We Stand Corrected

Our post last Friday generated this response from Claremont Police Chief Paul Cooper (photo, right):

Date: Mon, March 21, 2011 7:11:16 AM
Subject: [ No Subject ]
From: Paul Cooper
To: claremontbuzz@yahoo.com

Hi Claremont Buzz,

A friend sent me the link to your most recent story on March 18, 2011. I thought I would share with you that the proposed communications tower project was presented at City Council, Police Commission and Community Services Commission meetings. We have discussed the project with Cable Airport management and they have no issues with the project. We have also submitted the project to the FAA and received a “No Hazard” certification. Following the council presentation, the tower project was also in the Courier and the Daily Bulletin The most recent agenda report is to simply update the new council on the project and its status. There’s been no attempt to “slip this one in.” If you have any questions about the project, I am always available.

Sincerely,


Paul


Paul Cooper
Chief of Police
Claremont Police Department
909-399-5401
pcooper@ci.claremont.ca.us

We noticed that Chief Cooper's concerns about clarifying the record must have extended to the City's public relations arm. Over the weekend there was a change in the City's online materials for the tower. When we originally looked on the City's website last Friday, this is what we saw:


This is what you see now:


So the City's information on the tower is much more helpful now than it was last week. However, we'd still like to see a link to the so-called "Initial Study". Among other things, apparently, this contains the deadline for public comment. Presumably it also contains a discussion of the height and how the initially-proposed 200-ft tower in Upland transformed into a 174-ft tower in Claremont.

We checked the City's records, and we were able to find the references Chief Cooper mentioned. Cooper made presentations regarding the tower to the City Council, the Police Commission, and the Community Services Commission. Searching the City's document archives when we were composing our original post didn't turn up the documents the Chief was able to point us to, so we took another look.

We were glad the Chief wrote us because, when we looked for the meetings he referred to, we were struck by how much all of it seemed to serve seemed to underscore our original concern about the City "slipping one in." For instance, the tower was originally slated to be located in the northeast corner of the City Yard on Monte Vista Ave. That placement, however, put the 174-foot tower in Upland and under the aegis of Upland's planning process, which didn't give the Chief and City Hall to opportunities to maneuver that having the tower on the Claremont side of the property did.

(It also reminded us that when Claremont originally built the building, at the end of the Glenn Southard regime, they built out past the city and county limits without getting the permission of Upland, which cause a minor row at the the time.)

Click to Enlarge

Chief Cooper mentioned the change in the tower's placement in his 2/10/11 report to the Community Services Commission:

The location of the tower was originally proposed in the far northeast corner of the city yards which is actually in the City of Upland. As staff worked with Upland staff, it became apparent that this project could not move through Upland's process in the timeline needed to meet the needs of the project and the grant. The tower was moved approximately 20' from its originally proposed site so that it is now located within Claremont while still being constructed in the far northeast corner of the facility. This will allow the management of the project to be handled within Claremont's process and staff has the ability to manage the timeline better.

The communications tower is on the agenda for tonight's City Council meeting, by the way. The Chief's report for the council lays out a timeline for the the tower's installation. Note the implied inevitability:

March 22 Report to council for FYI on project.
Agenda Published March 17. Report due March 14.

March 25 - April 19 Publish CEQA (21 days).

April 4 Bid Specs Completed.

April 19 Planning Commission Meeting. C U P approval. CEQA hearing and approval.
Agenda Published April 14. Report due April 11. Notice April 7. Appeal until May 2.
April 27 Architectural Commission Design Review.
Building design needed.
Agenda Published April 21. Report due April 18. Notice April 14.

April 4 Bid Specs Completed.

May 10 City Council approval to go to bid
Agenda Published May 5. Report due May 2.

May 24 Approval for bid if CEQA Appealed.
Agenda Published May 19. Report due May 16.

June 27 Open Bids.

July 12 Award Bid.
Agenda Published July 7. Report due July 5.

July/Auqust/Sept Build Project.

