Attention to Detail

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Last Wednesday's edition of the Claremont Courier was interesting not just for the letter by Professor McHenry putting the community onto Bridget Healy's exaggerations, but also for containing what is in all likelihood the final campaign piece of the Larry Schroeder campaign. Schroeder has become, by process of elimination if not by predilection, the Democratic Party candidate in this nominally non-partisan campaign.

His campaign piece was a single page four-color glossy sheet (reproduced above) inserted in the paper with the ads from furnace duct cleaners and insurance seminars. Apart from giving no reasons at all to vote for him, his flyer featured not quite 70 names in largish 14-point type.

What struck us was lack of attention to detail and accuracy in this piece. Line 3 absolutely jumps out at the long-time Claremont observer: Zephyr Tote-Mann (as Schroeder has it) contended for City Council in 2003. She was quite consistent in that election in spelling her last name, "Tate-Mann". We don't know any "May Stoddard" in Claremont, but a friend of ours is Mary Stoddard who lives at the same residence as Stuart, the preceding name on the list. And to our knowledge, there is only one "Joe Lyons" in town, but his name inflates the list (by one) by being listed twice. We have very helpfully highlighted these occurrences in the image above.

We realize that these observations are picking the fly-specks out of the pepper. They are small beer. Chump change. But we here at the Insider do it so you don't have to. Our broader question is this: Why can't candidate Schroeder get a one-page flyer more right than this? He's already gotten a pass from the newspapers on his idea related to the transportation money funding the Trolley: this was to sell the money to some community needing bona fide transportation money, receive maybe 75 cents on the dollar, and bank it in the general fund. Where was Schroeder a year ago when city staff and council were considering the Trolley? Where was his good idea when it might've done some good?

So many of Schroeder's ideas don't stand up to any probing. His views on the water company, for example, are based on ignorance of the facts of the water situation. You didn't have to go the water meeting a few weeks ago to figure that out.

Still, as our old daddy once told us, "Ignorance can be cured but stupid is forever." Maybe someday Schroeder will make a decent candidate and get wider community support than that he seems to be getting from the yellow-dog Democrats such as Bob Gerecke, Gar Byrum, Ivan Light, Sandy Hester, and failed congressional candidate Russ Warner.

Trickle Down

The top stories yesterday seemed to be of the financial sort. The Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury stepped in to help shore up mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together either directly hold or supply the backing for $5.3 trillion in mortgages.

And then there was the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s takeover of Pasadena-based IndyMac Bank. A run on the bank by IndyMac depositors left the institution so cash-poor that it triggered the FDIC action last week.

With over $32 billion in assets, IndyMac represents the second-largest U.S. bank closure since 1934. The lines of rattled depositors queued up outside IndyMac branches yesterday seemed more like images from the Great Depression than contemporary America. The Daily Bulletin has an article covering the story from a local angle:

La Verne residents Bill and Nancy Armstrong arrived at the Foothill Boulevard branch an hour before the bank opened and got in a line that was 100 people long.

The elderly couple has their life savings in their neighborhood bank, including assets from inherited property.

Nancy Armstrong said she remembers the stories of her parents going through the Depression.

"Once you live through that, you learn to be frugal," she said. "Now here we are."

David Barr, an FDIC spokesman, said customers will be informed about how their accounts are structured and may be eligible to recoup dollar-for-dollar beyond the $100,000 limit.

If deposits aren't fully insured, customers will receive a receivership certificate and told about the process to possibly recoup more of their money.

More bank trouble is on the way, all courtesy of the mortgage meltdown. The FDIC lists 90 banks as troubled, and more failures are on the horizon. None of this bodes well for Rancho Cucamonga-based PFF Bancorp, whose shares closed yesterday at $ .80 per share, down from nearly $40 two years ago. PFF is awaiting shareholder approval of a sale to FBOC Corp., an Illinois banking concern that owns California National Bank. The sale may also be affected by a pending shareholder suit.

The Bulletin's Matt Wrye also had an article about the PFF sale, which noted that top PFF officials should get by just fine after the buyout, thank you:

If the acquisition is approved, PFF's president and CEO, Kevin McCarthy, and its chief financial officer, Greg Talbott, would each receive more than $2 million if they quit their jobs or are fired within 90 days of the merger. McCarthy already has said he will leave the company after the transition.

These employment agreements were inked in September, according to SEC documents, and they're on top of another $4 million other executives would get under the same rules.

"There are shareholders interested in stopping the sale," said Walter Hackett, who during the housing boom was a vice president and commercial note department manager.

He's also a witness for a group of shareholders building its case against PFF.

"I had to remind them that I didn't work for them, that I worked for PFF shareholders," Hackett said about certain PFF executives he worked with. "Ultimately, that's why I left."

Most analysts seem to think the current crisis of confidence will be less severe than the Savings and Loan bailout of the 1980's, which ended up costing Joe and Jane Taxpayer nearly $125 billion. As with every preceding financial crisis, we'll just have to ride this one out. That's the price of being a debtor nation when the bill comes due.

In the meantime, the effects of the current troubles continue to trickle down to the local level. Faced with tightened credit, rising food and energy costs, and a general uncertainly, consumers are reining in spending, which means lower sales tax revenue to cities like Claremont that are dependent on that income source.

It was telling at last week's city council meeting to hear councilmembers comment that Claremont cannot really afford $500,000 from the General Fund for a one of the proposed plan to mitigate tree root damage along Shenandoah Dr. near The Claremont Club. Cost was not the main reason councilmembers cited for opting for one of the other less expensive choices, but it was nonetheless a concern.

