Soon Parted: Hello Fools, Goodbye Money

We and others in the community have been bothered by the fact that Measure CL, the Claremont Unified School District's $95 million November bond measure, has no identified projects in need of all that money. Perhaps we missed something.

We looked again at the bond resolution the CUSD board approved on July 22, and noticed that buried deep in the ballot proposition language was a sentence under the heading "Project List" that says:

The District conducted a facilities evaluation reflected in the [Facilities Master Plan] presented to the Board of Education on January 21, 2009 and incorporated herein by reference...

So there is a project list, CUSD just didn't include it for the voters to review easily. We've confirmed through our back-channel sources that it takes more that a bit of effort to see that list. If you are interested in what that $95 million might be spent on, you have to go to the district office on San Jose Ave. and review a several inches thick binder that constitutes the district's Facilities Master Plan, otherwise known as CUSD's wish list.

It's not exactly the most user-friendly way of discovering the district's intentions for the bond. From what district tout Bill Fox said in the Claremont Courier last Saturday, we can expect the bond campaign committee - Fox, Mike Seder, and, direct from Claremont Heritage and the Claremont Educational Foundation, the ever-reliable Lee Jackman - to cull through that binder and pull out enough poll-friendly projects to add up to $95 million.

But there's no guarantee that whatever bond project list CUSD's campaign cooks up will ever be completed. Buried in the fine print at the end of the resolution is a sentence that says:

In the absence of State and/or Federal matching funds, which the District will aggressively pursue to reduce the District's share of the projects' costs, the District will not be able to complete some of the projects listed above.

The school district doesn't tell you, however, that it will fail to really pursue State and/or Federal matching funds as it assures us it will. Even in failure, the district has a design. If the district opts out of state funds, it also doesn't have to worry about accountability in the form of state spending guidelines and audits. That's why no CUSD official will speak of any bond oversight that is independent of the district. Instead, CUSD and its board will handpick a "citizens committee" with a safe majority of its friends to ensure the bond money is spent as they see fit.

The district's secretive project binder and that fine print at the end of the ballot proposition language demonstrate just how far CUSD Superintendent Terry Nichols, the CUSD Board of Education, and the bond campaign committee are willing to go to conceal the truth of the bond from the voting public. They are betting that if they bury enough qualifying clauses in dense enough prose, they will be able to fool enough voters into supporting this bond.

The Fine Print
(Click to Enlarge)

As you can see above, it's not exactly an open, clear, well-articulated plan. It's really more of a lawyerly, CYA paragraph designed to inoculate the school district from blame when the money dries up long before their yet-to-be-released project list is completed.

The first sentence in the fine print, for instance, says, "The listed projects will be completed as needed." In other words, if needed we will decide that items previously deemed priorities really aren't necessary, and we'll use the money on other unspecified things - whatever we want.

As we've pointed out several times in the past, in the case of CUSD's $48.9 million Measure Y bond one of the main projects listed, La Puerta Elementary School, wasn't ever built because it was deemed unnecessary. Instead, the district threw the money away on such urgent, non-educational items as Claremont High's track and football facilities.

With Measure CL, the district also seeks to circumvent its own bond language. On the one hand, the last paragraph states, in all caps for extra emphasis:

NO ADMINISTRATIVE SALARIES. PROCEEDS FROM THE SALES OF THE BONDS AUTHORIZED BY THIS PROPOSITION SHALL ONLY BE USED FOR THE ACQUISITION, CONSTRUCTION, RECONSTRUCTION, REHABILITATION, OR REPLACEMENT OF SCHOOL FACILITIES, INCLUDING THE FURNISHING AND EQUIPPING OF SCHOOL FACILITIES, AND NOT FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE, INCLUDING TEACHER AND SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR SALARIES AND OTHER OPERATING EXPENSES.

But just a couple sentences above that, the full ballot language claims:

Proceeds of the bond may be used to pay or reimburse the District for the cost of District staff when performing work on or necessary and incidental to bond projects.

So, how does one square those two contradictory statements? The district doesn't intend to. That last paragraph is merely something they are required to include but which they will never follow. If you need further evidence, check reporter Landus Rigsby's article on page four of the August 11 Claremont Courier. Rigsby wrote:

"Any [extra] money that comes in [from the state] or money from a bond needs to go to salaries," said CUSD Director of Human Resources Kevin Ward. "If the district receives an increase in base revenue higher than what is [currently] projected, then before the district can spend on other things, a certain percentage will go back to salary restoration for all the employee groups."

Ward was simply being honest, even if what he said ran counter to the bond's ballot language. The bond money will be used for salaries, no matter what the district says during the bond campaign. Now, it would be illegal for the district to simply take the money and dump it directly into teacher salaries. So CUSD will wash the money through its project list and pay for the salaries that way rather than asking employees to make some temporary sacrifices to help balance the district's budget.

No one thing irks us more than the disregard and contempt the district, its board of education, the teachers' union, and the bond campaign committee have for language, bending it as they please to suit whatever momentary meaning they require. They intend to use words not to further their educational mission but to manipulate the public into supporting something they've intentionally misrepresented as a needed facilities repair and construction bond.

It's a poor example for the very students they claim to care so much about, and no wonder why, even under the best of circumstances, Measure CL supporters and their highly paid campaign consultants will have a fight ahead of them. Without the truth on their side, it'll take a lot of doublespeak to get the 55% of the vote needed for the measure to pass.

Of that sort of talk, though, the district and its various representatives have no shortage. These are, after all, many of the same people who gave us Glenn Southard, the Parks and Pasture Assessment (lost 44% to 56%), Preserve Claremont, and failed city council candidate Bridget Healy, the retired Claremont assistant city manager who's currently raking in $166,700 a year from a CalPERS pension.

Given the stagnant economy and the level of joblessness and foreclosures in our area, they'd be wiser to ask for far less and sacrifice more before asking property owners to pay off a $95 million debt. They'd also be well advised to stick to the truth in the future if they're going to ask people for that amount of money.

(In the coming days, we'll have more on that debt, how much larger it will be than the district has portrayed it, and how the bond proponents intend to finance the bonds over the next 55 years - far enough in the future for all of them to be safely dead long before the extent of their folly is revealed.)

