Daily Bulletin Opinion on Measure CL Influenced by Supporter

Why the Bulletin Editorial Sounded Like Regurgitated Measure CL Talking Points

It was just a little too pat. The phrases had the ring of a familiar cant even if there was nothing of the truth in them: ...energy-efficiency improvements that will save operating costs in the long run ... $45 per $100,000 of assessed valuation ... long-term investment ... sustainability improvements ... construction costs are low ... modern-day computers ...

It was a bunch of pedestrian nouns decorated with jargonish adjectives.

The words seemed to be cut and pasted from the Yes On CL 4-color glossy mailers that have been arriving at about the rate of one per day in Claremont recently.

It was a disappointment but not much of a surprise, this Daily Bulletin opinion.

Who writes these things?

We have our ideas on this.

Take a look at the masthead below. The Bulletin uses an editorial board. Presumably the editorial positions are hashed out by said board, and whaddya know? The name "Nick Quackenbos fairly jumps out at you.

Click to enlarge

Could this be the selfsame Nick Quackenbos whose name appears as a supporter of Measure CL? We are pretty sure it is. How many N. Q.'s could there be?

Click to enlarge

When we tumbled to this, the similarity of the article to the Measure CL propaganda was instantly explained. We wonder if the Daily Bulletin is willing to reveal whether or not Mr. Quackenbos, a local commercial real estate broker, participated in the discussion leading to the decision of the paper to endorse Measure CL? We think he should have recused himself from that discussion based on his obvious bias and conflict. If not, he should have been excused by Editor Mike Brossart. And if Mr. Quackenbos participated in the decision, did he reveal to the board his public position on Measure CL? And if he participated, was Mr. Brossart careful to include a member, from Claremont, with a counter-balancing bias to ensure robust, informed, and fair discussion?

The Bulletin could clear up any questions about the objectivity of its endorsement of Measure CL by publishing a short statement of the facts of its deliberation and decision.

Meanwhile, we see that the NO on CL people, on their website, have posted a deconstruction of the Bulletin opinion piece. We clip it below along with this link: nocusdbond deconstruction

Although the point and counter-point in the aforementioned deconstruction is lengthy, it is complete. It's beginning to get out, for example, that the first $10,000,000 in bond money, should CL be approved, does not go to the kids, to safety, to technology, to modernization, but rather to bail out the District from a tricky financial scheme it entered into in 2001, where it leased out Claremont High School to investors. This garnered the District an immediate $11,300,000 payment to refurbish the District Offices at 170 San Jose by the 10 freeway but obligates it to an ANNUAL payment of some $930,000. This payment is what the district would like to shift to the taxpayers.

But we digress.

The Bulletin opinion has the air of illegitimacy if Mr. Quackenbos participated in it. But Claremont should not be surprised, The Yes on CL people have their tentacles everywhere in town and, to mix a metaphor, have been assiduously working their traplines in all of the Better Organizations: The Claremont League of Women Voters (endorsed CL without hearing from the opponents), The Claremont Chamber (endorsed CL without hearing from the opponents), Sustainable Claremont (endorsed CL without hearing from the opponents), Claremont teachers' union (endorsed CL without hearing from the opponents and also has a pecuniary interest in its passage), California School Employees Assn (ditto).

Even the Claremont Police Department. Here, here, and here.

Look for the Union Label

The Claremont Unified School District and the Claremont Faculty Association (the district's teacher's union) agreed Friday on a three-year contract that's retroactive to the 2009-2010 school year.

Wes Woods II reported in the Daily Bulletin that the agreement saves the job of 41 teachers who'd been given pink slips earlier this year as part of the district's budget-balancing measures. CUSD had been facing a roughly $6 million deficit over the next 3 years. Woods' article also said the district agreed not to implement the six furlough days that they had proposed. The agreement will have to be ratified by a vote of CFA members.

Woods wrote that the union gave some concessions as well:

Have its members receive $1,500 less per year in benefits contribution, which would save the district $500,000 per year for the next two years without impacting retirement benefits.

Increase the maximum class size and class average in seventh through 12th grades by one student for the next two years. This would save the district $100,000 per year for the next two years.

Wood's article didn't address concerns that the union and the district may have colluded to have the union support the district's upcoming $95 million bond measure in exchange for the concessions. There's been much talk of such a secret agreement, in which the teachers would get their concessions back with bond money once the bond passes. Notice that the agreement came less than 24 hours after the district voted 4-1 to move forward with the bond.

As we've noted, bond money cannot legally be used for teachers' salaries or benefits, so the bond money would have to be shuffled around so that the district can say they're just taking general fund savings made possible by the bond and using those savings on teachers' benefits.

