Just Between You and Me...

As we Insiders know all too well, at every level government the people we elect and the bureaucrats they appoint or hire love to keep things secret and often will do anything to limit public access to documents. Federal, state or local, they will seek to keep information hidden - much of it rightfully public information.

Ironically, United States vs. Reynolds, the 1953 US Supreme Court case that recognized the State Secrets Privilege, was based on a false secrecy claim used by lawyers for the federal government who were defending a lawsuit brought by the widows of three RCA engineers killed on a Air Force B-29 that crashed in Waycross, Georgia. The federal attorneys sought to block the release of the accident report for the B-29 claiming that its release would endanger national security.

By 2000, the accident report had made its way to the Internet, where it was found by Judy Loether, the daughter of one of the RCA engineers. The report turned out to contain no state secrets, but it did contain information about the particular B-29 that crashed, as well as the plane's maintenance record. That information supported the widows' complaints and would have been a key to any resulting civil trial.

(You can learn a little more about this by listening to Act II of an episode of This American Life from June, 2009, concerning the origins of institutions - check around the 27:30 mark).

If the federal government is willing to falsely invoke the States Secrets Privilege, imagine what happens at the local level, which is often subject to much less public scrutiny. As scandals in Bell, Upland, San Bernardino County, or even at the CalPERS governing board (see the front page of today's LA Times) have shown, if the public isn't privy to information, elected and appointed officials can find opportunities for malfeasance of all sorts.

A reader turned us on to an opinion piece in last Sunday's Daily Bulletin by open government activist Richard McKee (photo, left). McKee wrote that voters have a duty to keep watch on their local officials, and reporters have an obligation to find the information the public needs to make informed decisions. He also noted that the problem of staying apprised of what's going on in government has become exponentially more difficult thanks to the proliferation of government agencies:

The sad news is that this all happens because "we the people" don't pay any attention; a willful ignorance amply facilitated by news media that fail to keep us informed. The usual practice is for the electorate to vote for those telling us what we want to hear, whether it's for or against an incoming Walmart, funding for parks, promoting public transportation, refurbishing schools or some other hot topic; then we return to ignoring local government as soon as we leave the polling place.

And this problem has been made more difficult by local government's eagerness to create more and more public agencies. What do you know of your local sanitation district, or the community service, recreation, vector control, flood, water, airport, harbor, irrigation, public transportation, hospital, waste management, utilities or cemetery districts? How about your council of governments, air quality management or local agency formation commission?

Every one of these public boards and commissions employs staff and sets their compensation. But it's not only the salaries and obvious benefits, it's the pensions - and boy, are they something!

McKee is absolutely right in pointing out the multiple layers of local government that are technically subject to open government laws, but which in practice conduct their daily operations without much public input at all. The Claremont Unified School District, for example, is free to routinely ignore requests for public documents about such things as the district's finances, and no one notices or cares until the district comes, hat in hand, asking the voters to approve another overpriced bond.

Or who, really, keeps an eye on the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, which has dole out tens of millions of dollars with very little real oversight? To take the RMC example, a 2009 state audit found a number of problems with the RMC's handling of the public funds:

The Conservancy Has Not Exercised Adequate Fiduciary Oversight of Bond Funds

The audit identified a significant number of recurring audit findings from 2006 related to the Conservancy and its joint powers entity, the Watershed Conservation Authority (Authority). We also found instances of questionable practices and expenditures at the Authority. Collectively,these issues demonstrate the Conservancy’s inadequate fiduciary oversight of bond funds....

The current audit determined the Authority commingled bond funds with general operating funds, and inappropriately used these funds for ineligible costs; and the Authority has not completed annual financial audits.

Yet, all the public sees are headlines about the RMC awarding cities like Claremont millions of dollars to build projects like Padua Park or to buy open space or to fund studies of the pet water projects of the City's dilettantes. Because we don't look beyond the headlines, agencies like the RMC operate with impunity and can easily become nothing more slush funds to help promote the political prospects of its friends.

Incredibly, the RMC received a similar audit in 2006 and apparently ignored a number of findings. The RMC was able to do so because very few people really care. If we repeat the RMC's conduct across the myriad of state and local agencies Richard McKee alluded to, it's easy to see how we Californians ended up in our present fiscal mess.

Ultimately, it's up to you, Mr. and Ms. Voter, to own the problems your inattentiveness beget.

Invasive Flora, Opportunistic Fauna

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LOCAL TRAVELS

On a recent weekend, the Insider staff decided to get away and enjoy the wonderful spring weather in San Gabriel Mountains. We drove out past Wrightwood on the Angeles Crest Hwy. and found a relatively easy path that joined up with the Pacific Crest Trail near Vincent Gap.

The trail had a pretty good elevation gain up through an oak forest for the first mile or so, then it leveled out and followed a ridgeline dotted with pines. As we walked along, we noticed, nestled in a shaded pine needle bed, a group of what looked like bright red and pink hyacinths without any green leaves. As we got closer, we saw that they were supported by thick candy cane stalks.