City Calendar

COUNCIL MEETING TONIGHT

It's the second Tuesday of the May, which means another meeting of the Claremont City Council. Or, if you're the half-full-glass type, only five more meetings until the City's annual August recess for the council and city commissions.

The council convenes at 5:15pm for a special closed session to discuss negotiations involving the Peppertree Square property at 390 W. Arrow Hwy. and with Jerry Tessier and Arteco Partners on price and terms of the lease agreement for the Padua Hills Theatre. That second bit is an odd one - isn't that all settled?

Here's the closed session agenda.

The council's regular session begins at 6:30pm. You can watch it here.

It looks to be a fairly quiet meeting, though agenda item 9 piqued our curiosity. That item concerns a proposal by Claremont Heritage and the Kiwanis Club of Claremont to move from the Garner House in Memorial Park to the adjacent carriage house.

The carriage house used to house a child care program, the Kids Club program, but that ended in 2008, so Claremont Heritage wants to incorporate the carriage house's north half into its lease agreement with the City. The Kiwanis Club wants to renovate the south half and create a formal meeting and exhibit space.

Since 2002, Claremont Heritage has managed the Garner House for the City in exchange for rent-free office space and an agreement to renovate and restore the living room, dining room and kitchen.

City staff is recommending that the council review the proposal, provide some input, and return it to staff for study. Here's the staff report.

One other item of interest is the renewal of the City's agreement with the Claremont Chamber of Commerce. The city staff report recommends renewing the $40,000-per-fiscal year agreement with the chamber of commerce to run the local visitors center. The agreement also calls for the chamber to promote the city and its businesses.


NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING TOMORROW NIGHT

The city of Claremont holds another of its semi-regular neighborhood meetings 7pm tomorrow night at the Joslyn Senior Center. The Joslyn Center is located at 660 N. Mountain Ave. in Larkin Park at the northeast corner of Harrison Ave. and Mountain.

Two councilmembers will be on hand to accept your rotten tomatoes. Hurl them with kindness.

Here's the info:

Neighborhood Forum Set For May 12

The public is invited to a Neighborhood Forum on Wednesday, May 12 from 7 - 9pm at the Joslyn Senior Center. Neighborhood Forums are an opportunity for the community to speak with members of the City Council in an informal setting. The forums are targeted to specific neighborhoods but any residents may attend. For more information, please contact Public Information Officer Bevin Handel at (909) 399-5497.

FRIDAY NIGHTS LIVE RETURNS

Weekly live music returned to the Claremont Village last Friday. The Friday Nights Live! program started May 7 and runs through June 25. Here's the City blurb:

Friday Nights Live is Back in the Village! (May 6, 2010)

The City of Claremont, in conjunction with the Claremont Chamber of Commerce, Village Marketing Group, and the Tolkin Group's Village Square, is pleased to announce that Friday Nights Live is coming back to the Claremont Village! Starting May 7 and running every Friday from 6-9 p.m. through June 25, 2010, two bands will be providing musical entertainment to patrons of Village shops and restaurants. The bands will be located at Second and Yale Avenue, as well as at the Public Plaza. Don't miss this opportunity to enjoy some great entertainment while shopping Claremont's restaurants and stores. Also, every dollar spent shopping in Claremont helps pay for the City's programs and services that makes Claremont the wonderful community it is. For more information on Friday Nights Live, contact the Chamber at (909)624-1681.

Dept. of Self-Referential Headlines

Some Claremont Courier copy editor sure has a sense of humor:

From the Claremont Courier, 1/9/10

Padua Theatre Open for Business

Chantrelles Catering Image

The Padua Theatre reopened last weekend after being closed all winter and spring for earthquake retrofitting and other renovations. The remodeling work is being done by Arteco Partners, the same company that completed similar adaptive reuse projects with the Pomona Fox and Claremont Packing house.

The Daily Bulletin's David Allen took a tour of the theatre last week and spoke with Jerry Tessier, one of Arteco's principals. Allen described the renovations in his column:

Tessier's Arteco Partners spent $4 million and five months doing seismic strengthening, adding fire sprinklers and alarms, replacing every inch of plumbing and wiring and bringing the buildings up to code, including handicap accessibility.

Vintage elements such as wall sconces and tables have been repaired and the original theater screen featuring a map of Mexico is in place - although Tessier couldn't find the right rope to pull to show it to me.

The theater interior is quaintly rustic, with poured-in-place concrete walls and an exposed-beam ceiling of hand-chiseled wood.

The interior can be configured for banquets or performances, and photo opportunities for weddings - fountains, benches, a gazebo - dot the complex.

Another addition is a broad terrace overlooking the Claremont Wilderness Park. It offers a breathtaking view of rolling hills and canyons.

Allen also wrote about the theatre's history with characteristic irreverence:

Padua used to be an artists' colony and the theater grew out of that tradition. For most of the theater's active life, a troupe called the Mexican Players, sponsored by Herman and Bess Garner, put on productions to introduce Southern Californians to Mexican dress, songs and culture.

Sounds a bit corny to our modern sensibilities, but in its heyday Padua was popular and surprisingly well known.

The Garners owned a good deal of the land around the theatre and sold off lots to people like Millard Sheets, Milford Zornes, Albert Stewart, Harrison Macintosh, and Betty Ford, area artists who all built homes and studios on the long hill where the theatre sits.

David Allen also informs us that Claremont Heritage has sold 250 tickets to a fundraiser tonight at the theatre, a fitting location for the local historical society whose offices are located in the Garner House in Claremont's Memorial Park.

Claremont Heritage and amateur historian Judy Wright have been the primary force behind the deal with Arteco, just as they were the main forces pushing the ill-conceived Claremont Trolley. Judy has written extensively about the theatre and the Garners, whom she has elevated to the highest pedestal within the Claremont founders pantheon.

Wright and company have made much of the painstaking care and attention to detail employed in the theatre's restoration, though as is Judy's wont, she's employed a good deal of revisionism. For instance, Herman Garner would almost certainly have disapproved of things like the 4,000 square foot terrace addition or the serving of alcohol. Garner was a strong supporter of the temperance movement - recall that Claremont itself was a dry town until the late 60's.