The Chief doesn't foresee any problems arising in the public process that might change his timeline, and there's real no need for him to worry. His certainty is guaranteed by the fact that he can shepherd the project through Claremont's rubber stamping commissions. We assume the commissioners, especially the Architectural Commissioners, are in line on this matter and no one will raise the objection, well, that the tower is buck-ugly as proposed, looking like a cross between a rocket gantry and a 1920s Signal Hill oil well tower, except taller than either.

As to the FAA, we note that there wasn't much public comment on this matter. For example, we didn't see the City or Chief Cooper circulate the materials they presented to the FAA. Incidentally, though the owners of Cable probably didn't realize when Chief Cooper apprised them of the tower plans, in the long term building the tower might be good not only for police communications, but for the anyone who might want the for airport's land for some other use like commercial development or even future expansion for the Claremont Colleges. Somewhere far down the road, the tower's existence will make it easier to argue that development has so crowded around airport that safety will become a concern.

And this is how Official Claremont uses the process to batter the uninitiated. In Claremont, there's never one meeting you can point to and say, "You must be there." If you showed up for, say, the Police Commission meeting last November 4th, you could have heard Chief Cooper talking to the commissioners about the proposed tower. If you raised an objection, however, you would have been told that this was really just an informational agenda item to address your concerns and that you would have your chance to air your concerns at a future meeting.

So you then you would have gone to the Community Services meeting on February 10th. You again raised your concerns, but would have been told there was no need to worry and that your concerns would be addressed at the City Council on March 22nd, or at a future Architectural Commission meeting. By the end of it, when you've had more than your fill of meetings, you'll be told that you should have had your concerns addressed earlier on when you had the opportunity and that the project had already been vetted by the city's commissions and by the City Council.

The unstated fact of the matter is that none of the meetings really mattered. It was all just window dressing. The idea for a trolley gets floated at someplace like a dinner party at former Mayor's Judy Wright's home, and the next thing you know, the project is a fait accompli.

Only after you've experienced the vaunted Claremont public process will you come to appreciate the machinery at work in our town. Only then can you truly call yourself a Claremonter.

Crime Alert

Padua Park was the scene of a crime last month, though city officials don't seem to want the public to know about it. Apparently, on Wednesday, September 29, when city workers tried to turn on the soccer field lights at the park, they discovered the lights were inoperable because someone had stolen over 130 feet of copper wire from the park's main electrical vault.

The information going around town is that the copper, presumably taken by thieves who turn around and sell the wire to metal recyclers, was worth around $500. Like gold, copper's price has shot up the past few years, and such thefts have become more common. The city of Glendale issued an alert last year because of a rise in just this sort of crime:

Glendale has seen a sudden rise in metal and copper wire theft in the last two years. Customers are urged to contact authorities if they see people lingering near electrical equipment or inactive construction sites. Stealing copper wire is a crime and very costly for the City, but the bigger issue is public safety. Tampering with wires can cause serious harm, bodily injury or death. Power and telephone outages can also result from copper wire theft.

Odd that Claremont officials haven't issued a similar alert. The only way of catching copper thieves in the act is to have more eyeballs on the lookout, and people who reside near likely targets like parks and schools need to be alerted to this fact.

We suppose the City may say this was just a case of vandalism, but this kind of theft requires specialized knowledge. Poking around a high voltage electrical panel can be very dangerous, and from time to time we hear about the occasional copper thief getting electrocuted. The Padua Park incident, however, sure sounds as if it were done by someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

City Hall and the Claremont Police are no doubt hesitant to let news of the Padua Park theft get out because one of the complaints before the park was built was that it would lead to a rise in crime. Police Chief Paul Cooper (photo, left), who has worked with Claremont AYSO Region 3 as their Volunteer Protection Advocate, himself may have an interest in keeping a lid on the information, even if means less public awareness about the matter.

Or maybe it's all just a sign of CPD's competence level. They've issued press releases before when there were scams or more serious crimes in our area, even in cases where Claremont wasn't hit. So why not now?

Speaking of crime at Padua Park, we're waiting to hear about an increase in burglaries in the area. The public restroom sits on a rise that a good 20-25 feet higher than it should be, with the result that it offers a great vantage point from which to peer into the backyards and windows of several of the surrounding homes.