We returned home and later consulted the old man of the mountains. We described the fantastical plants to him, and he told us in his gravelly voice, "When we were kids, we called that snow plant."

Snow plant, we've since learned, is a fungus-like parasite called a "mycotrophic wildflower" that gets its nutrients from tree roots.


CLOSER TO HOME

One is never quite sure what one will find when one wanders into the local mountains and foothills. A couple weeks after our mountain adventure, we decided to stick closer to home and explore some of the flatter alluvial areas around northeast Claremont. The undeveloped alluvium is home to the plant and animal community called riversidean alluvial fan sage scrub habitat, or RAFSS.

RAFSS is rapidly dwindling in southern and Baja California. Ten years ago, there was only about 2,000 acres of it left in California. It's disappearing because most of the stuff happens to be located on real estate coveted by developers (that is, until the real estate market tanked).

RAFSS is an odd sort of habitat. It's not at all liked a picturesque English woodland. Instead, if you go during the summer, you're likely to find it brown and sere. That is, in fact, why the city of Claremont had its commissioners trucked to the Padua Park site in July, 2000, to ensure that all they saw was what looked like a weedy lot desperately in need of improvements. About half of the 20-acre main park site consisted of RAFSS.

If the city's commissioners had gone to the same spot three or four months earlier, they would have seen it alive with greenery and flowers. All of which serves to underscore how diligently our town works to manipulate perception to get its projects done.

In any case, when we ventured out to take a look at an area near where the sports park has been installed, we found it teeming with wildflowers. Water percolated up in places from artesian springs (the cienegas that Claremont doyenne Marilee Scaff yearns to build below the dam near the Thompson Creek trail).

As we walked along, a couple quail that had been foraging in the brush, and they scooted off, chittering alarm calls as they took flight. We wondered about rattlesnakes, but it wasn't terribly hot the day we were out, at least, not hot enough to get the snakes stirred up.

Purples, blues, and lavenders seemed the dominant color that particular day. We saw blue-eyed grass and lupine (photo, right) with their five-lobed leaves. There was showy penstomen (below) as well, sitting in large groupings of blue jets arrayed along long, thin spears.

The generous storms of January and February brought so much water that the plain held an abundance of chamise, buckwheat, and bronze-green castor bean, too. Other flowering plants hadn't quite come into their season yet. White sage and short coastal prickly pear cactus looked as if they would burst into bloom any minute.


INVASIVE EXOTICS: STRANGE FLORA, STRANGER FAUNA

As we got closer to the park site, approaching it from the east, we noticed that the soil was considerably disturbed by the construction equipment. Black mustard and other invasive exotics had taken over those disturbed, more open areas. We could see the strangely out of place weeds mixed in and projecting above the RAFSS:



As we got closer, we saw that they had overrun the area completely:


















And, along with the weeds that choked off the local coastal sage habitat, some even more more opportunistic and parasitic fauna appeared, blindly devastating up entire plant and animal communities from Claremont to Whittier Narrows:



From "Pave to Save," LA Weekly, April 22, 2010:

Shepherded by a group of unwieldy bureaucracies that include two water districts, the San Gabriel & Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountain Conservancy and the County of Los Angeles, the San Gabriel River Discovery Center is designed to replace the aging 2,000-square-foot Whittier Narrows Nature Center, buildings including a garage, and "non-native landscaping" with a 14,000-square-foot museum of interactive exhibits for children that would explain the existing state of the watershed, show what the natural rivers were once like and feature a covered, outdoor classroom.

"You're going to bring awareness of the sense of place where the kids sense that they're part of something much bigger," declares Sam Pedroza as he reels off interconnections between man, river and sea. "Everything that we do from the mountains and the inland cities affects the ocean. It's as small as throwing a wrapper in the street or in the parking lot — that can all end up in the ocean."

Pedroza, a Claremont city councilman, chairs the San Gabriel River Discovery Center Authority's Stakeholders Committee. "I know that we look like the Goliath here," he tells the Weekly, but "by every definition this is an environmental project that's aimed at protecting the watershed."

Others aren't so sure.

Teresa Young, who studies insects in habitats near the existing nature center, shares Pedroza's concern for the remaining open space. But she does not agree that the construction of a large building and parking lot somehow improves the environment.

Save by destroying, and then put up a commemorative bronze plaque to describe for future generations that which we've plowed under. It's a truly bizarre logic we've become accustomed to in Claremont, the City of Trees.

Projects, Projects, Projects

It looks like the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC) is back in business now that Governor Schwarzenegger has lifted the state's moratorium on selling bonds.