Claremont Heritage's nostalgia for the theatre's Mexican Players also ignores the fact that when Garner founded his artist community it had explicit written prohibitions against non-whites owning property. That's right, it was segregated (a little secret Judy would rather not discuss).

Sure, the Garners' temperance and the racial attitudes were products of their era (major league baseball was still segregated at that time), but one cannot pretend to be a historian without documenting all of the history, even the parts that make one uncomfortable.

That said, if you didn't shell out $89 for a ticket to tonight's Claremont Heritage Gala, David Allen says you have several upcoming opportunities to check out the refurbished theatre. The Claremont Chamber of Commerce will have their mixer July 8 and there will be an open house July 12 from 5pm to 8pm.

Padua Hills Theatre Update (or Creative Destruction)

Claremont City Manager Jeff Parker's weekly report includes a brief note about a meeting last week on the Padua Hills Theatre. According to Parker, the state's Department of Alcohol Beverage Control held the meeting for neighbors last Thursday, and about 70 people attended. Residents raised several concerns, Parker's report says:

ALCOHOL BEVERAGE CONTROL (ABC)

Approximately 70 people attended the Alcohol Beverage Control neighborhood meeting on April 30. It was a very lively meeting, with strong opinions and concerns expressed. Those in attendance raised concerns about noise from the use of the venue and parking lots, need for greater on-site security, enforcement of City and ABC regulations regarding the use of the Padua Hills Theatre, and days and hours of business operation (inside and outside). Most residents wanted the hours to stop at 9 p.m. weekdays and 11 p.m. weekends, with more conditions on security. The residents may form a smaller working group to discuss their concerns with Arteco and ABC further. Staff is actively monitoring this process and will advise the council as developments come to our attention.

The theatre has applied for an ABC liquor license, and the neighborhood meeting was apparently part of the the licensing process. Arteco Partners, the company renovating the theatre, is shooting for a June opening. That could be a tight schedule, considering the construction is still going on and the liquor license hasn't been secured yet.

This all raises one point that Arteco Partners' recent projects at the Claremont Packing House and the Fox Pomona did not face: the Padua Theatre is smack-dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood rather than mixed-use or commercial areas, and two sides are bounded by homes within about 100 feet of the parking lot with a third side adjacent to the Claremont Hills Wilderness Park.

There is no similar commercial venue in Claremont, and one senses that the City's and Claremont Heritage's desperation to restore the theatre at any cost could lead them to sacrifice the peace, quiet, and safety of the neighborhood and the Wilderness Park in the process.

Nothing new here. Claremont's always been about loving things to death.

Water Show Tonight

On a wet Friday, we received a water-related email from a reader who wanted to pass on a heads-up about a Huell Howser show tonight at 7pm on KCET. You can learn a bit of history about a really big water project, one that has a local angle:

DATE: Friday, February 6, 2009 6:46 PM
SUBJECT: Howser KCET Special 2/08/09 on Edison/Frampton Big Creek Story
TO: Claremont Buzz

Dear Claremont Buzz,

This Sunday, 2/08/09 and again on Saturday 2/21/09, on KCET Huell Howser will have a one hour program on "The Big Creek and Florence Lake Story". It has double meaning for Claremonters because of the involvement of Claremonters Bob and May Frampton and their son Rick in the program. The program tells how the largest water-to-electricity system of its type in the world, brings electricity to Southern California.

The Framptons checked and regulated lake and stream levels at isolated snowy Florence Lake from 1935-38. The films they took and an interview with their son Rick by the house they lived in there, ends the program on a beautiful note. The story gives a rare explanation of Southern California Edison Company's ingenious engineering feat in the early 20th Century. It is especially relevent now with water rationing ahead, to realize that not only our Central Valley food growers, but our electricty supply, is dependent on the High Sierra snow packs which store so much water for us.

Rick Frampton has also edited a book about his parents years at Florence Lake, filled with photographs they took, and has donated copies to several libraries in town including the Claremont Library, Honnold Library, Claremont Heritage, and the Gardens (where May Frampton lives) and Pilgrim Place.

Claremont Heritage Meets This Sunday

Claremont Heritage has its annual meeting this Sunday, January 11th, at 2pm in the Garner House. There will be a guest lecturer and refreshments. Claremont Heritage's website had this information:

Annual Meeting Claremont Heritage will hold its Annual Meeting on Sunday, January 11, 2009 from 2:00 p.m. until 3:30 p.m. at the Garner House in Memorial Park, located at 840 N Indian Hill Boulevard. The program is entitled "The Inconvenience of History: Reflections on Historic Preservation," and will be presented by Larry E. Burgess, a prominent regional Historian, Author and Director of the A.K. Smiley Public Library in Redlands. His lecture will focus on past and recent regional preservation projects and some lamentable failures.

Mr. Burgess gives 50 to 60 lectures each year on the history of Southern California and the West. He has written and collaborated on many books including The Smileys: A Biography (1969, 1993), The Hunt for Willie Boy (1994) and Images of America: Redlands (2004). He received his PhD. from the Claremont Graduate University. In the summer and fall of 2000, Burgess was Redlands' interim city manager.

The meeting will conclude with the election of three new Claremont Heritage Board members, recognition of outgoing Board members including retiring President Judy Wright and an annual report.

Refreshments will be served. Please join us.

Contact Ginger Elliott, 909-621-0848 or email: heritage.91711@verizon.net

5Cs Walking Tour - Jan. 24th

The Daily Bulletin's Inland Empire and Inland Valley news blog has a blurb about a Claremont Heritage walking tour of the Claremont Colleges on Saturday, January 24th, beginning at 9:30am. The post says:

The 2 1/2 -hour tour starts at 9:30 a.m. at Seaver House, 305 N. College Ave. It tours Pomona, Scripps, Claremont McKenna, Pitzer and Harvey Mudd colleges and the Claremont Graduate University.

The tour costs $8. You can find out more by calling Claremont Heritage at (909) 621-0848 or by checking out their website.

Passings

The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that former Claremont Mayor Enid Hart Douglass passed away in Sunnyvale on October 17th. Douglass graduated from Pomona College in 1948 and later at CGU became a pioneer in the field of oral history.