When they were planning the park, the City promised to plant a screen of trees around the perimeter to create a natural screen. But you know how it works with Claremont and promises. When the park was finally built, a good part of that natural screen consisted of oak saplings, which are pretty slow growing. Maybe in 15 or 20 years, City Hall will finally make good on its word to area residents. Of course, given the City's record with landscape management, a good number of those trees won't last that long:

City Meetings

Only two more Claremont City Council meetings to go until the council's annual August break. Here's what to expect tonight in the council chambers at 225 Second St. in the Claremont Village:


CLOSED SESSION

The Claremont City Council will meet in closed session at 5:15pm for a super secret briefing from City Manager Jeff Parker on negotiations with the Claremont police rank-and-file and management associations.

The council will also discuss a liability claim against the City by Kiran Se Corporation, the company that wanted to put a 7-Eleven convenience store in the prize-winning building at 601 E. Foothill Blvd. Seems understandable - the Kiran Se people were encouraged by city staff to proceed with their plans and then had their feet knocked out from underneath them when citizens complained about the proposed store for a variety of reasons (pedestrian safety, worries about binge drinking by college students, the usual Claremont snootiness).

In keeping with a long-standing Claremont tradition, we can probably expect a lawsuit by Kiran Se Corp., which has filed a claim against the the City of Claremont for unspecified damages. We're not sure how far that will go, though. As we recall, Kiran Se withdrew its appeal of the Planning Commission's denial of their Conditional Use Permit, so they did not exhaust their administrative remedies.

If you're interested, you can read the closed session agenda here.


REGULAR SESSION

As usual, the council's regular session begins at 6:30pm. You can see the meeting streamed online or watch it later. Just click here.

It's a light agenda.

The consent calendar shows that the City will likely deny a claim for property damage due to the construction of Padua Park.

The public hearings portion of the regular session will take up the matter of Claremont's crosswalk policy with a recommendation to not have new crosswalks installed on Mountain Ave. between Foothill Blvd. and Harrison Ave.--something that may ruffle some feathers in the neighborhoods along Mountain.

City staff is also recommending revising the City's system of in-lieu parking credits by introducing a second price tier. Businesses in the Claremont Village have a certain number of so-called parking credits that are supposed to reflect the number of actual parking spaces a business requires for customers and employees. The number is dependent on the type of business. Retailers have fewer parking credits than restaurants because stores generally don't bring in as many customers restaurants.

The parking credits can become a problem when someone wants to convert shop space into a restaurant. Under the City's current policy, that businessperson would have to pay $9,000 for every parking space deficiency they had under the formula used by city staff. The City allows businesses to purchase credits in lieu of having the actual spaces available. The proposed modification to the in-lieu parking credit policy would be to create a second tier at $1,000 per credit. The new tier would apply only to businesses employing more than 15 people or that will bring in over $500,000 annually.

We found the way City Hall looks at parking very illustrative of the general myopia afflicting our fair city. According to Housing and Redevelopment Manager Brian Desatnik's report for this agenda item, the council's recently passed resolution 97-105 states:

The Village is a mixed use neighborhood as well as a City center. People desiring to visit the Village should be able to park there. However, people should not expect that parking be available immediately adjacent to the business or place to which they are destined. The supply of parking shall not be deemed a problem as long as persons visiting a Village destination can park somewhere in the Village.

Notice that it's the City defining the parking problem. If you're from out of town and you stop in the Village to buy something, you should know that you have no right to expect to park near your destination. If you think there's a problem here, you are wrong, says Claremont.

Like many area residents, we know what to expect with Village parking, so we don't begrudge a little walk. Neither we nor the City, however, gets to define the problem. Customers and visitors do, and they'll vote with their wheels if they find the parking arrangements inconvenient.

By the way, the Conscious Claremont blog has an interesting take on this issue. They're attributing this parking policy redefinition solely to one location: the old Casa Flores building at 232 Yale Ave. Conscious Claremont says:

But, after taking a longer view, I suspect this policy may be created specifically for the Casa Flores location---there are few cases with usage change [i.e. retail to restaurant]. I was told the $150,000 CDBG grant has been earmarked for this property---the proof seems to be the lack of advertising about the funds availability, & a year has gone by with no takers. This would fit the pattern of altering general policy to facilitate specific plans.