The RMC's website had this bit of information:

FREEZE IS LIFTED FOR APPROVED PROJECTS, Updated April 23

GREAT NEWS!!! Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced on Wednesday, April 22 that more than 5,000 projects will be restarted as a result of the State’s recent bond sales and funding from the federal Economic Recovery Act. This includes projects approved by the RMC Board prior to the bond freeze on December 17, 2008, even if those projects did not have a signed contract. Funding for new bond-funded projects is still on hold. Over the next week staff will work with our grantees to re-start projects as quickly as possible. If you have questions please contact your project manager.

The City of Claremont can now cash that $850,000 RMC check for Padua Park.

Unfortunately, CGU grad Tim Worley may be a permanent casualty of the state budget crisis. Worley, RMC's former director of water policy, was laid off several months ago, and he's no longer listed on the RMC staff page. Don't fret, though, we hear Tim's keeping plenty active far below the radar in closed, non-public meetings shaping our local water future. You won't have a say in these matters, but you'll likely get stuck with the very large tab.

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By the way, you can hear Worley, and his friends C. Freeman Allen and Marilee Scaff plugging their ideas tomorrow at Claremont's Earth Day Celebration. Worley and friends will bookend the Earth Day speakers at City Hall. Worley speaks at noon on "A [his, Allen's and Scaff's] Vision for Water Sustainability."

Allen and Scaff close the speeches with a talk about Marilee's Marsh, a huge, $24 million-plus extravaganza dreamed up by water interests and relentlessly pushed for the past year without public input by Worley, Allen, Scaff, and the Claremont League of Women Voters. The Marsh got some RMC seed money last year, with a little help, no doubt, from Worley, who was still on staff at the time. It's really been fascinating to watch how these sorts of projects develop with minimal involvement on the part of the real stakeholders: YOU.

The talk by Allen and Scaff is titled "Water Restoration and Reclamation in Claremont" and takes place at 4pm.

You can see that Scaff's idea of public involvement is to hold series of dog-and-pony shows like hers and Worley's tomorrow in order to sell a public works project cooked up in closed-door meetings and planned by the water interests who will build the project and benefit monetarily from it. Slipping their talks in before and after other, far more credible speakers, lends a certain verisimilitude to their PR campaign. One almost feels sorry for Scaff, an earnest, very well educated and accomplished matron with high standing in the LWV who's being manipulated by people far smarter and far more cunning than her into being the salesperson of this coming boondoggle.

Tomorrow's sales hype should be fun to hear. It's not too different from going to the county fair and hearing the ShamWow!® guy: One cloth can soak up the ocean! Go tomorrow and hear Marilee's ScamWow!® pitch.

California Bonds Get Spring Thaw

The Sacramento Bee's Capitol Alert reports that State Treasurer Bill Lockyer is ready to lift that freeze on California bond sales to the tune of $500 million. This will start the process of getting funding to some 5,000 infrastructure projects that have been stalled because of the freeze.

There's no word on where Claremont's Padua Park project falls in the scheme of things. The City is waiting on a promised $850,000 grant that the San Gabriel Rivers and Mountains Conservancy pledged last fall. Like other state agencies, the RMC sells bonds as needed to raise the cash to fund the grants it approves.

The RMC's website gives no indication as to whether or not things have changed.

Santa to Sacto: Here's Your Coal

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Sacramento's problems, some of which we discussed yesterday, aren't going away easily, and this is leaving us with the impression that our Governator and our state legislators have been decidedly naughty with our state's finances this past year. Elected officials beware: Santa's got a good memory.

The state's inability to fund its short- and long-term debt because of the Great Credit Freeze of 2008 made the New York Times yesterday. The NYT carried an article about states (not just California) having to suspend a variety of highway and infrastructure projects, and the article explained some of California's unique problems:

Last month, when the state tried to restructure existing debt with an additional $523 million offering, it had to reduce the offering by two-thirds, said Tom Dresslar, the spokesman for Bill Lockyer, the California treasurer.

“The institutional investor interest was nil,” Mr. Dresslar said.

Further, the State Legislature’s inability, with the governor, to figure out a way to deal with the state’s $15 billion budget gap has weakened the market’s confidence in California, something other states could face if the fiscal situation deteriorates.

This month, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the $5 billion in revenue bonds issued by California last month and put more than $50 billion of debt on watch for a downgrade.

“The bottom line is we are not viewed as a quality investment,” Mr. Dresslar said, adding that California is not in position to offer the sort of fat interest rates needed to get offerings off the ground.

It turns out that the financial crisis is rippling through all parts of the state. On Sunday, we wrote about the potential problems facing the city of Claremont in its quest for grant money to fund the Sycamore Canyon Park restoration.

And back on December 18th, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune had an article about the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC) having to suspend all its projects (including ones for which funding had been approved) because the state has stopped selling the bonds that generate the RMC's grant monies.

The SGV Tribune article explained the RMC's dilemma:

The area's biggest habitat restoration agency has asked all of its partner cities to halt all new construction. "These projects literally had shovels in the ground, or at least they used to be in the ground until we told them to stop today," said Belinda Faustinos, executive director of the San Gabriel & Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC).

