to deteriorate,” Mr. Yao explained. “Due to further reductions in local revenues and the turbulent environment of the state legislature, the city is facing an addition shortfall of $2 million.”

The Courier also noted that the City will hold a special budget workshop this Saturday from 9am to 1pm in the council chambers at 225 W. 2nd St. in the Claremont Village. Now that the state has a budget deal semi-worked out, the City can make some projections about the size of the hit it's going to take.

From what we've picked up on our Twitter wire, it ain't pretty, folks. Thanks to the state's borrowing of funds owed to local governments, that extra $2 million shortfall Councilmember Yao alluded to may grow considerably. And that has to be added to the pre-existing $2 million 2009-10 deficit, as well as the additional (as yet undisclosed) amount the City will have to pay CalPERS for its underfunded employee pension account (CalPERS reported a 23.4% loss in its investment portfolio for FY 2008-09.)

As a result, at Saturday's budget meeting you may hear talk of staff and service cuts for the first time. You hate to see anyone lose their jobs, and the City is quite understandably pinning much of the blame on Sacramento's inability to manage their own finances without stealing from local governments.

However, Claremont and many other cities and counties bear a certain share of the blame for their own budget problems because of thoughtless spending on things like costly and unnecessary projects (insert Claremont Trolley photo here) and overly lavish employee pensions and benefits in good times. Claremont has also never been shy about feeding at the state grant trough for any number of projects, and, in doing so, it made its own small contribution to Sacramento's current fiscal state of affairs.

Like everyone else, Claremont is having to rediscover the idea of limited resources and deferred gratification. Rather than pointing the finger at the state government, the City ought to take a good, long, honest look in the mirror and figure out what lessons it can take from the present situation. Some city employees and the services they provide may end up suffering because of this mess, and it's a shame that Claremont set itself up for fiscal failure by making revenue projections that didn't take into account the possibility of a recession as severe as the present one.

The good times never go on uninterrupted, but Claremont's movers and shakers have consistently refused to acknowledged this rather obvious fact of financial life. Sustainability, Claremont's favorite buzzword, begins with fiscal sustainability, and the City risk management strategy failed in the most basic way - by neglecting to hope for the best while planning for the worst contingency.

It's All About the $$$

We were a little unsure about what to think about the State budget crisis, what with talk of take-aways and all, so we went back to the League of Cities' website, http://www.saveyourcity.net
to try to buck up our resolve.

At first it was comforting to hear Mayor Corey Calaycay, Mayor Pro Tem Linda Elderkin, Councilmember Peter Yao, and even Councilmember Sam Pedroza plead the case of a small San Gabriel Valley municipality to the giants who stand astride Sacramento.

However, the more we watched these pieces, the more wrong notes jarred our comfort. Being confirmed "McLuhanites" we know that the medium is the message, and so we examined the medium a bit more.

One trivial point jumps out right away. Those experts at the League of Cities don't even know Claremont's Assembly and Senatorial District. They show our Assemblymember as Norma Torres (it's Anthony Adams) and our State Senator as Gloria Negrete McLeod (it's Bob Huff). We've already pointed out that Linda Elderkin's bio makes her "Mayor" and not "Mayor pro tem".

Here are screen-grabs of our council making its case:

Corey says, "We had to make some difficult choices in the city of Claremont."

Linda appreciates "...a most remarkable volunteer community."

Peter says, "You and I both know it takes money to provide these services".

Sam's Message: "State, you take care of your own house."

But who is this "Fifth Councilman"?--Eric Everhart, Vice President for Development for the Olson Company. The Olson Company are developers that do business in many cities. Several years ago they had an option on the "Courier" property just south of the tracks on College, and were going to build a mixed use development, but then lost heart when the economy went south. The City is now entering into a DDA with Jamboree Housing for a housing project on that site.

Eric says, "Give me money, that's what I want."

So, Save Your City is not much more than a media promotion to help those slopping at the public trough to keep what they have, and to get more if possible. Why else would the site include a developer pleading to Sacramento?

By the way, we were curious as to why each screen-grab above shows 530 videos showing. We would think that from time to time it might be 500 videos, or 489 videos or 541 videos. Turns out, that number is hard-wired into the page code and is really just there for aesthetic (or subliminal message) effect: "We've got lots of worthies telling Sacramento to take care of its own house..."