So, we can probably expect CUSD teachers to be working on getting the bond passed and trying to scare parents into voting yes on the bond measure by raising the spectre of teacher layoffs and expanded class sizes.

The concern of collusion between CUSD and the CFA was reinforced yesterday by Claremont Courier a Viewpoint piece titled "Enough is Enough." The Viewpoint author's name withheld at the writer's request.

(Sorry we don't have a link. The Courier piece isn't available online without a Courier subscription.)

The writer said that she had voted for Measure Y in 2000 but was very concerned that CUSD's promised repairs and upgrades were not completed. The writer is very much against this 2010 school bond. The woman also gave $30 a month to the Claremont Educational Foundation's 365 campaign and to a number of other fundraisers at Chaparral Elementary School.

The unnamed writer further wrote of a CUSD faculty member who said that the district's teachers where never going to give in on the furlough days and that they were going "to put a bond out." At the Insider, readers have written us with similar reports of the teachers being told by their union that benefits would be restored if the bond passes.

The Viewpoint writer also pointed out that Glendora's school district, which is ranked higher than CUSD, implemented furlough days without any problems. It's no surprise, then, that Glendora's district isn't having the same degree of financial problems that CUSD has.

It's not surprising to see a piece like that in yesterday's Courier. It's quite likely that the school district and CFA are overreaching with this bond. These are pretty tough economic times, and when district officials and the teachers' union play these sort of dishonest games with voters, they face a backlash.

Most people are inclined to support a school bond when there is a real need. But when "needs" are ginned up in order to circumvent the spirit of the law, these officials and agencies lose all credibility.

School Bond News

Wes Woods II reports today on Thursday's Claremont Unified School District Board of Education meeting where the board voted 4-1 to approve putting a bond of up to $95 million on the November 2 ballot.

Woods quoted a mother of CUSD students as being against the current bond after having supported the last one in 2000:

Parent Kathy Yeager said she was an "enthusiastic supporter" of the 2000 measure Y bond measure, but later "realized we had been duped."

Projects were scaled back or not undertaken, said Yeager, who is a Parent Faculty Association member at Chaparral Elementary School and El Roble Intermediate School.

Yeager also criticized the lack of specifics on the bond, for which no project have been listed, and she said CUSD mismanaged the Measure Y money.

Someone named Bill Fox as speaking in favor of the bond at the board meeting. We recall that a Michael K. Fox and his Rancho Cucamonga company Fox Transportation donated a total $10,000 to the Measure Y campaign. We do not know if they bear any relation to Bill Fox.

Woods also gave some unintentional support for bond proponents. Woods wrote that Measure Y was "a $12.5 million school facilities bond." At $48.9 million, Measure Y actually was four times the amount Bulletin readers will think it was.

CUSD assistant superintendent of business services Lisa Shoemaker was quoted as saying she had no idea how much the campaign would cost. A check of campaign finance records for Measure Y showed that proponents spent $81,386.77 on the Yes on Y campaign. That was by far the most money ever spent on a Claremont election.

As we have noted before, the majority of that money came from businesses that were potential contractors with CUSD.

No Folk Fest This Year

Turns out there won't be a Claremont Folk Festival this year. The Daily Bulletin reported last month that the event was cancelled as a result of some unspecified scheduling conflicts.

Bulletin reporter Wes Woods II interviewed Claremont Folk Music Center owner Ellen Chase-Verdries for the article (no longer posted online):

Chase-Verdries declined to name the acts that caused the scheduling conflicts.

The festival was also not helped by the retirement of Sycamore Elementary School Principal Tom Cooper, who was a "big part of putting this on and in charge of the venue," Chase-Verdries said.

Sycamore Elementary has hosted the festival.

Chase-Verdries said she did not want an interim person from the school being pressured to run the festival.

"Not to sound too `New Age-y,' but there were enough signs from the universe that it would be an uphill battle" to put on the festival, Chase-Verdries said.

Chase-Verdries said in the article that the event will return in May, 2010. Last year's event, with Ben Harper, Jackson Browne, and the ageless Taj Mahal, was fantastic. Let's hope the event makes it back next year.

Page One, Below the Fold

"Apparent Inconsistency Haunts Candidacy"

For those preferring paper-and-ink newspapers to the newfangled e-versions, we present the bottom half of page one of today's Daily Bulletin. We suggest you go to the newstand to get your own copy.

The article referred to in the previous post made the front page.

click on image to enlarge

You've got to think it's not your day when you are running for Claremont city council and you have to decline comment on an article until you can consult with your attorney. The article explains, "...an attorney was going over the statement and she [Bridget Healy] would make a comment after the attorney's review."

We are reserving a space here for her comment, and just as soon as we receive it, or read it, we will put it in.