A project to beautify and clean up 26 acres of land near the Canyon Inn in the San Gabriel Mountains was put on hold after a planning agency lost $20,000, said Jane Beesley, also of the RMC.

Below we've posted an image of the letter the RMC sent out to its grantee cities advising them of the cutoff of funds for projects that had been previously approved. (Thanks to the reader who forwarded this to us.)

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Item #2 in the letter should be of some concern to the City of Claremont with regards to Padua Ave. Park, which is dependent on an $850,000 grant from the RMC to complete its combined Phases 1 and 1A. Item #2 states that effective 12/18/08 all state entities having expenditure control and oversight of General Obligation bond and lease revenue bond programs shall "Suspend all projects, excluding those for which the Department of Finance (DOF) authorizes an exemption based on criteria described unless the contracting entity can continue with non-state funding sources (private, local, or federal funds)."

In other words, Claremont may be on the hook for the RMC's $850,000 share of the Padua Park construction costs unless the City has an out written into their contract with the company building the park. As the latest sign at the Padua Ave. Park site explains, a good chunk of the project is supposed to be built with RMC dollars:

A funding well runs dry....

The RMC's and the state's money problems may be the reason that the other new sign at the park site incorrectly states that construction began on November 4, 2008. In fact, no construction (other than a ceremonial ground breaking in October) seems to have occurred. Here's that other sign:

City at work?

What all this means is that the city of Claremont may have to retouch that photo of the City Council taken on October 14th showing the Council receiving a ceremonial banner-sized check from Belinda Faustinos, the RMC's executive officer. It's a shame the city didn't cash that big check before the state closed the account.

If the RMC and the City of Claremont want to practice truth in advertising, they might want to use the following photo:

October 14, 2008, Claremont City Council
proudly receives $850,000 rubber check from RMC

Sycamore Canyon Project Goes Looking for Money

Daily Bulletin writer Wendy Rubick had an article about Claremont's Sycamore Canyon Park, which Rubick indicated has been closed since 2002 due to fire damage, presumably as a result of the Williams Fire.

Last Thursday, Claremont officials had a public meeting to gather input on the park's restoration. According to Rubick's piece, Mark von Wodtke at the Claremont Environmental Design Group is working with the city on putting a prospective restoration budget together for the Claremont Community Services Commission's next meeting on January 8th. Ironically, Community Services was responsible for plowing under von Wodtke's ACORN Project's oak seedlings in the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park earlier this year.

Rubick also wrote that there will be some significant state permitting costs, and that the City cannot afford to fund the restoration out of the city's budget. All of which means the the City will have to go begging once again for grant funds. However, Rubick also indicated that the state's budget issues may make it difficult to secure grants tied to the sale of state bonds:

State regulatory agencies, such as the Department of Fish and Game and Regional Water Quality Control Board, will need to process paperwork and issue permits before the park reopens.

The DFG permit is estimated to cost from $100,000 to $150,000.

"We're aggressively pursuing grants," Carroll said.

The City Council will otherwise not be able to fund the project, he said.

Tim Worley, 47, director of water policy for Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, said the state on Thursday announced a freeze on expenditures of all bond funds.

Grants provided through the conservancy were already allocated for other projects.

Worley, incidentally, is an alumnus of the Claremont Graduate University and studied political science (not hydrology, oddly enough). In any case, Claremont is fortunate to have received that money from the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy for Padua Park ($850,000) and a separate, much smaller grant for Marilee Scaff's Memorial Marsh project last October, before all this hit.

Here's an image from the city's website:

10/14/08, Funding Mission Accomplished:
Rivers and Mountains Conservancy Executive Officer Belinda Faustinos
presented the City with a check for $850,000
for the Urban Park grant award.

This all makes us wonder how many projects in other cities throughout the Inland Empire and the San Gabriel Valley (some worthy, some not) are going to go unfunded because of the state finances are screwed up.

Hilda Solis of El Monte Tabbed to be US Labor Secretary

Hilda Solis, Congresswoman from the 32nd District in the San Gabriel Valley, has been named nominee by President-elect Barack Obama to be the next Secretary of Labor.

There's a local angle to this story. Claremont City Councilmember Sam Pedroza owes his political career to Solis. Pedroza, who worked for Solis, rose within the ranks of the San Gabriel Valley Democratic Party partly as a result of Solis' patronage.

That relationship with Solis is what landed Pedroza in the hot seat as the person spearheading the effort by the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC) to build the controversial $30 million Discovery Center on the San Gabriel River in Whittier. While she was still in the State Senate, Solis sponsored the legislation that created the RMC.

The irony of the Discovery Center project is that opponents say construction of the proposed interpretive nature center will end up destroying much of what it is supposed it pay homage to. And, as we've noted previously, we suspect that Pedroza's ties to the RMC are what led the agency to funnel $850,000 in grant money that was supposed to go to park projects in underserved urban areas to Claremont's Padua Park, another habitat-destroying project sponsored by the conservancy.