For the propeller heads out there, here is the page code for the Save Your City website that shows where the 530 number comes from:

click to enlarge

If you can't believe the identification of Linda Elderkin, if you can't believe the assembly and senate district identification, if you believe that the VP for Development of the Olson Company is any kind of elected official or "community leader" and if you can't believe the more or less gratuitous tout of videos showing, why believe the substance of the message?

Saving Your City

Click to Enlarge

Claremont Mayor Pro Tem Linda Elderkin unknowingly received a promotion when she did a YouTube spot for a website called SaveYourCity.net. The site listed her as "Mayor Linda Elderkin."

Elderkin and three of her fellow councilmembers - Corey Calaycay (also described on the website as Mayor), Sam Pedroza, and Peter Yao - each taped short messages arguing against Governor Schwarzengger's budget proposal that would take $2 billion from money that is supposed to go to local governments.

You can find all four spots here.

Sam Pedroza's, incidentally, is by far the most watched of the four videos, but for some reason those hits are coming mostly from one residence on Cinderella Dr. in South Claremont.

Sam's Stadium

Claremont's Other Stadium

While on the subject of stadiums--or stadia if you took Mrs. Bell's fourth period Latin--what about the 75,000-seat stadium proposed in the City of Industry, just north of where the 57 freeway splits south from the 60? You may not think this has anything to do with Claremont, but read on.

We lead above with the developer's artist concept of how the stadium will look. Below we show the square mile or so of open space from approximately the same vantage.


As we understand it, this development is being proposed by Lakers and Kings owner Ed Roski, Jr., through his company, Majestic Realty, to host an NFL team to be named at a later date. (We steadfastly demur on any "Build it and they will come" clichés.)

What may not be entirely apparent from the images is that the stadium replaces a hill and is built somewhat down into where the hill was "to save constructions costs". So from the air this stadium would appear as a big pock or pustule on the Walnut Valley. See here for more propaganda on the stadium. We especially like the cross-section from the website, left (click to enlarge), showing how the entire hill that is there now is removed.

If you have driven south on the 57 to the 60, we are certain that you are familiar with the fact that the interchange--the 57 and 60 run together for a couple of miles--has become one of the worst traffic jams in the region. It's easy for traffic to be backed up at any time of the day, frequently to Sunset Crossing and often all the way to Temple. And northbound from Orange County? Fuggeddaboudit. More often than not you're on the brakes before you leave Brea.

Still, we are certain there is a cheery EIR on the project, somewhere, that states that the complex will have "no significant impact"--that's a favorite phrase--on traffic. Kind of like all the studies and staff reports here in Claremont on parking at the Colleges. Always "no significant impact", "no significant impact", for every project, and now parking is impossible adjacent to any college and their staff, faculty, students, and visitors are parking across College all the way to Harvard Avenue north of Sixth Street to Foothill. And soon Harvey Mudd will be parking on open space north of Foothill. But that's another post...

Claremont's Role in the NFL Stadium

In October 2008, Claremont councilmember Sam Pedroza instigated an agenda item at City Council asking for council approval of a resolution in support of the NFL stadium. A copy of the agenda report and resolution is here at the City website, or here on the proponent's website.

Dutifully, the ever-accommodating City Manager Parker regurgitated the developers' press-kit material into his staff report and presented it to council. (Really, it was Colin Tudor's work as shown in the footer on page two, but it was signed onto by Assistant City Manager Ramos as well. You'll have to read around in the developers' website to see where the verbiage in the staff report came from. Trust us: that's where they got it. See especially the FAQ, but the 6700 full-time jobs is right on the homepage.)

Let's just draw the curtain of modesty on the quality of the staff report by characterizing it as "thin".

With very little discussion--even though this was a matter of first impression for the council--Peter Yao and Ellen Taylor joined Sam Pedroza in voting approval of the resolution of support. Corey Calaycay knew something of the ramifications of the project and voted against the resolution, and Linda Elderkin knew she was being flim-flammed by the staff report and voted no, for lack of information:

click to enlarge; full minutes of meeting here, p. 6

In February (sorry we didn't post, we were distracted by our own city council election), at a meeting of the Industry City Council covered by camera in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Sam Pedroza spoke in favor of the stadium (see below, or click on the link to the Tribune just above, start the slideshow, and contain your excitement until slide 8 appears).

click to enlarge

As things stand today, the developer is trying to buy off Diamond Bar's traffic congestion objections for $20,000,000 . If there's no significant impact, why the baksheesh? And the City of Walnut is filing a lawsuit amid a flurry of council recall petitions.

Are They Listening?