Time will tell if the Big Project mentality that has dominated our city government in recent years will give way to fiscal restraint as we wait for this storm to pass. There is an city election next year, and Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor has hitched her wagon to a number of big ticket items: Police station - $25-30 million; Padua Ave. Sports Park - $10-12 million; water company takeover - $100 million-plus; affordable housing project - unknown costs.

We get to see in coming months whether politics trumps reason.

Tonight's Council Meeting

The Claremont City Council meets tonight at 6:30pm in the City Council chambers at 225 W. 2nd St. in the Claremont Village.

It's a busy agenda tonight as the council and Mayor Ellen Taylor scramble to get all their business done this month before the City Council and city commissions take their traditional August break. Hey, shouldn't we start thinking about reversing this? Let's have them meet in August and take the rest of the year off. You know, above all, do no harm.

Interested parties can also watch the proceedings here tonight beginning at 6:30pm.

In any case, the council tonight at 5:15pm starts with another in a never-ending series of closed sessions in which, the special meeting agenda says, they'll discuss "anticipated litigation" with an unidentified party as well as the possible water company takeover. The council will give a brief report of their closed session after they return for the public portion tonight.

The regular agenda includes the following items of interest:

• The second reading of the new marijuana dispensary ordinance that was approved at the last council meeting.
  
  
• An appeal of the Planning Commission's decision to approve a 162,000 square-foot academic and administrative building on the Claremont McKenna College campus. The appeal has been lodged by Peter Farquhar, Ray Fowler, Lydia Henry, and Ginger Elliot on behalf of Claremont Heritage.
  
  The appeal seems to center around the appellants concern about parking and the way the parking allowances for the new building were figured. City staff, naturally, argues that the appeal should be denied. We'll see who has more clout here, CMC or Claremont Heritage's Ginger Elliot.
  
  
• The renewal of the city's agreement with the Chamber of Commerce, a wholly-owned Claremont 400 subsidiary currently led by photographer Sonia Stump. The proposed new agreement will pay the Chamber $59,935 for the 2008-09 fiscal year and $61,756 for FY 2009-10.
  
  This is a sort of automatic renewal, and we've not seen much public discussion of whether or not the city's merchants are getting a good bang for your tax buck. Has anyone asked if the Chamber has done a good job of increasing foot traffic to the Village or the Village Expansion, not to mention the other areas of town?
  
  
• The proposed $50,000 grant to the Friends of the Claremont Library to fund a special collection of Claremont authors. A reader just commented on this one:
  
  
  I was up early this morning and read the post about the Friends of the Claremont Library asking the city for $50,000 to catalogue books by Claremont authors and several things came to mind. Don't we pay taxes to the county library already to have every book catalogued that is given to or purchased by the county system? Doesn't the county already have many of the books by Claremont authors in it's collection already and have already catalogued these books? Doesn't this city already have plenty of retired librarians that could volunteer to catalogue these books? And lastly, if the city is in such dire need of money with the anticipated shortfalls this year and next, why not put the money into reserves? I also wondered if these books are going to circulate to other libraries in the system or if they are going to circulate at all? If they are not, this is not the best use of taxpayer funds to enable the creation of what will essentially be a private collection, something that is better suited to a private library, not a public library whose beginnings were meant to provide the masses with free circulating books to educate and uplift themselves. I hope the council will reconsider this issue and not respond with a knee-jerk reaction to this request.
  
  Yep.
  
  
• Tree mitigation for homes on Shenandoah Dr. The staff report provides three alternatives (Plans A, B, and C) ranging in price from $251,000 to $511,000. The discussion provides an good window into the true costs of being a Tree City - costs which tend to be ignored until the sidewalk is cracked and lifted up all throughout a neighborhood.
  
  
• A parking permit plan for residents of Via Santa Catarina at the Johnson's Pasture trailhead in Claremont's Claraboya neighborhood.
  
  Another example of what happens when easily foreseeable consequences are ignored. Claremont bought Johnson's Pasture, but failed to deal with the fact that a small residential cul-de-sac with no extra parking sits at the beginning of the trail. As a result, the neighborhood feels overrun with hikers' vehicles taking up all the limited parking along with a perceived increase in crime-risk and general nuisances.
  
  The other way in to the pasture is from the Claremont Wilderness Park entrance over on Mills Ave. A long trek indeed.
  

LWV: All Wet - UPDATED, 8:30PM

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Etching of Artesian Well from a
Pacific Land Improvement Company advertisement (January, 1888)
From: The City of Claremont History Collection,
Honnald Mudd Library Special Collections

The Marilee Memorial Marsh will be considered at tonight's Claremont City Council meeting, where current Mayor and former League of Women Voters (LWV) president Ellen Taylor will hand off a promised $25,000 over to LWV representatives Marilee Scaff and Freeman Allen.

Scaff and Allen are seeking a grant of over $7.6 million from the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC) to purchase a plot of land around the Thompson Creek Dam in Northeast Claremont with the idea of turning the area into a cienega or wetlands or marsh (take your pick).