Just another example of the power of patronage.

Labor Secretary-select Solis graduated from Cal Poly Pomona, worked in the Carter White House, and has been elected to the Rio Hondo Community College District, the State Assembly and Senate, and is serving her fourth term in Congress. Whew. Makes you wonder what you have been doing with your life.

Still, we did note that with all that star quality, Solis lives, according to her official biography, in humble El Monte. Here's a little description of our neighbor town to the west:

Stinkin' Laws

After seven years, sports groups are celebrating the decision by the Claremont City Council to go forward with Phases 1 and 1A of the Padua Ave. Sports Park. The sports groups and Human Services Commissioner Valerie Martinez have long pushed for the park. The sports groups are happy because they say there is a severe shortage of lighted fields, and Martinez cheers because she sees the sports groups as a power block to support her own plans for rehabilitating her tarnished post-Preserve Claremont image. (You have to hand it to Martinez, the original Transparent Woman; she has no shame and certainly isn't lacking for chutzpah.)

Tuesday night, the Claremont City Council approved going forward with the first two phases of the park at a total cost of about $3.6 million. The council had already approved approximately spending $2.4 million for Phase 1, which consists of one unlit soccer field and 52 parking spaces. On Monday, however, the city received an additional $850,000 from the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC), and that allowed the city to go forward with Phase 1A, which includes the lit soccer field and 58 more parking spots.

One thing the council didn't really discuss is how their approval of the two park phases will mean raiding the city's General Fund Reserve and taking nearly $1 million to build Phase 1A. In addition to needing to burn an extra $527,000 of General Fund Reserve funds, they are "borrowing" another $450,000 in reserve money and promise to repay that from city Park Development Impact Fees. The problem with that is that those fees are paid by developers when they build new projects in town. As you may have noticed, there's not a whole lot of building going on right now, and there's no guarantee when developers will move forward with new projects. So that repayment money may be a long time in coming.

Another thing they didn't talk much about Tuesday night was that because the RMC money comes from a conservancy that is supposed to be preserving the 8.9 acres of sage habitat that the sports park would otherwise destroy, the city sold the project to the RMC as a project that meets the city's draft Sustainability Plan, and the city made representations (false?) that it would use part of the grant to preserve a chunk of the sage habitat. The city dangled a promise to the RMC that the city might set up a 6 acre habitat area with walking trails.

Of course, you know all about Claremont's history of promise keeping. Once they received the RMC's $850,000 for Phase 1 on Monday, the city council on Tuesday night turned around and were then able to use Claremont money that would have otherwise been used on Phase 1 and plugged it into Phase 1A. In effect, the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy is underwriting the destruction of the habitat in Phase 1A and the introduction of sports park lights into a foothill area that has very strict lighting restrictions. This is a bait-and-switch of extraordinary proportions. Well executed, Claremont!

Judging from Tuesday night's discussions, Claremont's arguments for being able to break the lighting rules for Northeast Claremont, courtesy of City Attorney Sonia Carvalho, are that the city's own rules don't apply to the city itself. No surprise there, since we know that Carvalho seemed to believe last year that the First Amendment and quaint notions about prior restraint had no place in Claremont.

The city is apparently foregoing Phase 2 for the present. Phase 2 would have included a lit softball field and unlit tennis courts. It originally included a lit roller hockey rink in place of the tennis courts.

(We've received a little more information on the RMC grant, complete with some spiffy images, and we'll be serving that up in the coming days.)

The Daily Bulletin had a story on the park decision. Because the 100-foot sports lights in Phase 1A were an issue for Councilmember Corey Calaycay, the council bifurcated the vote. The council unanimously approved going forward with Phase 1 and voted 4-1 for adding in Phase 1A, with Calaycay dissenting. According to the Bulletin:

The council voted for the project in two phases. Council members voted unanimously in the first phase for one soccer field without lights, among other items. In the second phase, Corey Calaycay cast the dissenting vote because he opposed a soccer field with lights.

``I have no objection to the park,'' Calaycay said. ``My objection is to the lights.'' Calaycay said that while he supported the park, the property needed to have its designated zoning changed from rural, and he didn't like ``bending rules.''

``They've always had lighting standards there,'' Calaycay said Wednesday.

``A big criticism of government is when they make rules apply to others and not themselves,'' Calaycay said. ``It brings government into question.''

The RMC might want to know (if they cared) that the council was already talking about replacing that 6 acres of sage habitat they said they were going to preserve with another sports field. Councilmember Peter Yao said he did not want to accept $50,000 from the RMC for a habitat feasibility study because he wanted a third sports field on the Padua site. Yao said he knew how what a conservancy's study would say, and he wanted no part of it.