Um, excuse us, but did we miss the City Council meeting the disposition of that $150,000 Community Development Block Grant was decided? Who decided this? If true, it's just another case of the way public policy is decided in Claremont..


WEDNESDAY, JULY 14 - COUNCIL MEETING WITH SUPERVISOR ANTONOVICH

Now we know why Claremont lets L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich ride in the City's annual 4th of July parade. It requires a lot of buttering up to secure those much-needed county grant dollars for the city's projects.

Tomorrow at 8am, the council will hold its annual meeting with Antonovich. The meeting will take place in the Citrus Room, right above the council chambers.

The council has four items on the agenda for tomorrow's meeting:

• Sycamore Canyon Park
  
• The College Ave. affordable housing project
  
• Funding for more open space
  
• Library hours
  

These are all items involving county funds. Come on out and watch the supplicants perform.

Be a Joiner

Tired of unending, futile wrangling with City Hall? Bureaucratic indifference got you down? Now's your chance to swap beating them for joining them. The City of Claremont is accepting applications for seats on the City's commissions.

The City's website has information about all six of its commissions. All of them have commissioners whose terms are expiring at the end of August, but there's no indication of which of those will be stepping down and which will be reappointed.

As you can see below, the requirements are sufficiently vague as to allow just anybody to be accepted. Or blackballed, as the case may be. You can contact the City Clerk's office for more info.

Don't tell them the Insider sent you:

Commission Vacancies Accepted Through June 17

Applications are currently being accepted to fill end-of-term vacancies on various City of Claremont commissions. Persons interested in being considered for appointment are encouraged to file an application with the City Clerk's office by 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 17, 2010.

Claremont has six commissions (Architectural, Community Services, Human Services, Planning, Police, Traffic and Transportation) whose purpose is to advise and assist the City Council in addressing issues related to the commission's area of concern. They do this by gathering pertinent information, hearing arguments, weighing values, and making recommendations to the Council.

Each commission is comprised of seven citizens appointed by the Mayor after consultation with and approval by the City Council. Qualifications for commission service include: Claremont residency (with certain exceptions), a strong interest in the community and the work of the commission, and the ability to give generously of one's time while serving.

A personal interview with a two-member City Council sub-committee will be scheduled for all applicants. It is the Council's goal to appoint individuals who reflect the diversity of the community.

Applications and information are available in the City Clerk's office, City Hall, 207 Harvard Avenue, Monday through Thursday, 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and on the City's website - www.ci.claremont.ca.us. Please contact the City Clerk's office for assistance - (909) 399-5461 or (909) 399-5463.

FILING DEADLINE: THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 2010, 6:00 P.M.

• Commission Packet (Adobe Acrobat, 1113KB)

A Picture Is Worth AThousand Words

There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

Animal Farm
George Orwell

We're continually amazed at the awesome sense of entitlement the Claremont 400 possesses, collectively and individually. It's as if the laws of our town apply to everyone other than our ruling elite, who see themselves as a sort of aristocracy.

Former mayors, councilpeople, and commissioners behave as scofflaws. One such former mayor we know built an eight-foot wall on her property when only six-foot walls were permitted in the Claremont Village. When a neighbor complained, the person said not to worry about it and implied she had friends in City Hall.

And, lest you think such things are isolated examples, don't forget the time former mayor Ellen Taylor drove the wrong way down an alley in the Village.

From time to time we receive emails from skeptical readers who find it hard to believe that these paragons of community virtue would behave so boorishly. Well, now comes photo documentation, courtesy of the Insider's local spies.

At the City Council's March 6 budget meeting, town historian and former mayor Judy Wright had a special parking spot reserved for her car--license 4 JDY JDY. We assume that this must be Judy's regular parking place when she visits her subjects at City Hall. Judy certainly has no fear of the Claremont PD's parking enforcement officers (though they may quite rightly fear her):

Seen outside City Hall,
March 6, 2010

When we first received the photo, we weren't sure that it was really Judy's ride, so we asked a friend of the Insider to drive by Judy's digs near Tenth and Berkeley. Sure enough, there was the same wagon--hers--parked at the curb:

* * * * *

We note that 4 JDY JDY appears to have a handicapped tag hanging from it's mirror, and we don't begrudge the differently abled their little regulatory conveniences. But the lot at City Hall was striped "NO PARKING."