Douglass helped found Claremont Heritage, served on the Claremont Planning Commission beginning in 1978, and was elected to the Claremont City Council in the 1980s. The Times obituary said, in part:

When she entered Pomona College in 1944, "there were about 32 men on campus" because of World War II, she said in a 2002 oral history. One veteran who returned to the school after the war was her future husband, Malcolm Paul Douglass.

They married soon after she graduated in 1948 with a bachelor's degree in government.

After he earned a doctorate in education from Stanford University, they moved to Claremont in 1954 so he could teach at what is now known as Claremont Graduate University.

"Between child two and three," as she phrased it in the oral history, Douglass earned her master's degree in history in 1959 from the university. She wrote her master's thesis on the Claremont Planning Commission.

"When you think of Enid, you think Claremont," said Ginger Elliott, executive director of Claremont Heritage. "She was an example of the kind of people who make the town special to us, an academic who gave a lot to the community and who worked hard for projects that were really worthwhile."

Paving Paradise

(Click to enlarge)
City of Trees I

Saturday's Claremont Courier had an article by Tony Krickl about the city of Claremont bulldozing several acres of its Wilderness Park, including a large section running along Thompson Creek:

The city decided to bulldoze the land in an attempt to save money on an unexpected project. City officials acknowledged they made a big mistake.

“I admit our actions were wrong,” said Community Services Director Scott Carroll, speaking at Tuesday night’s council meeting. “I’m deeply sorry for putting the city [in this position]. Our intent was to comply with [the county regulations] and protect the homes on Via Padova.”

Bare terrain is all that remains next to these Padua Hills homes after a bulldozer was used to clear the area as part the city’s fire abatement plan.

The decision to bulldoze caused irreparable damage to the land, said residents and ecological experts, and will end up costing the city upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix. The exact price tag has not yet been determined.

Back in July, the city was notified by the Los Angeles County Fire Department that the territory had been surveyed and the brush needed to be cleared behind the homes. This year has been particularly dry and prone to fires, so the extra safety precautions were necessary. The city had already set their budget for the next 2 years, and the unexpected abatement expenses had not been planned for.

But fear of liability was an overriding concern for City Manager Jeff Parker in case a fire did break out. He did not want to be in the same position as the previous city manager back in 2003 when fire ripped through Palmer Canyon, destroying homes and leading to a $17.5 million lawsuit settlement.

“I told [Mr. Carroll] to get it done,” Mr. Parker said.

Community Services Department staff came up with a plan that was quick and cost-effective. In mid-August, the bulldozers were brought in to complete the work.

Residents are now concerned that the area is prone to erosion, excessive dust and the invasion of non-native plants. With fall and winter rains around the corner, time is limited to repair the damage.

One thing we're being told by readers who seen the area is that you really can't appreciate the extent of the damage unless you walk down inside that canyon running along the east end of the Wilderness Park. It's apparently very difficult to get an idea of the scope of the damage from the road. The Courier photos do show how wide the swath was, though.

Another thing readers are telling us is that while the ground in the photos looks like hard-packed clay, most of it is really a fine powder several inches deep that gets picked up and blown all over by the wind - remember the Dust Bowl? Once the soil goes, whether by wind or rain, it's going to drive up the cost of fixing the damage.

The silence from groups like the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club, whose newsletter editor Robin Ives teaches math at Harvey Mudd College, strikes us as particularly odd. The Angeles Chapter is involved enough in Claremont local politics to have endorsed Sam Pedroza in the last city election. Why no involvement in this issue?

Or what about Claremont Heritage, which has a particular interest in the Padua Theatre? That same bulldozer ran up the canyon all around the Theatre, causing damage there. You'd think the people interested in preserving the Theatre's structures would be concerned about the ground under the buildings being undermined by erosion or that the view of the Wilderness Park would be marred by that bulldozer blade scraping great red gashes in the canyon. Is historical preservation something that's confined to the built environment, or does it extend to the the natural environment as well?

If a private landowner had done what the city did, these groups would be all over the hapless private party. But since it's the city creating the damage, they hold their tongues, giving tacit approval to the actions with their silence.

Odd indeed. But then, that's Claremont in a nutshell.

* * *

One reader who wrote in commented on the Courier article's grammar:

SUBJECT: Courier editing staff
DATE: Saturday, September 13, 2008 11:05 PM
TO: Claremont Buzz

Over the past couple weeks I have noticed a couple of jaw-dropping printing errors in the Courier. But somehow this headline from the Courier website reminded me of you, dear Insider: "In the eastern portion of the Claremont Wilderness Park, plots of baron [sic] land covered with tire tracks can be seen behind dozens of Padua Hills homes."

Who knew that Claremont had a real-life aristocracy?

We caught that bit too, but with our occasional typos and misspellings, we're hardly in any position to criticize the Courier.

And then there was this reader who thinks we need a plaque on Thompson Creek to commemorate the damage:

SUBJECT: bulldozed
DATE: Saturday, September 13, 2008 1:07 PM
TO: Claremont Buzz

Someone with a couple hundred dollars to spare should put up a commemorative plaque with the names of city officials at the site of the bullzdozer massacre. A great piece of political theater, for people who follow Claremont politics and get the joke.

Where Are They Now?

Those of you who were wondering what became of retired Claremont Police Chief Roy Brown will be glad to hear that he's doing just fine, having traded one college town for another on the opposite coast.

The Daily Bulletin's Wes Woods II reports in today's paper that Brown has been hired as an assistant police chief for New Haven, Connecticut. Brown, the article says, wasn't picked out of the blue. Former Pomona Police Chief James Lewis (not the Jim Lewis who used to be Claremont's Assistant to the City Manager), hired Brown.

The article also says that Lewis is trying to recruit Pomona Police Captain Ken Gillespie and gave some background on the eastern migration:

Lewis said he thought of Brown and Gillespie when he learned the open chief position needed a team to deal with community and policy issues, auditing and internal affairs.

The Inland Valley police migration to the East Coast comes after an August 2007 Police Executive Research Forum report described how to improve the New Haven Police Department.

A federal indictment in March 2007 of two New Haven narcotics police officers suspected of taking bribes from local bail bondsmen and stealing money at crime scenes led to that report.

The report reviewed organizational structure, narcotics enforcement and internal affairs investigations.

Pomona has about 172,000 people while New Haven has about 132,000, Lewis said. But Pomona has about 190 cops and New Haven roughly 500.