Yao's support for the Padua project was quite a change from September, 2002, when then-candidate Yao sent a letter to the Claremont Courier that laid out all the reasons why he was against not only Padua Sport Park but Village West as well:

I initially agreed with the City's decisions to build more homes in the Village West expansion and to construct a sports facility in Padua Park. However, the comments from the public have caused me to rethink my position. Four public statements voiced in various city council meetings have prompted my re-evaluation:

1. Who would want to live in the new upscale Village West homes built next to an active railroad track?

2. Padua Park will generate a heavy volume of traffic on Padua Ave., a narrow two-lane rural road.

3. Lit up, the Padua Park, with tens of thousands of megawatts of lighting, will ruin the character of the quiet North Claremont.

4. It makes no sense to locate the largest Claremont sports facility in the extreme northern corner of the city.

The problem is that both the Village West and Padua Park capital projects do not adhere to Claremont's zoning philosophy. The zoning laws caution us not to put houses in a noisy zone and not to put large sports facilities in a quiet zone.

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It's easy to see why Yao has changed back to supporting the park. As he has learned by now with the able tutoring of one Sonia Carvalho, in Claremont, we don't need no stinkin' laws!

Follow the Money

We've been puzzling over the city of Claremont's application for a $1.6 million grant for Padua Park, which is supposed to break ground some time in the next few months. The city has committed approximately $2.4 million of its own money to the project, but that leaves it anywhere from $8 million to $10 million short of the money needed to complete all three phases of the project.

As we observed last Friday, the city's Human Services Department has submitted a grant application to the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC), a state agency that doles out grant money for projects in the watersheds for the two Southland rivers.

The RMC is supposed to be concerned with protecting the watershed and the native habitats in the foothills and areas drained by our rivers. In our previous post, we noted that a reader familiar with the Padua Park project has been following the Claremont grant and found some inconsistencies between the project, which the reader describes as an active, intensive-use sports park, and the RMC's mission.

Most importantly, the second and third phases of the Padua Park project would end up destroying 8.9 acres of a habitat known as Riversidean Alluvial Fan Sage Scrub (RAFSS). Apparently, there are less than 2,000 acres of the stuff remaining in California, mostly because the RAFSS appears in foothill areas that are highly desireable sites to build housing developments like all of the homes that have been built north of Base Line Rd. in Northeast Claremont.

The RMC's staff is recommending that the conservancy give $800,000 to the city for the project, and they seem willing to give more later. The RMC staff seems to tie the money to rehabilitating the RAFSS and to including a more passive-use aspect for the project. But, there doesn't seem to be anything that bars the city from accepting the money under the false pretense of constructing a passive-use park, then turning around and going ahead with their current plan, which includes 260 parking spaces - more than double the space any park in town (College Park has 100 parking spaces).

As we also noted, the Padua Park Environmental Impact Report (EIR) stated that the when it is fully developed the park will use an average of 31.5 million gallons of water per year, a further wasteful departure from the sorts of things the RMC is supposed to encourage.

So why would the conservancy give money to a project that veers so greatly from it RMC's stated goals?

We think the answer lies in the backroom politics at RMC. For one thing, former Claremont Traffic and Transportation Commissioner Tim Worley is the RMC's director of development. As a commissioner, Worley voted to approve the traffic portion of the Padua Park EIR.

More importantly, Claremont Councilmember Sam Pedroza, who as a Community Services Commissioner was one of the main proponents of the Padua project, sits on the board of the San Gabriel River Discovery Center Authority. Pedroza is the chair of two of the Discovery Center Authority's committees (the only two committees): the Fundraising Committee and the Stakeholders Advisory Committee.

Pedroza, incidentally, received the endorsement of none other than Tim Worley when Pedroza ran for Claremont's City Council in 2005.

The Discovery Center Authority is one of those quasi-public joint powers authorities that has $3 million pledged to it from the RMC. The Discovery Center is supposed to be built in the Whittier Narrows Flood Control Basin. The Discovery Center's website, gives a description of the project:

The Discovery Center will present the story of the San Gabriel River watershed, emphasize the importance of water resources and the natural values of the watershed, and provide educational and outdoor experiences for people of all ages. The Center will also continue the cultural, natural history and ecosystems messages; and outdoor experiences presented by the L. A. County Department of Parks and Recreation at the existing Nature Center.

Sounds like a good thing, though the project, like Padua Park, has apparently created a lot of controversy. From we've heard, the Friends of the Whittier Narrows Nature Area have found fault with the size and scope of the project, saying that it will destroy the area's native wildlife, including a significant amount of RAFSS. Funny how Pedroza, a supposed environmentalist, is at the center both projects. Hypocrisy seems to be Sam's middle name.

One might wonder how such a goof as Pedroza, affable though he is, could come to rise to such a position of destructive prominence. Like any good pol, Pedroza works the machinery of government, mainly by networking with the contacts he's made in San Gabriel Valley Democratic circles. Pedroza's former employer, Congresswoman Hilda Solis, for whom Pedroza worked when she was still in the State Assembly, no doubt had a hand in Pedroza's rise as well.