Before this area was developed water used flow out of the mountains and into the alluvial plains at the mouths of the area's canyons. Some of the water would soak into the riverbeds and floodplains and fill up underground reservoirs. The excess would spring up out of the ground in spots in the form of artesian wells at cienegas, as this bit from the Bernard Field Station website explains:

The San Antonio alluvial fan, like the other fans and bajadas of the Los Angeles Basin, is able to hold a large volume of ground water, derived from snowmelt and rainfall in the mountains, which is mined (pumped) for domestic and agricultural use. Before pumping began to lower the water table (meaning that pumping extractions exceed replenishment, that is, the ground water is in overdraft), some of the water-bearing layers (aquifers) actually brought water to the surface as artesian flow. Called cienegas by the Spanish, these areas supported startlingly lush growths of bulrush (Scirpus), cattail (Typha) and other aquatic vegetation, and served as breeding areas for local amphibians and other aquatic and semi-aquatic animals. Once such a cienega was located where Pilgrim Place is now. After the 1969 rains, artesian water flowed along Sixth and Berkeley for several months. Other local cienegas included one at the present site of Wig Beach and several north of Foothill Blvd. The only surface water flow after the 1978 rains was north of Foothill and east of Padua Ave.

[Emphasis added.]

As we noted yesterday, the LWV grant application makes a very brief mention of the fact that when you put water in the ground around here, it can pop up in other, lower-lying areas. The LWV doesn't really explain how that problem is avoided. Presumably, in order to keep a cienega near the Thompson Creek dam wet, you either have to keep adding water as it flows away down gradient, or you have to confine the water artificially, something which would add significantly to the cost of the project.

A reader contacted us with another problem with the LWV marsh grant application. The reader pointed out although the grant application is dated June 6, 2008, it claims on page 18 that the city of Claremont's $25,000 is already pledged. The actual wording on page 18 says that in addition to a pledge by Pomona Valley Protective Association of $25,000 for the project:

The City of Claremont is to match PVPA's $25,000.

Huh? The City Council isn't even voting to approve the $25,000 until later tonight - June 24th! Talk about a done deal. Hey Richard McKee, Mr. Brown Act, why don't you look into this one?

The point of the LWV's listing the city's and the PVPA's money is to show the Conservancy that there is seed money out there and wide community support. It'd be nice if it were true at the time the grant application was written, but it was not and verges on a fraudulent claim as a result. Of course, to the grant writers, since they also run the city, the matter of public discussion and deliberation was a mere formality.

At least this proves our point about what we've been arguing in these posts. The LWV can lie in their grant application on June 6th, saying in essence that the $25,000 had been approved, when it really won't be allocated until later this evening. Fittingly, the grant application is signed by current LWV president, Claremont Police Commissioner, and city Affordable Housing Task Force member Barbara Musselman. It is also lists the contact persons as "C. Freeman Allen, Ph.D, WTF Co-Chair" and "Marilee Scaff, Ph.D, WTF Co-Chair." We thought the WTF was a particularly apropos acronym for the Water Task Force.

You can watch the meeting here.

Below are the LWV grant face page dated 6/6/08 (left) and page 18 of the grant application (right), declaring the City's $25,000 contribution a fait accompli, when in fact it hadn't yet been presented to the Claremont City Council. We rest our case:

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UPDATE: 8:30PM

No surprise here. The Claremont City Council voted 5-0 to support allocating the $25,000 for the grant. As the grant application indicated, it was already decided long before tonight, as most things are in this town.

The two LWV representatives, WTF'ers C. Freeman Allen and Marilee Scaff, were given unlimited time to make a presentation (the public, if they had wanted to, might have gotten four minutes to speak, depending on Mayor Taylor's mood). Such is the way these things are weighted against the general public.

Scaff made a point of citing the enormous public support she's noticed for this project ("the whole community") and named those members of the public she's spoken with: the city of Claremont, Golden State Water Company, the Pomona Valley Protective Association, and so on. Notice that she didn't name the average citizen - you perhaps.

That's because you peons don't register on Scaff's radar. She will, however, take your $25,000, and let's not hear any complaining about it, you ungrateful rabble.

Councilmember Calaycay, who voted "YES" along with the rest of the council, did ask a question of the two LWV representatives. Calaycay asked if the $25,000 the city was allocating had any designated purpose. C. Freeman Allen answered, saying, that they have no idea what the money would be used for. It's not programmed at all. Allen did say that the money could be returned if it wasn't need.

Right.

Calaycay also raised the fact that the LWV grant application is competing against a $1.5 million grant by the city of Claremont for Padua Sports Park. Ironies abound here. In Marilee Scaff's remarks, she said that the LWV Thompson Creek project was important because it would save "50-60 acres of sage scrub" habitat - something that Scaff said is one of the most threatened habitats in California.

Yet, at the same time, the city of Claremont in seeking money for Padua Sports Park is asking the same Conservancy for $1.5 million to destroy 10 acres of the same sage scrub habitat that Scaff wants to save - and the LWV, Ellen Taylor, and the rest of the Claremont City Council in on the scam: Give us money to destroy the habitat here, give us more money to save it over there.

This, ladies and germs, is Claremont's hypocrisy in a maddening nutshell, and the State of California, through the San Gabriel Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, is being asked to join in the scam to the tune of $7.6 million for the LWV marsh project and $1.5 million for Padua Sports Park. Such worthy projects. What's a little lie here, a little hypocrisy there?

It isn't criminal, but it outta be.

Q & A

A reader wrote in with a number of questions and observations regarding ongoing issues and events in Claremont:

Hi Buzz -

Can Buzz be a nickname for ombudsman (ombuzzman)?

1) What's behind the frequent 'chlorine' smell in our tap water the past few days? Is it just at our house? We haven't had any recent plumbing changes. What's the water company up to?