Pomona has more foot patrols while New Haven has officers assigned to a post.

Brown wasn't necessarily popular within the Claremont Police Department during his years here. You might recall that Brown came to Claremont from Eugene, Oregon, in the aftermath of the Irvin Landrum shooting in January, 1999.

In the midst of the subsequent blow-up caused by the former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard's handling of the situation, then-Claremont Police Chief Robert Moody retired (and later took a job with the law firm that defended the city in the civil suit brought by the Landrum family).

Brown wasn't Southard's first choice for the police chief position. We tend to forget that Southard first hired Thomas Scheidecker, a former LAPD officer, who at the time was working for the police in the city of Ripon, CA.

Southard quickly dumped Scheidecker after news of an LAPD scandal involving Schiedecker became public. A 2/6/00 LA Times article summed up the matter:

A key figure in the Los Angeles Police Department spying scandal of the 1980s has been named chief of the Claremont Police Department–a force that is beleaguered over a controversial shooting of a black motorist last year.

Thomas Scheidecker, 55, who was temporarily suspended for lying about and mishandling confidential intelligence documents while he worked for the LAPD, is scheduled to take the reins of the Claremont department on Valentine’s Day, after Chief Robert Moody’s retirement for personal reasons. For the last eight years, Scheidecker has been police chief of the small San Joaquin Valley town of Ripon, near Modesto.

As an LAPD lieutenant almost two decades ago, he served as custodian of records for the agency’s Public Disorder Intelligence Division, which was disbanded in 1983 after revelations that it was spying on law-abiding citizens, including civic leaders, judges, police commissioners, clergy and actors.

A police probe concluded that Scheidecker had kept classified information at his Westminster home and had made false and misleading statements to investigators as to what that data included.

Because some of the information in Scheidecker’s home came from military sources, he was also investigated by federal and state agencies. He was never charged with a crime but was suspended for 15 days.

Scheidecker is on vacation out of state and could not be reached for comment. Claremont officials said they were aware that he was somehow involved in the LAPD unit but had not known about his suspension or his specific role in the controversy.

“The focus of the interviews were his performance as police chief,” said city spokesman Mike Maxfield. “That’s what he’s being hired for. That’s not to say we skimmed over the rest of his career. We were aware of his work in the [LAPD] unit.”

Needless to say, Claremont and Southard dropped Scheidecker, who had given notice in Ripon, like a hot potato, leading to another lawsuit, this time by Scheidecker, against the City of Claremont. Brown was then picked as Claremont's police chief.

At the time all this was occurring, the City Council and Southard took on the look of the Richard Nixon White House circa 1973. You could almost see the stone walls rising around City Hall, complete with arrow-slitted guard towers. It was the peak of the Claremont 400, which had complete control of the City Council.

And at the same time it was the council's lowest point, with them daily defending positions that were so obviously undefendable. The city council meetings were packed with citizens and students protesting the council's handling of the Landrum shooting, and a good segment of the population calling for Southard to be fired.

The fact that the council ignored those calls and allowed Southard to stay on five more years, seemed proof to a good portion of the public that the council and their supporters were terribly out of touch with the rest of the public. Two councilmembers who were most supportive of Southard, Karen Rosenthal and Al Leiga, lost their re-election bids in 2003, and were replaced by Peter Yao and Jackie McHenry, both of whom ran as reformers.

It's always been our contention that the problems of Claremont and its city government were embodied by Glenn Southard but that the real heart of the dysfunction lay with those Claremonsters who still control influential groups like the board of Pilgrim Place, the Claremont Community Foundation, Claremont Heritage, and the League of Women Voters of the Claremont Area.

It's odd that all of those groups do good works, and we have no problems with the things they do as charities; however, it's their actions as the props to a form of municipal government that is close-minded, wasteful, and prone to crisis after crisis that we take exception with. It really has been a case-study in the corrupting power of small-town politics.

From those groups, the Claremonsters' new council and commission candidates will emerge - more Ellen Taylors, more Al Leigas, more Karen Rosenthals - and they will continue to try to take Claremont back to the days of 2000 when they controlled all five city council seats and when all hell was breaking loose.

The conscious effort by folks like Claremont Heritage president and former Claremont Mayor Judy Wright to erase the past and replace it with a sanitized, Disneyesque version of history ensures that we will be inevitably back again to deal with some other miscue, scandal, or crisis.

While it's job security for Insiders everywhere, it's also sad to see the same foolishness played out again and again.

Comment of the Day: Cut Up that Credit Card

As we wrote yesterday, the state's threat to use $2.5 billion in Prop. 1A transportation funds to help balance California's $15.5 billion or so budget deficit is causing a lot of hand-wringing on the local level.

Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor had a letter published in Saturday's Claremont Courier urging voters to write to Governor Schwarzenegger and to state legislators to tell to keep their mitts off OUR money.

The problem is that Claremont, like many other cities across the state, have so thoroughly mismanaged their finances that when a rainy day comes, they can't deal with the state shutting off the money spigot temporarily.

Now, this is not to excuse the state-level dysfunction, to which both major political parties have contributed, but if it had watched how it spent our money, Claremont would be much better positioned to deal with the current economic environment.

In her comments, also published in today's Daily Bulletin, Queen Ellen makes the "Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me" ploy. Claremont will suffer needlessly if the state takes that money, Ellen says. Taylor claims that Claremont "lives within its means" but will face a $500,000 deficit if the Prop. 1A money is taken away.

Yesterday, in commenting on Taylor's false claims about our living within our means, we found $135,000 in money that we feel was just thrown away to the Friends of Taylor. A reader wrote in with this response:

If Ellen Taylor is so incensed at the State of California for potentially raiding the City of Claremont’s coffers, let her take the proverbial mote out of her own eye and look at how Claremont City government is borrowing and spending Claremont taxpayer money here.

Didn’t the city (or redevelopment agency- same people, different legal entity) just borrow a million dollars from its own sewer fund to help with Harry Wu’s purchase of the land beneath the Doubletree Hotel? When are they going to pay that back and will it be with interest?

I watch the council meetings when they play on the local cable station and I always hear about the conferences that they attend. There seem to be so many of them that these council members go to and how much does that cost? How many staff members also go to these conferences and how much does that cost every year? How about the benefits that the Courier reported at least two council members (Taylor and Yao) are taking, that has a price also.