All of this points up the perils of putting someone who is as weak and insecure as Pedroza in a position of power. Voters thinking that they are protecting nature and open space approve billions of dollars in bonds to generate the funds the RMC uses for its grants, and then the money leaks out in dribs and drabs under false pretenses to the pet projects of Southern California's elected and non-elected officials. And they do it all with stunningly little accountability to the voters.

In his position on the Discovery Centery Authority board, Pedroza is in close contact with the authority's director, Belinda Faustino. Faustino also happens to be the director of the RMC. A July 8th post on the Daily Kos noted this about Faustino:

And the head of the RMC, Belinda Faustino, does not have a forestry, biology, hydrology, agricultural degree but was originally in corrections in Chino. Ms. Faustino worked for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (SMMC) as the Budget Officer and then became for the SMMC, Chief Deputy Executive Officer of the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Corridor Conservation Authority. No one that this writer has found, or has heard from others who know the voting Board for the RMC has an educational background in science. (updated) The one staffer who does have a Ph.D is Tim Worley but he also works for MWD (see at bottom of page). Tim's Ph.D. is in Political science. If you sit in a RMC meeting, you find no one says much to Ms. Faustino and everything is passed without question.

The Daily Kos' post also described the problems with the Discovery Center, which sounds as if it has the makings of a real boondoggle:

Also, why are so many wasteful endeavors couched with serving THE CHILDREN, when in fact they are hollow projects, literally???? The RMC’s new Children’s Museum is supported and funded by the Metropolitan Water District through a surrogate – the newly formed, Sierra Club Angeles Chapter San Gabriel River Campaign. The Metropolitan Water District has its own Children’s Museum, called the Water Museum in Hemet California (26 K. sq. ft.). This project cost $16 or 26 million (depending on what source is used) and costs Southern Californian water rate payers about a dollar per house hold to fund the empty building’s lights and air conditioning.

....

The Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC), transmogrified into another group called, San Gabriel Discovery Center Authority (headed by the same person, Belinda Faustinos) has been planning this Children's Museum since 2000. The RMC spent $136,000.00 on scientific reports that say the sand that fills the Narrows is not stable for river playgrounds, not capable of sustaining man made wetlands, and since the aquifer has dipped below historic and even drinking water standards for most of the surrounding cities, should be carefully managed, instead. One other report suggests, because effluent from the Sanitation Districts, which flow through the Whittier Narrows near the new Children's Center, the authors suggest using algae to test the flowing river water for toxic blooms.

The Daily Kos' blogger, Tardigrade, really gets to the heart of the problem:

Why in the world would a Californian environmental preservation, governmental entity, supported by the likes of the Sierra Club, the Metropolitan Water District, funded by billions of tax dollars, want to destroy the environment? Maybe that is a stupid question. This 'agency' is powered by people without ANY science background or have mis-matched backgrounds for the job. You ask, how much damage can an ‘environmental agency’ with people filled with 'ideals' (perhaps, ambition) but, with no oversight, do?

There are three projects in Southern California of similar focus, supporters, design, two of which have been massive financial failures. Two projects are associated with dams in L.A. All three projects are FOR THE CHILDREN. Two are about water and all were supported by the water agencies and governmental environmental groups. One related project, a colossal reservoir built by one of the agencies, may negatively impact S. California’s water supply in this drought emergency. One project is in the planning and public relations stage where disaster can still be averted. All of the projects are museums, one in Hemet, one in Sunland and one in Whittier Narrows.

The lesson - where there is lots of money and no oversight, things go very badly – like Katrina.

Again we say, it may not be criminal, but it sure ought to be. In the meantime, you'll go on paying for the privilege of funding all the folly.

Leap of Faith - Updated

Janus has got to be the patron god of Claremont. We've long noted the incredible skill with which Claremonsters of all stripes are able to hold two contradictory ideas in their heads at the same time. It's a talent they constantly use to argue one way when it's convenient for their purposes and then adopt the opposite position when it's not.

A case in point: As we noted on Monday, the City of Claremont has applied for a grant of over $1.6 million from the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC) to help pay for Padua Park in Northeast Claremont.

The first of three phases of the park has gone out for bid, and the city has allocated approximately $2.4 million to the project, whose total cost is estimated by the city to be between $10-12 million. Because of the flaws with the park design, the city has already been turned down for three state park grants worth a total of $3.2 million.

The city's RMC grant is curious because the RMC is a conservancy. It's supposted to save the type of habitat that the city will have to bulldoze when they build the second and third phases of Padua Park. (From what we're hearing from a number of outraged readers, bulldozing seems to be Claremont's mitigation of choice when it comes to native habitats, and the city's stewardship of its open space in a number of areas seems to consist of ripping it out and putting up a plaque to commemorate that which they've destroyed - but that's a story for another post.)

