Two Noteworthy Local Blogs

We've recently placed two blogs on our "must read" list.

We've mentioned the blog Claremont Now by Daily Bulletin reporter Wes Woods II. It came to our notice recently with this piece mentioning that the trial of Xavier Alvarez had been moved from April 29th to June 3. We don't know how the Bulletin decides what to publish in the paper and what to put in the blog, but the blog is updated often and contains perhaps minor things that don't make it into the paper.

Use this link for the Claremont Now Archive, an easy-to-scan list of titles.

We highly recommend, Inland Empire Courts by Bulletin courthouse reporter (and former Claremont-beat journo) Will Bigham. This blog is also updated frequently and gives all the important news from the Pomona Superior courthouse. As an example see here for testimony about what happened in January's home invasion robbery, beating, and attempted murder that took place on West 10th Street. We had missed this one.

As with Claremont Now, note that the Inland Empire Courts Archive is a frequently-updated scannable list of current and older posts by Bigham about court news.

Daily Bulletin: Baseline Project "Effectively Killed"

Just up on The Daily Bulletin website, under "Breaking News", a Will Bigham article on Tuesday night's City Council meeting. (We will try to keep the link current while the Bulletin moves it from "breaking news" to "regular news" to "stale news"; the paper will then put the article in the archive which will require an iffy search.) The article is well worth reading, and we tease it with the first few lines:

The Base Line Road affordable housing project was effectively killed Tuesday night by the City Council.

Council members voted 3-2 to end the city's efforts to find funding for the project, which faced an unexpected $1.5 million funding shortfall after it was disqualified last month from receiving $2.5 million in Los Angeles County funds.

The decision means that the city's exclusive negotiating agreement with the project developer will lapse, and the city will not apply for additional state grant money for the project.

The council instead decided to form a citizens "task force" to identify alternative sites in the city for affordable housing projects.

The affordable housing committee is expected to be formed following a discussion at the next City Council meeting, on Feb. 28, about how members should be selected. The task force's work would be ideally finished within two months... (read more here)