That is not even mentioning the extra $ 1 million to purchase Johnson’s pasture, $800,000 for the trolley around the block, $60,000 for the centennial that did not have enough sponsors.

No, I think the Claremont City Council needs to get its own house in order before it starts asking citizens to harass the state for money, our taxpayer money remember, just so it can misspend more of it.

Should the state take away the those transportation bond funds, which voters approved in 2004 with the understanding that they would be used for traffic and transportation projects? No. But should Claremont and other cities in California figure their budgets based on worst case scenarios that include the possibility that those funds might not be available for a time? Of course!

Instead of spending prudently, we count on state and federal grants to fund projects like the Claremont Trolley. Then, rather then saving our local revenue in a rainy day fund to be used in emergencies like the present one, we take the money saved through the use of grants and stupidly give it away. So, when the state unexpectedly stops the money flow, we're stuck with commitments to projects that have to now be covered by our own revenue.

Where have we spent our money? Well, besides the $135,000 we've already cited, the reader mentioned the nearly $11,000 we give Queen Ellen for her deferred compensation, a 401(k)-like retirement account and the similar amount we pay for Councilmember Peter Yao's health benefits. (Hey, another $20,000-plus a year to save!)

And, as the reader also noted, that extra $1 million we had to pay to purchase Johnson's Pasture because of a misphrased deed sure would have come in handy right now.

Of course, the spending hasn't slowed down. Queen Ellen is pushing forward with spending $1.5 million on Phase 1 a highly questionable Padua Sports Park this fall. When completed, the Sports Park will cost taxpayers an estimated $10-12 million.

We hear a lot of talk right now about moral hazard and the need to not bail out homeowners and credit card holders because people need the threat of financial failure in order to properly understand risk. Bailing people and institutions out, the argument goes, may encourage them to take foolish, stupid risks.

Cities are no different. Until Claremont and the people in power in town (the League of Women Voters, Claremont Heritage, the Chamber of Commerce, to name a few) understand that the risks behind their policy decisions and how those risks fit into the bigger financial picture, they will keep on with their foolish spending ways.

The bill is coming due, and, rather than blaming the state (which has its own blame to bear), it's high time they faced that uncomfortable situation that their cumulative decisions have created.

Giving Away the Farm

The state's proposal to borrow from Prop. 1A transportation funds to help balance the state budget is raising hackles at the local level all across the state.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last week indicated that the state might have to borrow $2.5 billion from the state's Prop. 1A transportation funds, a sum that would have to be repaid within three years at a high interest rate.

The LA Times reported on July 18th:

SACRAMENTO -- Legislative leaders are drafting a complicated scheme to help close the state's massive deficit by raiding funds voters have set aside for transportation and local government services, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday, adding that it probably would force a state sales tax hike.

"It is not a good idea," the governor said in an interview with The Times. But Schwarzenegger, anxious to get a budget passed before the state experiences a cash crisis, did not rule out signing off on such a plan.

During the half-hour interview in his office, the governor offered a broad outline of the proposal being discussed in closed-door budget negotiations. Schwarzenegger, who seemed exasperated by his inability to fix California's fiscal dysfunction five years into his governorship, cited the borrowing plans to bolster his point that the state's budget system was in need of reform.

The proposal is being considered as part of a possible compromise between Democrats seeking to close the deficit with $5.6 billion in income tax hikes on the rich and Republicans vowing to block any new taxes.

The legislative plan would balance the state budget with the help of $1.1 billion voters set aside for transportation projects and at least $1.4 billion earmarked for local governments under Proposition 1A, which was approved in 2004, Schwarzenegger said. State law requires that the money be paid back -- at a steep interest rate -- in three years.

In order to ensure that the money is repaid, "I literally would have to guarantee that with a sales tax or something," Schwarzenegger said. "Where [else] do we get the revenues that someone can be saying so freely we can pay back this $2.5 billion we are borrowing?"

Officials involved in the confidential budget negotiations, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, said lawmakers also were looking to borrow $200 million voters set aside for early childhood education programs through 1998's Proposition 10.

Local officials and advocates for the programs expressed alarm at the proposal to raid their funds. They accused legislative leaders of ignoring the will of voters, who approved the measures to prevent the state from touching the money in question.

All of this trickles on down to the municipal level. The city's website has an announcement from Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor calling the state's threats to take local redevelopment and/or transportation funds "irresponsible":

If the state borrows or takes a portion of property taxes or transportation funds, it would force the City to reevaluate the entire City budget that was adopted last month. If the legislature enacts the provisions of Prop 1A, Claremont would lose more than $500,000 and force the City Council to take dramatic action, such as reducing services or tapping into reserves to bring our budget back in line. Like the state, Claremont faces similar challenges, including higher energy, labor and increased costs in supplies and services that are all vital to running a city. In the face of these challenges in our own revenues, Claremont still manages to live within its means and balance the City budget.

Like any statement by Taylor, that last sentence needs to be examined closely. Does Claremont really live within its means? Well, yes and no. If by "means" you include money not generated by Claremont but by grant applications to county, state, federal and private agencies, then yes. But if you include planning for economic downturns such as the one we're currently facing, the answer is a resounding no.

We suspect that $500,000 and more is lurking there in the present budget, irresponsibly tossed away to friends of the City Council and city commissions in a buddy system of financial commitments.

Let's face it, Claremonters, this city and the people running it spend your money (and money they don't even have) like drunken sailors. For instance, in October, 2007, the Claremont City Council voted to set aside $60,000 from the city's transient occupancy tax (TOT) that it collects from hotels and motels in town for each guest. That $60,000 was supposed to go towards homeless programs. Sounds like a worthy cause, but one problem was there were no agencies or programs asking for the money. The city had not identified any place to spend the money, but dedicated that tax revenue because some of the council's friends said the city should do that.

Or, consider the $50,000 the City Council voted to give to the Friends of the Claremont Library to establish a collection of works by Claremont authors. That $50,000 was a giveaway pushed by the Friends of the Claremont City Council, namely people like Claremont author and former mayor Judy Wright. It bought no additional hours of operation or staff to the library, only a special collection that should more properly be funded by private donations.