2) At the City's tree lighting ceremony, why was the host so intent on catering to and recognizing the out-of-towners? "Who's visiting from out of town?!?!?!? Raise your hands!!!!" I didn't hear much appreciation for those who live here in Claremont. The whole evening, however, was a fun one - both at the tree lighting and throughout the Village. I know the city hopes that the Village expansion brings in visitors (and their sales taxes), but tout Claremont and its citizens first and foremost at public events, and then give a brief welcome to any visitors.

3) Regarding the trolley news, wasn't the original route supposed to include the Old School House, with north/south runs up Indian Hill and down College? Why not include that Foothill/Indian Hill corner if so much development is going on there. The smaller route through the Village, the Expansion and the Metrolink parking lot is far too limited and short-sighted.

4) Regardless of the parking spots, what exactly is the store (or stores) going in right on the corner at the Sprouts Center on Mountain and Foothill?

5) Is that a temporary test road closure on the west end of Santa Barbara where it joins Mountain (across from the future store spot mentioned above)? Unlike the roundabout, I think this is a good idea. Santa Barbara is too close to Foothill, and there is too high a chance for accidents.

Our responses:

1. We don't know what the chlorine smell is from. If anyone has any information on this, please pass it on. The Golden State Water Company's Region 3 office phone number is (909) 394-3600. Give them a call with any questions.
   
   
2. We suspect the focus on out-of-town visitors at the tree-lighting ceremony probably has some connection with the city and the Chamber of Commerce's ongoing print and cable TV ad campaign.
   
   
3. Yes, when the trolley idea was first floated, there was some talk of a longer route incorporating the colleges and the Old School House. However, the Traffic and Transportation Commission's Citizen's Committee for Off Track Trolley System Subcommittee studied the matter and issued a report on December 10th that found it would be best to start small and focus on two groups: visitors and people using the parking structures on First St. because they are supposed to be more likely to spend in Claremont (this takes us back to question #1).
   
   Incidentally, the Citizen's Committee included the ubiquitous former Mayor Judy Wright, who is listed a "citizen."
   
   
4. The retail developmont at the northwest corner of Mountain Ave. and Foothill Blvd. is a 9,900 square-foot, single-story retail space proposed by James Harris and Foohill Mountain LLC. You can read more about it in the 10/24/07 Architectural Commission agenda report on the matter.
   
   The site, at 805 W. Foothill, used to have a Chevron gas station.
   
   Here is a description of the project taken from the staff report for the Architectural Commission:
   
   
   
   (Click on Image to Enlarge)


5. Yes, the city had received requests from a majority of residents on Santa Barbara Dr. to have the street closed off at Mountain Ave. in order to discourage through traffic from people trying to get past traffic at Mountain and Foothill Blvd.
   
   According to the 10/25/07 Traffic and Transportation Commission agenda report for the matter, city staff, under City Engineer Craig Bradshaw, had originally recommended the closure be placed at Colby Circle rather than Mountain. Staff later opted to keep the temporary closure at Mountain. The 10/25/07 staff recommendation was to keep the temporary closure in place and to study the effects with a possible permanent closure in the future.
   
   The resident complaints didn't seem to include the proposed development at Mountain and Foothill.
   
   This contrasts a similar matter that came before the Traffic and Transportation Commission several years ago when some residents, notably then-City Economic Development Director Scott Miller, had requested a permanent closure at Kemper Ave. and Padua. No formal traffic study was done and the permanent closure was put in place - a typical waiving of rules by the Claremont 400 for one of their friends.

Here's a map of the Mountain-Foothill area showing the Santa Barbara Dr. closure and the proposed retail development at the old Chevron station site:

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City of Angles

Northeast Claremont has changed drastically in the past 20 years, a period coinciding with the regime of former City Manager Glenn Southard, whose planning philosophies and "vision" (to use a Claremont 400 term) are embodied in the residential developments between Mills Ave. and Padua Ave. and north of Pomello.

The other northeast development that Southard managed to avoid dealing with is the ongoing attempt by Vulcan Materials Co. to mine aggregate in the San Antonio Spreading Ground area below the San Antonio Dam.

The Spreading Grounds (seen in photo at right) is owned by a non-profit corporation called the Pomona Valley Protective Association (PVPA). PVPA was founded almost 100 years ago and was created to protect the water rights for users in La Verne, Pomona, Upland and Claremont.

The Golden State Water Co. controls nearly 50-percent of the PVPA. Remember them? Golden State Water also supplies Claremont's water, and the city has been looking at buying out Golden State to form a municipal water utility. The price? Over $100 million. Wheels within wheels.

The Vulcan mining proposal was a big election issue, pushed by an anti-mining group called Citizens Against Strip Mining (CASM). CASM has pretty much disappeared since the election after being manipulated by the Claremont 400 into endorsing Linda Elderkin, Sam Pedroza, and Mike Maglio in the municipal election last March. (Hey, CASM, what happened to the two of you?)

Mining, though, hasn't gone away, and this City Council won't be able to avoid dealing with it and the litigation Vulcan has thrown at the city in order to exercise the mining rights they lease from PVPA.

PVPA, in the meantime, is working on a deal to sell about 400 acres of the spreading grounds' 560 acres of open space. Will Bigham in last Sunday's Daily Bulletin had an article about a new report commissioned by PVPA that found that developing the 400 acres in question would not affect the spreading grounds' ability to collect runoff to recharge local groundwater basins.

Tony Krickl in the Claremont Courier also had an article on the subject. For more information on the background of this issue, check out the CASM website.

The land is still zoned by the City of Claremont as open space, so any proposal for housing or mining would have to be approved by the city. Seems like there's a lot of angles to work here.