One of our complaints about how things have traditionally worked in Official Claremont is the persistent unwillingness on the part of city councils, commissions, committees, and staff to take the time to really listen to citizens concerns about various issues.

The City would start out with a preconceived idea about how a given project should go, then staff would proceed to write up a report to support it. City Attorney Sonia Carvahlo would then backstop the process by making sure all legal bases were covered. But the outcomes had been determined long before any public discussion ever occurred.

For years, you'd go to a public meeting on an issue, speak up about some obvious oversight or omission that staff and the commissions or council had failed to account for, and you'd get nothing blank stares, or, worse, you'd be treated to a round of eye-rolling and sighs. It was like trying to tell the Titanic's captain his ship might be sinkable after all. You'd just have to sit and watch the inevitable play out knowing it was all very preventable. We've learned the hard way that staying the course only makes sense when one's path is iceberg-free.

We'd like to think that the recent Claremont municipal election signaled a change, but it's extremely difficult to alter a ruling culture. It means convincing people that there are better ways of doing things, and most people by nature are conservative in the non-political sense. We just don't like to abandon what's worked in the past, even it no longer functions well.

BarackObama.net image

Today's Claremont Courier reports on Wednesday's lecture at Bridges Auditorium by Obama for America campaign manager David Plouffe (picture at right), and it seemed clear that one of the things the Obama campaign did was to tap into new technologies and combine them with grassroots organizing efforts. The Courier article said:

The unconventional use of technology in the 2008 campaign is considered one of its most valuable innovations. “Technology was married to the grassroots approach,” Mr. Plouffe said. New media like the Internet, email, and cell phone was heavily used to move the message. “Huge numbers of people gathered online to build groups and widen the circle,” Mr. Plouffe explained.

Emails were particularly successful because people could incorporate the information in their conversations with friends and relatives. “This is not the regular way of doing things,” Mr. Plouffe admitted, “but people don’t trust the media and they don’t trust the government; they trust the conversations they have with their neighbors down the street.”

Mr. Plouffe concluded the campaign’s biggest asset was the actual performance of the candidate. He addressed Mr. Obama’s relative lack of experience by saying that it was one of his advantages. Having spent less time in Washington, Mr. Obama was less used to the “conventional practices” established there.

It may be that for a change our own city council was actually trying to learn some lessons from Plouffe. We hear there were several councilmembers in the audience to hear Plouffe, and they may have finally come around to the idea that they need to be more receptive to the public than past councils.

We seem to be seeing evidence of that thinking. At Tuesday night's new mayor Corey Calaycay was much freer with public comment than some past mayors. For a long time, Claremont had a four-minute time limit for speakers, and a red light would blink when your time was up. Councilmmber Peter Yao retired the clock when he was mayor, but Ellen Taylor, who is no longer on the council, brought it back. Calaycay re-retired the public comment clock Tuesday.

Our recent town leaders seemed to think that democracy requires orderliness and that all issues can be fitted into an arbitrarily set four-minute period. The council, of course, has unlimited time to talk about things, so there wasn't much balance in the so-called dialogue. It was really a parent-child relationship, with the public being the two-year-old that needed to be humored.

But, as we all know, some issues take longer than four minutes to discuss, some less, and there's nothing more irritating than having someone like former Mayor Taylor interrupting you to tell you you're finished as soon the red light blinks. In any event, the clock is gone for now, and City Hall is still standing. None of the public speakers took advantage of the clock's absence to filibuster, and the meeting was quite orderly. Indeed, one could argue that treating the public as an equal participant diffuses anger and resentment.

In another sign the council may be listening, at Tuesday night's meeting they considered complaints from residents along Adirondack Lane near the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park. The residents were concerned about parking from hikers spilling over onto their streets and wanted to have parking permits required for their neighborhood. The council approved the measure and even extended it to cover weekdays, as some residents had requested. The Daily Bulletin reported on the parking discussion:

Residents said the area was packed with cars primarily visiting the Wilderness Park which threatened the safety of everyone, particularly children.

"We feel like we're on lockdown," said resident Lisa Friedman.

Adirondack Lane resident Avi Hershkovitz, one of a number of residents that spoke before the council this week, was in favor of the ordinance if it was for every day.

The original ordinance was only for weekends and federal holidays.

Councilwoman Linda Elderkin said she felt the ordinance should be for every day and introduced a motion supporting it.

So, we find Elderkin's receptiveness encouraging, and, to be fair, she has been one of the more reasonable councilmembers since she was elected. Maybe that portends good things to come.