And, how about the $25,000 the city council voted to give to Marilee's Marsh, another boondoggle in the making. The marsh is the brainchild of the League of Women Voters of the Claremont Area and league member Marilee Scaff.

Between the TOT deal, library collection money, and marsh giveaways, there's $135,000, or 27% of the $500,000 Taylor cited. These are hardly things we could call needed services. And there's more, much more, trickling out from the city treasury to Taylor's friends.

And, getting back to Judy Wright for a second, what about Claremont Heritage, that non-profit local historical and preservation society for which Wright serves as president? In 2001 Claremont Heritage moved into the city-owned Garner House, which sits at 840 N. Indian Hill Blvd. in Claremont's Memorial Park. The city charges no rent to Claremont Heritage, which is allowed to act as the building's landlord, renting out space on the city's behalf to such organizations as (surprise!) the League of Women Voters of the Claremont Area, of which Ellen Taylor is a former president.

Why not start charging a market rental rate to both organizations and get back some of the revenue they've selfishly stolen away from city coffers? In a private organization or business, this sort of cronyism would be criminal. In Claremont it's business as usual.

Taylor's message was also published as a letter in today's Claremont Courier under the title, "Cut the Government Credit Card." We heartily concur, beginning at home.

City Identifies Prime Cause of Downtown Parking Problems

The Village parking problem was supposed to get some attention at last night's Claremont City Council meeting. Specifically, the council was supposed to consider an ordinance that was supposed to help prevent so-called "vehicle shuffling" that adds to the parking nightmares people trying to visit the Claremont Village face with cars stacked up hither and yon filling every possible available space.

A Claremont Courier article by Tony Krickl last week explained the ordinance and the reasons for needing it:

City staff hopes that the “No-Vehicle Shuffling” ordinance will deter business employees from constantly moving their cars to different parking spots within the Village every few hours to avoid being ticketed.

The ordinance would also open up more parking spots to paying customers, a move that some believe will boost business and make the Village a greater attraction.

Something happened, however, that caused the issue to be pulled from the council's agenda for last night. The city's official website carried this bit of news:

A public notice was published stating that the Village Parking Proposed Ordinance would be on the July 8, 2008 City Council meeting agenda. This ordinance has been pulled from that agenda, pending further review by the City Manager. For further information, call Craig Bradshaw, City Engineer, at (909) 399-5465.

Parking policy wonks weren't completely shut out last night, however. The city council spent some time having a discussion of an appeal of a Claremont Planning Commission decision to approve a 162,000 square-foot academic and administrative building on the Claremont McKenna Campus.

As a condition of approval, CMC was required to submit a document showing that they would provide adequate parking for the building. This requirement was part of a new ordinance the city council approved recently to help alleviate downtown parking problems and the adverse parking impacts created by new projects.

So, the Planning Commission in June approved the CMC project and its parking management plan. However, a number of Claremonters, including former Mayor Judy Wright and Ginger Elliot, both very active in Claremont Heritage, objected to the CMC parking plan because it counted parking spots that were nowhere near the new building. For instance, CMC counted parking spots at properties CMC owns in the Arbol Verde section of Claremont - spots that are far enough away from the new building that people going there would not use them.

Seems clear, right? Looks like CMC is playing a numbers game in its parking plan and should be required to rewrite it with more realistic parking projections and mitigations.

Wrong. During the discussion, City Attorney Sonia Carvalho stepped in to quash the discussion by pointing out that the new ordinance requiring a parking plan to be submitted contains no provision for review.

All a developer has to do is submit a plan, any plan, and it must be accepted by the city without review. All those people who showed up ready to argue for or against the CMC project had to sit down. There were no grounds for an appeal because the city's ordinance has no provision for appeals. The city forgot to include that.

Chalk another one up to that crackerjack city staff that wrote the policy, to City Attorney Carvalho, who was supposed to review the ordinance for any such defects before it was approved, and to the Claremont City Council for approving an ordinance with a very serious deficiency. City Planner Lisa Prasse said that was not the intent of the law, but there you have it.

All in all, it was an embarrassing night for everyone who reviewed and voted on the new ordinance, and all (with the exception of Carvalho, who hardly ever admits an error) seemed to acknowledge this was a big mistake.

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.
  

Send in the Clowns - UPDATED

"This really is not a circus."

- Claremont Mayor Pro Tem Ellen Taylor, speaking at last week's City Council meeting during a discussion on the Base Line Rd. affordable housing project.

WRONG. Queen Ellen had it exactly backwards. This and every contentious issue that's come before the Claremont City Council since at least 1988 is a full-on three-ring circus.

Call it Cirque du Claremonsters.

We've called this thing a train wreck before. We just didn't know it was a circus train.

Saturday's Claremont Courier had an article by reporter Tony Krickl about last Tuesday's City Council meeting. As the article noted, the Claremonsters are not content to let the matter die and move on. [UPDATE: The Courier article is online now.]

Led by Ellen Taylor, Claremont League of Women Voters president and Claremont Police Commissioner Barbara Musselman (aka, Miss Personality), and Claremont Human Services Commissioner Andy Winnick, the increasingly small faction of Claremont 400 members backing the Base Line Rd. project were arguing that the city should question the legality of the L.A. County decision to not allow county funding of affordable housing projects within 500 feet of a major highway - a move that effectively killed the Base Line Rd. site as a viable affordable housing location.

During the meeting, Queen Ellen ordered her loyal retainer, city attorney Sonia Carvalho, to see if the L.A. County Community Development Commission (CDC) violated California's Brown Act sunshine law in making that decision. Taylor and company also hinted a dark conspiracy of county representatives who wanted to thwart the Claremonsters' affordable housing plans.

Such is the Claremont 400's outsized self-image of their town that they imagine that a county of over 10 million people would choose to scheme and skulk around in backrooms in order to single out one very small town of 35,000 people on the county's far eastern fringe.

The same group headed by Taylor has made similar arguments regarding the USC School of Medicine study that was published in the Lancet medical journal last year. That study formed the basis of the county funding policy change. Using Taylor's twisted reasoning, the USC researchers, using their evil prescience, knew 11 years ago that they would have to conduct their study in order to put a halt to the Base Line Rd. project.