Below we've posted an image of page four of the RMC's updated listed of Tier 1 grant applications. These are projects for which the RMC staff is recommending granting money. Padua Park, which had been a lower priority Tier 2 project, has gotten a bump up to Tier 1 as of the most recent listing:

Click to Enlarge

Notice the difference, though, between the city's intentions for Padua Park and what the RMC staff is recommending. Also note the omission of certain information inconvenient to Claremont's money-grab. Here is the present Padua Park description:

Padua Park is planned to be a 22 acre facility located in the northeastern portion of the City of Claremont. When fully developed the park will feature both active and low impact recreation spaces. This funding request is for Phase 1 which includes the entryway, parking, nature trail with fitness stations, native plantings, restroom and soccer field. Phase 1A and 2 are planned to include an extension of the networked walking trails with fitness core training stations, along with ball fields, tennis courts and play areas.

What the city of Claremont neglected to tell the RMC, however, was the fact that of that 22 acres they're speaking of, 8.9 acres is a certain kind of habitat known as Riversidean Alluvial Fan Sage Scrub - the same stuff the city was arguing needed to be saved from gravel mining by Vulcan Materials on the land adjacent to the Padua Ave. site. No wonder the city had to find a man who had a mail-order Ph.D in theology to be their biology expert for the park's Environmental Impact Report (EIR) - like all city of Claremont endeavors, rationality and reasoned argument went out the window. This one was a faith-based initiative from the beginning.

On top of the city's hypocrisy over the sage scrub, the city also ignores the fact that their own EIR for the park states that the park will drink 86,400 gallons of water every day or 31.5 million gallons a year and at peak times water usage would be up to 50% higher, hardly the portrait of a xeriscape paradise the city painted in their RMC grant application:

From the Padua Avenue Park DEIR, Page 3-10.3
Go to page 169 of the City's online document.

The RMC staff recommendation is to approve Claremont's application for about half the requested amount:

Partial funding recommended ($800,000) of the passive and natural elements. RMC funding for this project includes a portion of RMC funds for restoration of the habitat on site, and a feasibility study of the site should be completed. Also a recommend a commitment from the City to seek funding from appropriate sources to undertake restoration activities.

But if the city goes ahead with its plans for Padua Park, those plans will necessarily include the removal of all of the very on-site habitat the RMC is talking about. How do they make the two square? Right now, the city is going forward only with Phase 1. As soon as they start the next part, Phase 1A, the habitat in question will be removed and replaced almost entirely by an asphalt parking lot and active-use park space with sports field lighting.

So, again we have to wonder if the city is merely using a bait-and-switch tactic with the RMC, promising on the one hand to restore habitat in order to qualify for the grant, then on the other hand proceeding to do the opposite of what RMC suggests once the city receives its money. We have no idea if the RMC's grant conditions are binding, but they sure ought to be given Claremont's history of manipulating or misrepresenting facts to get what it wants.

This one appears to be heating up, and we'll try to keep you up-to-date on the double-speak as it flows out stereoscopically from the two faces of Claremont.

Public Works News

We received this bit of park and trolley news from one of our Insider spotters:

Friday, August 22, 2008 9:32 AM
Subject: Padua Sports Park Friday am
To: Claremont Buzz

Just practicing driving with my teen at 8:30 am on Padua and noticed a lot of contractors arriving and parking w/clipboards for what looked like a pre-construction mtg and "walkabout"... Wednesday on Monte Vista heading north we spotted an unmarked red trolley headed to the Public Works Yard.... Hmmmmmmm It must be nice to be rolling in $$$ like the City of Claremont... Full speed ahead!!!

Yes, you might recall that Claremont didn't have the $10-12 million it needed to build all of Padua Park (originally called Padua Ave. Sports Park), so they've broken it up into phases. Phase IA, which involves one unlit soccer field, some hardscape such as bathrooms, walkways, security and parking lot lights, and a small, 50-plus car parking lot (as opposed to the original 260 spots), has gone out for bid and is supposed to break ground in the fall. Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor wants the park to be a centerpiece for her reelection bid next March, so it's important that the city get started on it now.

The city has set aside something like $2.4 million to build Phase IB and is trying to secure a grant from the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC) for something like $1.6 million. Another of our readers whose been in contact with the RMC informs us that the city is telling the state conservancy that Padua Park is going to be a passive interpretative park (hence the dropping of "Sports" from the title).

Of course, they're also said publicly, most recently in Saturday's Claremont Courier piece with a quote from recently retired Human Services Director Jeff Porter that they city is looking to complete Phase 1A in order to attract other grant money to build the rest of the park.

From what we're hearing from our readers regarding that RMC grant, it sounds like the Human Services Department might be looking to secure some state money under false pretenses in order to get started on Phase IB of the park, which includes the lit soccer field. They've done this sort of thing at least once before in another state grant application, claiming that Padua Park was needed because the city's Wilderness Park might have had to close for three years because of damage from the 2003 Padua Fire (it was actually closed for just a couple weeks).

Is there a crime of grant writing fraud? If there is, the city's skating pretty close to that line. We'll let you know if they cross it.