Anyway, readers, don't bother yourselves to get worked up about little things like fairness or rule of law. Judy (pictured, left) will just have a good laugh at your expense.

The best thing you can do is remember these photos during the next city council or school board election. When you see the name "Judy Wright" next this or that candidate's name, vote for another person.


That is the only way we'll ever move away from the Claremont 400's arbitrary governance and towards a more rational, fair, and respectful relationship between city officials and the average citizens in town.

Back to School (or Mean Girls)

Meg over at the M-M-M-My Pomona blog had an interesting encounter last weekend with a couple of Claremont's prominent citizens: Ellen and Marshall Taylor.

Meg wrote of running into Claremont's Mayor and her husband at the Packing House Wine Merchants wine bar. Meg found the Taylors to be perfectly nice, amiable people:

...a couple came in and struck up a conversation from the other end of the table. Turns out it was Ellen Taylor, the mayor of Claremont, and her husband. We chatted about various things, including whether or not diamonds are a girl's best friend (agreed: NOT), and eventually we got onto the topic of local politics.

Diamonds were not the only thing we agreed on; the Taylors were pleasant folks, easy to talk to. One point of particular agreement was that Claremont city politics is so bitter because the stakes are so small -- it's all about rearranging the deck chairs at the Ritz-Carleton. Whereas Pomona... well, as Ellen Taylor said, that matters.

Meg went on to relate an anecdote Ellen had about former Pomona Councilmember George Hunter. All in all, a friendly exchange with a woman who seemed nothing like the horrid Cookie Monster we've written so much about.

But then, hasn't that always been the central problem of Ellen? It's much like the little girl with the little curl right in the middle of her forehead. One-on-one she can be perfectly charming, particularly in a comfortable, familiar environment like the Packing House Wine Bar, where she is a regular. A few drinks probably doesn't hurt the congeniality factor either, something you could probably say about some of Claremont's other fine leaders as well.

However, get crosswise of Ellen, step between her and something she wants personally or in her public roles, and things get very ugly very quickly. And that, really, has been the heart of the problem with Official Claremont for too long. That Janus-faced combination of niceness coupled with the tendency to quash opposing views on just about anything.

Ellen's good friend, former Claremont Mayor Sandy Baldonado, was very similar. Sandy could be winning and charming when she wanted to be. But she could be terribly arrogant and mean as well, and her real opinions about Pomona (like Ellen's) weren't all that much better than what she thought of Victorville:




Of course, as Meg points out, compared to Pomona's problems, Claremont's are pretty trivial, unless your name is Landrum or you had a house that burned down because of the City's alleged negligence ($17.5 million worth of alleged negligence) or any of a handful of other not-so-trivial issues that have arisen in the recent past.

Meg ends her post by noting that the bit about things being so bitter because the stakes are so small is attributed to Henry Kissinger, who was talking about academic politics. And, now that we think about it, maybe that is precisely Claremont's problem. We are a city run for the most part by academics and wonks (who are really the political equivalents of academics).

So it shouldn't be too surprising to see the public treated at times like a collection of naive, ill-informed undergraduates who need the paternalistic hand of an experienced, worldly, all-knowing college administrator to decide what should be done about this or that issue. Hence the outright condescension a good chunk of the public often faces when it tries to have input on a local issue.

And when it comes to in-fighting and backroom maneuvering, Claremont City Hall and the social network surrounding it aren't really all that different from any college English department. It's close-in combat, with everyone fighting over this or that piece of turf while at the same time nurturing useful alliances (and attending lots of conferences). The perfect place for someone like an Ellen Taylor or a Sandy Baldonado to thrive. Get out the short swords!

Sacramento's Finances in Tatters

California's money woes continue to dominate the local news. California Controller John Chiang has issued dire warnings that the state may run out of money in two months and would then have to issue IOU's to vendors, and the the state legislature and governor's office continue their deadlock over any sort of budget fix.

California is currently facing a $14 billion deficit in the current fiscal year and a $42 billion deficit through the end of FY 2009-2010. And the state's Standard and Poor's credit rating is now tied with Louisiana's for the lowest of any of the 50 states. As a result, the state last week had to suspend the sale of bonds, placing infrastructure projects up and down California on hold.

Who's to blame? It depends on whom you ask. Democrats blame Republicans for refusing to consider any tax increases, while Republicans say Democrats are refusing to cut any spending. The Daily Bulletin today had an article quoting Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's spokeperson as fixing blame on Democrats and Republicans both:

By the afternoon, Schwarzenegger Communications Director Matt David lashed back on behalf of the governor. He said neither side has been willing to transcend party politics and special interests to make concessions.

"The Democrats want to block cuts to state government spending, and the Republicans want to block revenue increases because they have signed pledges to protect special interests," David said in a statement. "Legislators were sent to Sacramento to fix problems, but now what they're doing is making the situation worse because every day they don't act our problem gets $40 million worse."

If lawmakers fail to pass an updated budget plan, state Controller John Chiang said his office will be forced to defer billions of dollars in payments or issue IOUs to state contractors. He says the instability of the banking industry has made borrowing money to bridge the gap an uncertain possibility.

The state would not be able to pay vendors who provide everything from food for prisoners to nursing care for seniors.

"The state's dire cash position not only jeopardizes and places at risk our ability to meet our financial obligations in a timely manner, it threatens our ability to respond to natural disasters and protect our communities from crime," Chiang wrote.

The Los Angeles Times had an editorial today that argues it's high time to do away with the requirement of a two-thirds majority to pass a budget. The Times piece noted that California is one of only two states (Arkansas and Rhode Island being the others) that has such a stricture. The super-majority budget vote has been in place since 1933. At that time, the two-thirds majority was only needed if the budget was going to increase by more than 5%. In 1962, the law was extended to cover all proposed state budgets.

Some Republicans apparently see the hazards of the super-majority requirement and are arguing for change as well. The Times described two proposals for fixing the problem, one from Democratic State Assembly Speaker Karen Bass and one from Republican State Senator Mimi Walters:

Going back to majority votes for budgets, as was the case before 1933, would put California in the company of most other states, and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) introduced a constitutional amendment to that effect at the beginning of the current session. It adds a twist: The simple-majority requirement evaporates, and once again becomes two-thirds, for any budget bill not adopted by June 15. That's similar to Illinois, Maine and Nebraska, where, the argument goes, there's an added incentive for the majority to get its work done on time.

But California Republicans, too, recognize the problem caused by the runaway supermajority rule. Sen. Mimi Walters (R-Laguna Niguel) also has introduced a constitutional amendment. Hers would be a pre-1962, but not pre-1933, simple-majority measure. It's actually quite shrewd: Democrats, or whoever is in the majority, would be able to adopt a budget on a majority vote, but only if it represents growth of 5% or less over the previous year. The Republicans would have their spending cap, but it could be breached. That's similar to Connecticut and Hawaii, but it's worth noting that it has been years since California produced a budget with growth smaller than 5%.

However we get it done, we need some grown-up leadership in Sacramento. On the local level we're every bit as bad, spending far beyond our means without setting aside any sort of serious rainy day fund and counting on grant money to rain down from state and federal agencies to subsidize our municipal projects and services. Now that the flow's been shut off, we'll get to see how grown-up our own leaders in City Hall are.

City Holiday Schedule

Claremont City Hall and the rest of the City's offices will be following the following holiday schedule, according to the City's website:

City offices will be closed the following holidays:

Christmas - December 25 & 26
New Years - January 1 & 2

Sanitation, public safety and critical operations will continue as normal on December 26 and January 2.

Also, the regularly scheduled City Council meeting for Tuesday, December 23rd, is canceled, as is Wednesday's Architectural Commission meeting.

The Claremont Trolley, for those of you (S. C.) who ride it, will not run on Christmas Day, but will resume its regular 11am to 11pm schedule on Friday, December 26th.