Taylor, Musselman, and Winnick would have us believe that the researchers then falsely obtained grant money and 11,000 test subjects in order to justify their spurious findings, which they then handed over to the L.A. County CDC to cut off the funding for the Base Line project.

All of this kooky thinking really explains many of the Claremonsters' past actions. They actually believe that Claremont is the center of the universe. No wonder Claremont Heritage's map of the town (pictured at left) seems to lack a proper sense of scale.

We've preached the need for humility before, and the affordable housing issue certainly illustrates how the absence of that quality causes us no end of trouble.

So, now, instead of focusing on finding a viable alternative for the project they say is vital to Claremont, Queen Ellen and her court want to spend staff time and resources proving their odd, conspiratorial theories, mostly because they cannot admit they were wrong.

Citizen Michael John Keenan had the best commentary on this red herring. Keenan and remarked on the Brown Act question. He brought up the City Council's closed session decision last year to spend $1 million from the city's General Fund reserve to make up for the $1 million state of California grant that was denied Claremont for the purchase of Johnson's Pasture.

Keenan was basically saying, "Claremonsters who live in glass houses...." You go, Michael!

Look for more silly council behavior in April, when Queen Ellen succeeds current Mayor Peter Yao.

* * *

There were more than a few notable absences at last Tuesday's meeting. Claremont 400 candidate-to-be, Planning Commissioner Bob Tener, has apparently gotten off the Base Line project train. No dummy he, Tener knows a dog when he sees one, and he no doubt doesn't want to be too closely associated with a loser. Wouldn't want to imperil your run at a council seat, would you, Bob?

The League of Women Voters point person on the Base Line project, Karen Vance, was also not at the meeting.

* * *

Saturday's Courier also carried a "My Side of the Line" op-ed piece by Courier editor Rebecca JamesCourie, who didn't mince words on the Base Line Rd. issue:

Let’s take the blinders off and direct staff to look for other viable locations. The old COURIER site certainly has our vote. Although we were loath to give it up, we consider the location to be ideal for affordable housing. Youngsters could walk to school, parents could walk to markets and the need for transportation would be minimal. Not to mention they would be right by the Metrolink to take them to other locations.

As far as the Baseline Road site is concerned, write the check! Please write the check, give it to the redevelopment agency and get on with it! Let the police department have their much-needed and larger facility. We have truly given this project too much of our time. It has become a political volleyball that has been tossed around for so long that it has become ridiculous. The idea of affordable housing is certainly relevant. Let’s make it workable.

Hear, hear! We would also add that if the city does go forward with a citizen's committee to look at alternatives to the Base Line Rd. project, they must take care to select a committee that includes people who were opposed to the Base Line Rd. project.

The Claremonsters have falsely claimed that the project opponents were NIMBYs (shorthand for Not In My Backyard). The 400 loves to pin the NIMBY label on anyone who questions one of their project. Now that the 400 have lost, though, they should forfeit the right to have exclusive control over the choice of an alternative. They screwed up the last one, what would lead us to believe they can be trusted to do any differently this time around?

Moreover, the equation the Claremonsters posit, opposition to the Base Line site = opposition to ANY affordable housing, is a lie. A number of Base Line opponents have expressed a desire to participate in the alternatives committee, and they should be welcomed into the process.

Let's see the 400 put their money where their mouths are. If the "process" is really fair and open, anyone who wants should be allowed to participate. Maybe then we can forestall the faulty decision-making that has plagued us for far too long.

Ringing Out the Old Year

The Daily Bulletin and the Claremont Courier both had lists of their noteworthy stories for 2007.

Surprisingly, Paystubgate made both lists.

The Bulletin and the San Bernardino Sun had their own run-ins with government employees when they posted salary information for San Bernardino County employees online.

The Courier had a list of Claremont City Council high- and lowlights. The article isn't online yet, but it did have a memorable quote from Dean McHenry regarding the city's handling of Paystubgate:

"I think that's the first time since this city was founded 100 years ago that you have gone to the extent of demanding the shutdown of a news source," said resident Dean McHenry at the October 9 council meeting, evoking raucous cheers from fellow citizens. "... It seems to me, this not a way to celebrate our centennial."

* * *

And, of course, it was our centennial, or rather our second one, as we observed. Former Claremont Mayor Judy Wright and the folks over at Claremont Heritage have made sure we have these centennial celebrations every 20 years or so.

Wright continued her Claremont mythology project in 2007, using the centennial as a focus for her efforts.

Of course, it's been a rough year for Judy, who got caught revising local history and who dug herself an even deeper hole by trying to explain herself.

* * *

2007 was the year of the Packing House and the Village Expansion, bringing lots of new businesses and maybe even a trolley to Claremont. Time will tell if the expansion's got legs or not.

And this was the year Forbes Magazine named Claremont the fifth best place to live in the U.S. (for towns with populations between 7,500 and 50,000).

* * *

2007 was also the year that Claremont's insurer, the California Joint Powers Insurnce Authority, settled a lawsuit by Palmer Canyon homeowners over the 2003 Padua Fire. The plaintiffs had alleged that the city was negligent in its failure to enforce and implement its Vegetation Management Plan for the Claremont Wilderness. As a result, the plaintiffs argued, brush on city land built up to dangerous levels and resulted in the destruction of homes in Palmer Canyon and Padua Hills.

In March, the CJPIA settled the suit for $17.5 million. The largest amount ever paid out by the insurer.

* * *

The assaults on the Insider ebbed considerably as the year wound down. We're still standing, still cranking out the posts - nearly 500 since February. We like to keep William Faulkner's 1950 Nobel Prize speech in mind (with apologies to our feminist readers):

It's easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will be on more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure, he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirt capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

Let this much be said about 2007: We're all of us still standing and in many ways are stronger than ever. Keep on speaking out. Endure.

* * *

Finally, in other news, Claremont City Hall will be closed today and tomorrow for the New Year's holiday. City Attorney Sonia Carvalho, who drove the Paystubgate story with her demand that Google terminate this blog, reminds you to watch yourselves over the holiday. Too much drinking can lead to too much talking, and we just can't have vital government secrets leaking out.

A holiday is no excuse for laxness. The City Attorney takes these matters very seriously, and violators will be prosecuted - This Means You!: