Special Council Meetings Tonight

The Claremont City Council will hold not one but two special meetings this evening in the council chambers at 225 W. Second St. We didn't see tonight's sessions listed on the council's streaming video site, so you'll probably not be able to watch the proceedings on your computer.

[UPDATED 4:25PM: The link to streaming video for tonight's 6:30 workshop is now up; it will be available anytime to view and review]

The first matter is a closed session meeting at 5:00pm to discuss ongoing employee contract negotiations. The other item for consideration during the closed session is an unspecified matter involving "anticipated litigation." You can read the closed session agenda here.

At 6:30pm, the council will hold a special workshop to review the report from the Mayor's Ad Hoc Committee on Economic Sustainability. Here's the workshop agenda, and, in case you missed it, here's the committee's report:

Council Meets Tonight

One side effect of Claremont's budget problems is that they've used a good chunk of the Great Recession spending their way into a hole that, absent any additional federal stimulus money, will take a few years to recover from. That means no more big budget busting municipal projects (i.e., a new police station or a water company takeover). Fiscal responsibility, like it or not, has been imposed on Claremont.

Another effect (benefit?) of Claremont's financial woes is that City Council meetings are likely to be shorter because fewer big projects mean less time taken up by staff reports and comments, public comment, legal advice from City Attorney Sonia Carvalho, and the councilmembers' questions and opinions.

We'll see if tonight's City Council regular meeting runs under two hours. The council convenes at 5:15pm for a special closed session meeting that covers ongoing negotiations with the Claremont Police Management Association and the Claremont Police Officers Association.

The regular session begins at 6:30pm in the council chambers at 225 2nd St. in downtown Claremont. You can read the agenda here. If you're a glutton for punishment, or if the Lakers are getting walloped, you can subject yourself to a live feed of the meeting here.

On the council's plate tonight are:

• A hike in recreational user fees (to be expected given the tight budget). You'll pay a couple bucks more this year for a ticket to the City's 4th of July fireworks show, and things like swim programs will cost more. See the staff report for the new fee schedule.
  
  
• The annual engineer's report for the Landscaping and Lighting District (LLD). The report recommends an increase of 1.86%, mirroring the year-over-year rise in the consumer price index for Southern California as of March, 2010.
  
  For most single-family residences, this translates to an increase of $2.72, from $147.12 to $149.84. Properties with larger lots pay more. The increase is based on the consumer price index for Southern California.
  
  Those of you who've been around for a while know the history of the LLD. It's what really one of the first things got people thinking about how City Hall manages our finances.
  
  
• An update on the restoration Sycamore Canyon Park, which was damaged in the 2003 Grand Prix Fire. The park has been closed since that time. The City has secured $180,000 in grant funding, and will proceed with restoring the trail and picnic areas. The City will also remove non-native eucalyptus trees and plant sycamores and oaks. Work is expected to commence this coming fall and finish sometime next winter.
  
  
• A report on the traffic signal at Indian Hill Blvd. and 10th St. You'll recall there were several pedestrian accidents there before the City, bowing to pressure from the neighborhood, installed the signal last month.
  
  
• An update on the City's abandoned property ordinance. The staff report by Community Development Director Tony Witt for this item says there are currently 150 Claremont properties in some stage of foreclosure. The City has levied over $120,000 in fines under the ordinance, and around $22,000 has gone uncollected.

City Council Meeting

6:30 PM
225 W. 2nd St. - City Council Chamber
Claremont

City Council Meeting Tonight

The Claremont City Council meets tonight, beginning with a closed session meeting at 5:15pm. The closed session involves negotiations for the 2.66-acre property on Base Line Rd. 1000 feet east of Towne Ave. One other item on the closed session agenda is litigation involving L.A. County and the county's Flood Control District.

The regular session begins at 6:30pm. The agenda seems fairly light. A few items stand out:

• Ginger Elliot, the executive director for Claremont Heritage, will be honored at the beginning of the meeting for her work with Heritage.
  
  
• The City has awarded a three-year contract for custodial services in city-owned buildings and park restrooms to Great Cleaning Services, Inc., an Irvine-based company.
  
  
• In accordance with California Redevelopment Law, Claremont has updated its five-year Redevelopment Implementation Plan for 2010-2014. This one is sure to upset some people, especially who feel that redevelopment ought to be retired in Claremont. Others who might not like this are those opposed to the City's use of eminent domain to take property from one private party in order to give it over for another private party's use.
  

If you'd rather stay in, you can watch the council meeting here.

Claremont City Council
City Hall - Council Chambers
225 Second Street
Claremont, CA 91711

Tempest in a Teapot

Late Tuesday afternoon, just hours before the 5:15 Claremont City Council closed session, the Affordable Housing agenda item that suddenly had appeared, just as suddenly disappeared. Here is the notice of cancellation.

The reason give was that there was a "Notice Problem".

Well, yeah.

We alluded to it in our post of yesterday, pointing out that unless you inhabited City Hall or the City website or--we suppose--had garrulous and informed friends, there'd be no way to know about it. (Without getting too self-referential, we suppose you also would have known if you had read the "Claremont Insider" assiduously--always a good idea.)

There was a bit of confusing discussion of the timing of the Affordable Housing issue. Mayor Yao thought it had come up Saturday; Acting City Manager Ramos said it had come up Friday. Our question: if it had come up Friday, why hadn't it been included in the closed session agenda posted on Friday? Inquiring minds want to know.

On the matter of substance, we also wonder what the issue was. We posed three possibilities yesterday, and our reader posed another. Somehow, we doubt that we are on the mark and suspect that there was some $$$$ issue that somehow came up. After all, the agenda item did list Mr. Marc Gelman, the developer from Enhanced Affordable Development, in a way that implied he was to be a participant. We don't think that Council would have needed him to help discuss air quality issues.

We also don't think the "Notice Problem" had to do with not adequately informing the community about the meeting. Why accept a simple explanation when a more complicated conspiratorial one will do?

All of this is like reading tea leaves or chicken entrails, we realize. Or maybe it's more like Kremlin-watching. Still, when the City fails to provide detailed information, it leaves a vacuum that can best be filled by wild irresponsible speculation.

Affordable Housing Closed Session

[Updated below]

The Claremont City Council, in keeping with its tradition of considering anything substantive only in closed session, has scheduled an extraordinary closed session for this evening, Tuesday, December 11, at 5:15 p.m.

This session was shoe-horned in late on Monday afternoon, just under the legal wire that requires 24-hour notice. That's 24-hour notice if you happen to be passing by the City Hall bulletin boards and read the notices carefully. Or if you inhabit the City website. Otherwise, it's word of mouth.

We don't pretend to know what the subject will be. Anything and everything is fair game under the Brown Act rubrics of "Conference with Real Property Negotiators" and "Price and Terms". Our guess is that somebody sees the avalanche starting and is in a panic. First the EIR calls the site on Baseline dangerous to children's health, then the AQMD weighs in calling for the siting of the affordable housing elsewhere in the city, then Saturday's Courier reports that the Police Commission has gotten off-script and has "identified the plot of land slated for the affordable housing project as one of its top choices for a new police station." (Sorry, no link available. Buy the paper.)

[A reader writes, a couple of hours after this post went up, "Do you really think this City Council could be so enlightened as to see an alternative use for the property? They are probably talking about firing the Police Commission!" Probably.]

Maybe the City will discuss requiring the developer to purchase the item below to mitigate the respiratory health hazard.