Luckily, we have the Claremont 400 to guide us. Of course, these are the same geniuses who leased away Claremont's water rights in 1998 and who signed off on our current water rate structure - something that has allowed Golden State Water to justify charging Claremont much higher water rates than its neighboring towns. The minutes for that 1998 Council meeting noted that then-Councilmember Diann Ring was all for the water deal:

Councilmember Ring thought the proposal was historic and that many such agreements take twenty years to final[ize]. Mayor Smith agreed and thought it set a good tone for the future.

[City Council Minutes Minutes of 5/26/98 Agenda Item #17]

Not exactly a record to inspire confidence.

Water Company News

Active Claremont last week hosted a discussion panel on the topic, "Should Claremont Buy Its Water System?"

The Claremont Courier's Tony Krickl had a summary of the meeting. Will Bigham at the Bulletin also reported on the discussion.

Bigham's article noted that proponents from the Claremont League of Women voters claimed that the city could end up paying lower rates within 20 years:

Two speakers at Thursday night's panel - the authors of a well-received 2005 League of Women Voters water study - argued that if the city were to purchase the water company, an initial rate increase to pay off bonds will be offset in as soon as 20 years by lower rates and by local control of service and infrastructure.

The problem is, the city already has a credibility gap when it comes to promises in connection with rates. One issue is the fact that the city back in 1998 signed off on the current water pricing structure in exchange for leasing its water rights to Golden State Water (then called Southern California Water). Now it would have to buy back those leased rights in addition to taking on the burden of refurbishing an aging water infrastructure - a cost that has not been established yet, but possibly in the tens of millions.

Tony Krickl's Courier article noted that one suggestion being tossed around is to put the matter to the voters in a simple yes or no referendum.

_______________________


The letters section of yesterday's Courier contained a couple letters about former Mayor Judy Wright's dissembling regarding the city's Landscaping and Lighting District (LLD) assessment.

One of the letters, by a former member of the city's Citizens Finance Advisory Committee, described what it was like back in 1989 when the city was considering implementing the LLD. The letter underscored what we've been arguing all along about the behind-the-scenes manipulations that go on over big issues in town. We thought this comment from the letter was particularly insightful:

It was a very nasty time in Claremont’s history, pitting neighbor against neighbor. During all of this, our committee chairs were reporting back to our City Manager Glenn Southard. This man was always in the shadows and was keeping a pulse on our committee. I remember over hearing “Do whatever you have to do to make this happen.” What haunting words now—little did I know we were being used to justify some creative financing that would never go away.

Words that don't bode well for a citizen vote on the water company purchase or for lower future water rates under a city-managed water company.

Water Company Meeting 7PM Tonight

We wanted to remind our readers that there is a panel discussion on the water company buyout issue tonight at the Active Claremont July meeting. For several years Claremont has been considering purchasing the water company from Golden State Water. The discussion begins at 7pm at the Claremont Public Library.

Claremont Public Library
208 Harvard Ave.
Claremont, CA 91711
(909) 621-4902

Water Company Panel

Citizen Michael John Keenan writes us occasionally with notes about the local scene. He was kind enough to pass this on yesterday:

Subject: Active Claremont Panel Discussion of Water Purchase
To: claremontbuzz@yahoo.com

Time 7pm
July 19th
Claremont Public Library
Come One Come All

The discussion topic will be: "Should the City of Claremont Acquire It's Water Services from the Golden State Water Co.?" The panel will include: Scott Carroll, Claremont's Director of Community Services; C. Freeman Allen and Marilee Scaff, who co-authored the 2005 League of Women Voters report on the water company issue; Dan Dell'Ossa, a former Southern California Water Company employee; and Alice Shiozawa, a representative of Golden State Water Company.

Active Claremont Monthly Meeting
Thursday, July 19, 7:00pm

Claremont Public Library
208 Harvard Ave.
Claremont, CA 91711
(909) 621-4902

Water Issues

A reader wrote in to inquire about the status of Claremont's possible purchase of the water utility from Golden State Water Company (GSWC):

Hello,

I am concerned with the silence surrounding the purchase of the water company. Is the silence an indication that negotiations are happening and nothing is reported? I hope not, I think this is a crazy idea that is going to put Claremont residents in an unmanageable situations. To pay for the deal, the city will need to use resources that I have not heard exist. (Is it not the fact that we have not yet build the much needed sports park because we don't have the resources to do it?).

What other projects will suffer then, will we have enough money to run our schools as we believe in or are we going to be voting on additional bonds to support the school system? Will we have the money we need
for city maintenance, and road manintance or are we going to pay for additional bonds to keep our standard of living?

I think the council has not told us the whole story, and I believe that we should have a referendum of the subject. Could you please address the issue?

A Concerned Claremonter

Well, our post yesterday questioned the need for the sports park because the assumption that we've got a growing youth population isn't supported by the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census figures. And the trends are towards smaller families and fewer kids. The youth sports leagues claim to have more kids than ever, but that may because of higher in-town participation rates and also from larger numbers of out-of-town kids being allowed in. So, we wonder whether the need is really there and if the scarcity of playing fields is a self-created one.

We've talked about the water company in the past, and the cost is high (an estimated $100 million and possibly as high as $150 million). However, the money we borrow to buy the water utility would be financed with revenue bonds, which are paid from a portion of the water bill. So, the tax isn't direct, the way the Johnson's Pasture Measure S bond was; rather, it'd be built into your water bill.

The troubling thing about this is that five people, the Claremont City Council, get to make the decision on what would be by far the largest municipal purchase in our town's history. Like the reader, we think the fair thing to do is to have a referendum and put it to the voters. If the majority believe it's a good idea, then go for it. If not, then let's forget it.

The reader also has a good point about our local tax rates. The Claremont 400 doesn't seem to realize that there is a limit to what voters will pay for. We had the $49.8 million Measure Y school bond in 2000, the $12 million or so for Measure S last year, the Village West parking structure which came in at several million over what had been projected, the City Yard on Monte Vista (completed in 2005 with significant cost overruns), a $10 million-plus Padua Sports Park, a $20 million-plus police station, the Village West parking structure--all for a city of 35,000.

It's not good form in Claremont to speak of limits, but they are there. People will pay willingly for things they believe are essential, appropriate, and fair. They'll resent everything else. For more, research the defeat of the 2006 Parks and Pasture Assessment and the passing of the 2006 Measure S bond - both were dedicated to purchasing Johnson's Pasture, but the assessment had a lot of added costs that property owners deemed non-essential.

Time will tell where the water company and all these other projects fall in the scheme of things. In the meantime, the water company purchase seems to be in limbo, and it may be dying a slow death.

One thing is sure: The 400 do not trust you to vote on it.

Watery Vision

You may have caught our notices of charitable events going on around town and seen that a good many Claremont 400 people are members and leaders of these organizations--the League of Women Voters, the Claremont Community Foundation, Friends of the Library, the Rotary Club, the Kiwanis, the Claremont Educational Foundation, etc....

As we've pointed out in the past, these people and these organizations do many good works. The problem is when the prejudices of the 400's social networks collide with the challenges of managing a city and a school district where the constituents may have different ideas about how they'd like things run. The problems arise when the Claremonsters assume that they have every solution and are incapable of making a mistake.

Looking back at Claremont's proposed purchase of the water company ($100 million and counting), one of the complaints the city and Claremonters have is the fact that our current water provider, Golden State Water (GSW), has lumped Claremont's rates together with high desert towns like Apple Valley and Barstow, where GSW has to pay to install the water infrastructure for a rapidly growing area--a cost we in Claremont help underwrite. This combining of different towns into one rate schedule is called regionalization.

But if we examine the roots of regionalization, we see that Claremont, under then-City Manager Glenn Southard and a City Council wholly owned and controlled by Claremont 400ers like Diann Ring, Al Leiga, Paul Held, Suzan Smith, and Karen Rosenthal, contributed to the problem.

In 1998, Claremont was also in negotiations with the other agency members of the Six Basins Watermaster, which resulted in Claremont receiving 535 acre-feet in water rights annually. Claremont's water company at the time was Southern California Water Co. (SCWC), which later changed its name to Golden State Water after being bought out by American States Water.

On 5/26/98, the Claremont City Council received a staff report by Scott Miller (now working for the City of Beverly Hills), who at the time was the Assistant to the City Manager. Miller's report outlines a proposed water deal the city wanted to make with SCWC. The deal would lease Claremont's 535 acre-feet of water rights to SCWC (now Golden State Water) for 30 years. In exchange, the city would receive annual payments amounting to $123,000 based on 1998 rates. In addition, SCWC would give the the City of Claremont a 50% rate reduction, amounting to $177,000 in annual savings at that time.

Miller's report recommended making the deal because Claremont stood to benefit by $300,000 a year. What the report didn't mention was that Claremont also agreed not to oppose regionalization when SCWC applied for its next rate increases in 1999. The City of Claremont, in effect, signed off on regionalization and in return got a nice yearly water rights payment and now only pays half of what the citizenry has to pay for water.

Oh, and the city also benefited when the water company was allowed to raise its rates and instituted regionalization. You see, higher rates means higher utility tax revenue for Claremont. It was a win-win for the city, and a lose-lose for the citizens.

How did the debate go before the city council? See Item 17 of the Council Minutes. Here are some excerpts:

Councilmember Ring thought the proposal was historic and that many such agreements take twenty years to final[ize]. Mayor Smith agreed and thought it set a good tone for the future.

Moved by Ring, seconded by Leiga, and carried 4-0 to approve the agreement for execution by the mayor.
(Absent: Rosenthal).

Incidentally, the only person on record questioning the agreement was Jackie McHenry, who "asked how citizens would save money. It costs the city less, may cost citizens more." (Who's the one with vision?)

Like so many problems in Claremont, the city council and staff long ago sowed the seeds for water rate woes by going along with SCWC and by not mounting a coordinated effort to lobby the state Public Utility Commission to oppose regionalizing our water rates.

Ironically, at the same 5/26/98 meeting, the matter of the Claremont Wilderness Park came up (Item 14). Mayor Smith inquired about the fire and vegetation management plan. The city's failure to implement that plan fully became a central argument for the plaintiffs in the Palmer Canyon fire lawsuit (settled in March, 2007, for $17.5 million). Smith was assured by staff that fire safety in the park was under control. We know what happened in October, 2003, when the Grand Prix fire swept through the area.

All of this really argues against any notion of competence under Southard, Ring, Held, et. al. It really argues for the need to avoid at all costs going back to that sort of mismanagement and to hold those people accountable for the bad their incompetence has inflicted on our community. It's simply folly to fail to see how all the good the Claremont 400 has accomplished is counterbalanced by a large body of incredibly boneheaded decisions for which they refuse to accept responsibility.

When you turn on your tap, when you pay your water bill, or if your house burned down in 2003, think of Diann Ring; in fact, call her up and thank her personally for her "vision."

Water Company Mail

We got a response to our recent post on the city's possible water company purchase. The reader doesn't believe Claremont can buyout Golden State Water for $100 million without a big water rate increase. The reader's figures are taken directly from the League of Women Voters (LWV) water report. A couple notes: AF means acre-foot, state water is brought to our area from the Sacramento River delta via the California aqueduct, hence the higher rate.

We won't go into the reader's math here and simply present the information for you to review. We do think that the reader brings up some important points and that, based on some of the inquiries we've received, we think the city should have a public debate on the matter. They and the LWV held a sustainability forum on 4/14/2007, and this issue is certainly related and equally vital. Let's open it up to a community discussion rather than having it hashed out behind closed doors. All of the five current councilmembers ran on platforms that at least mentioned openness or inclusiveness. Let's see them put their money ($100 million worth) where their collective mouths are.

Here's the reader's note:

To: claremontbuzz@yahoo.com
Subject: Some Water-Calculations
Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 23:31:43 -0400

I read your article about the potential purchase of the water company with interest. I also scanned through the League of Women Voters' study about the costs of purchasing the water company. As someone living in Claremont, I am all for buying the water company and making it a public good, but the promises that it will not increase our water rates is more or less wishful thinking.

Here some thought about the numbers: I did some back of the envelope calculations with the numbers presented in the LWV report.

Proposed purchase price: $100 Mil.; bond interest rate: 5.3%; number of customers in Claremont: 10,800; Annual water use in the city: 13,000 AF (acre-feet); approx. 50% from wells - 50% from Three Valley (MWD); cost of produced well water: ~$140 /AF; from Three Valley: ~$500/AF; average [annual] water bill in Claremont: $840

- $100 Mil divided per customers: $9,260 debt per customer
- annual interest (5.3%): $490 per customer (does not include depreciation)

Water production costs:
6,500 AF x $140/AF = $ 910,000
6,500 AF x $500/AF = $3,250, 000
Total production costs: $4.16 Mil

- production cost: $385 per customer.

This means that only the interest for the $100 Mil and the water production costs is approx. $875 per customer, which already exceeds the average annual water bill. The $875 does not include costs for managing and maintaining the system, repairing of old infrastructure and capital expenditures for new one, just to mention some other costs involved in running a water systems, and I am sure I did not include everything.

Concluding from the simple calculation: I just do not see how Claremont can pay $100 Mil and still claim that we can afford this without raising dramatically the water rates. In this case I do hope I am wrong with my assumptions and would be pleased if somebody can prove me otherwise.

Sincerely,

-------------

Water

We received this note the other day from a reader curious about the water company purchase:

Hi

I was wondering how come no much is being said about our purchase of the water company, which is the first priority for our City Council. I would be interested in finding out what are people in town thinking about it, pr the level of awareness around that issue.

Thanks

The League of Women Voters (LWV) did a pretty good study of the water issue in 2005, and, as Foothill Cities noted just the other day, the issue ranked number one on the city's A-list of priorities. Tony Krickl in the 4/14 issue of the Claremont Courier, reported on this.

The water company issue tough one to parse. Golden State Water, in our view, may be the worse of two evils. Claremont's water rates are much higher compared to cities like La Verne or Pomona, which has it's own municipal water system.

A great part of the problem is that Claremont's water rates are regionalized, which means that in 1999 they were rolled into rates for high desert places like Hesperia and Barstow. Because of all the development that has gone on in those areas, Golden State Water has had to pay to build the infrastructure, pipes, pumping stations, etc., to deliver water there. Claremont's complaint is that it is subsidizing Golden State's cost to build those systems through the higher, regionalized rates.

Of course, that ignores the fact that the city under then-City Manager Glenn Southard, signed off on regionalization in 1999, actually arguing that it would benefit Claremonters in the long run (we tried pulling up the city's information for the 1999 regionalization debate, but city's document archive has been down all week).

Golden State Water counters by saying that Claremont gets lower rates through the economy of scale that it creates through regionalization. They say a stand-alone water system would result in higher rates for the city. Golden State also argues that municipal water systems can't be compared to privately owned systems because municipalities can hide costs of taxes, bonds, and other fees.

The total cost of the water company purchase would be over $100 million, according to the Courier article. So, the city would have to first use eminent domain to acquire the water company, which would involve considerable legal fees, then finance the purchase of the water company. The financing would be through revenue bonds that would be paid off through customers' monthly bills.

Other costs could include the purchase of the water delivery infrastructure, something that would add considerable maintenance cost and which may be in need of major repairs, and the expense of managing the utility. All these costs would be passed on to customers.

The LWV water report assumes that the total cost of financing the water company purchase would be $200 million ($100 million in revenue bonds, and another $100 million in interest over 30 years). Based on financing at a 5.3% rate, customers would not break even on their bills until after 18 years, according to the report. The LWV report also states that if the city refinanced the bonds after 11 years, then customers could reach the break-even point at that time.

There are a lot of unknowns built into the LWV projections. These include the state of the infrastructure, which could require extensive reworking and repair. It also assumes competent, efficient management--something that has not always been present in the city in the past.

On the whole, though, we favor a city purchase. It seems to make good public policy to have a vital, shared resource like water owned by the public rather than by private corporations. Further, as the LWV report points out, there is a concern about the purchase of private U.S. water companies by multinational corporations whose shareholder interest may not align with those of customers in local markets.

The success or failure of a Claremont-owned water company depends on honest, competent management. There will no doubt be the temptation to use water company as a cash cow to generate revenue to pay for other, unrelated projects or debt, a prospect former Councilmember Sandra Baldonado salivated at. If that happens, or if the city does not have the ability to maintain the water system, then costs will rise as much or higher than they have under private ownership.

But as long as the city runs things fairly and acquires the needed expertise, in the long run, 30 years out, the purchase seems to make sense.

Water Woes

Yesterday's Daily Bulletin featured an in-depth look at water issues in our area. In one of several articles, the reporter Will Bigham wrote that Claremont is considering using eminent domain proceedings to take control of the water company from Golden State Water Co.

Bigham's article had a few errors and omissions. Bigham quoted Councilmember Ellen Taylor:

"'We didn't move forward with very much in the last couple years; we dealt with micro-managing issues,' Councilwoman Ellen Taylor said. "

Of course, Taylor was doing her usual posturing (and dissembling). The fact is, the council didn't look further into eminent domain last year in large part because of last November's Proposition 90--a referendum that would have limited cities' ability to exercise eminent domain. Prop. 90 failed, but its supporters have vowed to take another crack at it. So, Claremont could go forward with eminent domain on the water company, get partway through the proceedings, then be barred from the takeover by any new restrictions after having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. This Taylor knows well.

If you have any questions, Councilmember Taylor can be reached at etaylor@ci.claremont.ca.us.

So, why would Taylor lie? She wanted to get a dig in on outgoing Councilmember Jackie McHenry, of course. The "micro-management" tag is part of the Claremont 400 script. They keep repeating a charge (or a lie), and it becomes the truth because reporters like Bigham are too busy and too limited in space to report the reality of the situation.

Another factor complicating the purchase is the issue of the Pomona Valley Protective Association (PVPA) land in Northeast Claremont. Recall that's the land that Vulcan Material Co. wants to mine for gravel. It is also the same land PVPA has talked about selling to a developer.

Golden State Water owns a 47% stake in PVPA, so that holding might have to be part of any water company purchase. The land, at current market rate values, could be worth in excess of $100 million, which would inflate the cost of the city's purchase quite a bit.

On the other hand, if the city did take control of the water company, along with the PVPA stake, that might help settle the mining issue.

Daily Bulletin

Yesterday's Daily Bulletin reported quoted Peter Yao as saying he saw the top priorities as building Padua Sports Park and purchasing the water utility from Golden State Water Company.

The quote from Ellen Taylor also indicated that the water company purchase was now a priority.

We generally like the idea of a municipal water utility. Of course, Claremont citizens should understand that water prices in the short run (meaning the 30 years it will take to pay off the $100-plus million purchase price) will be higher than they are now. On the other hand, with water becoming a scarcer comodity, it makes sense for it to be controlled by a public entity.

The sports park is more problematic. While we like the idea of more lighted sports fields, we think the city's being short-sighted in thinking Padua Park will satisfy the needs of groups like AYSO or girls softball. The city has indicated that it needs something on the order of eight more lighted soccer fields and six more baseball/softball fields.

Padua Park only adds two soccer fields (one lighted) and one baseball/softball diamond. So, the city will spend over $10 million to build Padua Park, and will have barely made a dent in the sports field needs. The city could light fields in other parks, such as Lewis Park, but neighbors in those other areas are opposed to lights.

So, after Padua Park is built, the city will still be short seven lighted soccer fields and five lighted baseball/softball fields. The city will then have to either impose lights on other neighborhood parks in areas opposed to lighted fields (as they are imposing them now on the Northeast Claremont area) or they will have to resurrect Opanyi Nasiali's idea about a sports complex in the gravel pit as Baseline Rd. and Monte Vista Ave. And, they will have to come back to Claremont taxpayers to ask for the additional tens of millions to build their sports complex.

If, after Padua Sports Park is built, the youth sports groups still have over-crowded fields, they should point to this council and to Mayor Yao for their failure to address the root problem with a real solution. They will have no one else to blame.

_______________________


Question: In the priorities listed in the Bulletin article, what happened to mining? The anti-mining group Claremonters Against Strip Mining made such a big deal out of it during the election. Did mining go away? Isn't the city still in litigation with Vulcan Materials Co.? Isn't the landowner, Pomona Valley Protective Association, still trying to sell the land to a developer?

And what about Johnson's Pasture? Where was that in the Mayor's and Sam Pedroza's and Linda Elderkin's list of post-election priorities? They sure made a lot of noise during the election about both the pasture and the mining. What happened?


_______________________


The Claremont 400 apparently feels it has a mandate of some sort--as seen in the Mayor's comment about a "super-majority". A word of caution to the mayor: a 29% turnout for the city election hardly constitutes a mandate. Compared to the 2006 assessment district election when 54% of the ballots were returned and the Johnson's Pasture Measure S Bond, which had a 55 % turnout (higher than surrounding areas for the November 2006 election), 29% is indicative of low interest in the city election. People were generally happy with how things were going.

The 400 really is going back to the future in its thinking if they believe they represent the majority of Claremont citizens. The disconnect is already building. As we pointed out yesterday, the councilmembers elected on Tuesday won election in two precincts, Joslyn Center and Sycamore School. Areas like South Claremont, Northeast Claremont, Piedmont Mesa didn't turn out in huge numbers. And, it is likely that those areas will be under-represented in future city decisions as a result--something that has occurred regularly in the past.

________________________

Inside baseball: It also seems that the 400 has decided on the mayorship. Pedroza's comments in the Bulletin article made it clear that he will support Yao for another term as mayor. Ellen Taylor will be mayor pro tem. This means Taylor will be positioned as mayor in the year leading up to her re-election campaign in 2009. Yao gets to be mayor for the Claremont Centennial, something he covets, in exchange for supporting the 400's agenda.