We can't imagine what her mouthpiece will tell her to say. Perhaps it depends on what the definition of "is" is. Probably it will be something along the lines of, "there's no inconsistency at all here", or maybe she'll try to foist the whole thing off on her hapless Honorary Chairs, Georgeann Andrus, Jim Merrill, and Mary Jane Merrill.

And what about that campaign manager, Gary Riley? As they say, "With friends like that..." Any statement that puts your candidate's name, Bridget Healy in this case, in the same paragraph with "low-down, underhanded, lie, cheat, [and] steal" well, that's got to be one for future textbooks.

See our first post on the this issue here.

Daily Bulletin Election Endorsements

The Daily Bulletin's editorial board has made its endorsement for the March 3rd Claremont City Council election.

We won't spoil the surprise. Click here to see the Bulletin's editorial.

News of the News

Newspapers have been taking it on the chin for some time now, not just from the Insider and not just about their proofreading.

The Tribune Company's recent bankruptcy filing is merely the latest example of the extreme set of troubles currently hitting the print journalism industry: online competition for classified ads (think Craigslist); a dead real estate market leading to fewer real estate ads; a global recession; rising labor, energy and material costs; and a steady, general decline in subscribers.

James Surowiecki, who writes the New Yorker's Financial Page column, had an essay in the magazine last week about the paradoxical decline in newspaper readership at a time when more people than ever are getting their information from newspaper websites:

....The peculiar fact about the current crisis is that even as big papers have become less profitable they’ve arguably become more popular. The blogosphere, much of which piggybacks on traditional journalism’s content, has magnified the reach of newspapers, and although papers now face far more scrutiny, this is a kind of backhanded compliment to their continued relevance. Usually, when an industry runs into the kind of trouble that [marketing scholar Theodore] Levitt was talking about, it’s because people are abandoning its products. But people don’t use the Times less than they did a decade ago. They use it more. The difference is that today they don’t have to pay for it. The real problem for newspapers, in other words, isn’t the Internet; it’s us. We want access to everything, we want it now, and we want it for free. That’s a consumer’s dream, but eventually it’s going to collide with reality: if newspapers’ profits vanish, so will their product.

Does that mean newspapers are doomed? Not necessarily. There are many possible futures one can imagine for them, from becoming foundation-run nonprofits to relying on reader donations to that old standby the deep-pocketed patron. It’s even possible that a few papers will be able to earn enough money online to make the traditional ad-supported strategy work. But it would not be shocking if, sometime soon, there were big American cities that had no local newspaper; more important, we’re almost sure to see a sharp decline in the volume and variety of content that newspapers collectively produce. For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime—intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on—and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can’t last. Soon enough, we’re going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is.

As Surowiecki points out, newspapers have been slow to come to the realization that they are not in the newspaper business but are in the information biz. This short-sightedness, along with considerable pride, has prevented newspapers from doing what other online information services do best: link to a wide variety of outside news sources, including sites belonging to rivals. It's what Surowiecki calls the "not invented here" or walled garden mentality.

For news consumers, it's all a good deal. If you're looking for news, you can get it for free from the New York Times' or the Daily Bulletin's websites, or any number of other news and information sites. However, the free news party can't continue forever, and something's gotta give at some point. Some of that reckoning may take the form of more layoffs at places like the Dean Singleton-owned Los Angeles News Group's papers (of which the Daily Bulletin is one) and at the Tribune-owned Los Angeles Times. And all those layoffs eventually will eventually result in a decline in the quality and quantity of that free information we are all getting.

Singleton, who runs MediaNews Group, certainly has made no secret of his desire to downsize and to consolidate his operations - What's so important about having writers with local knowledge about the communities we're reporting on? says Singleton. Last October, former Claremont Courier reporter Gary Scott wrote about Singleton's outsourcing ideas:

Dean Singleton, speaking Monday to the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, urged his belt-tightening brethren to consider "consolidating and outsourcing news operations" in these tough economic times. From USA Today:

MediaNews Group CEO Dean Singleton, who also serves as chairman of the board of The Associated Press, told the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association that papers should explore outsourcing in nearly every aspect of their operations.

-snip-

Singleton said sending copyediting and design jobs overseas may even be called for.

"One thing we're exploring is having one news desk for all of our newspapers in MediaNews ... maybe even offshore," he said during the speech.

Singleton added after the speech, "In today's world, whether your desk is down the hall or around the world, from a computer standpoint, it doesn't matter."

And, earlier this month Singleton consolidated his Inland Empire copy desks for the Daily Bulletin, the San Bernardino Sun, and the Redlands Daily Facts into one office in West Covina with LA News Group's San Gabriel Valley operations. Gary Scott reported on that as well.

If this talk of outsourcing by local news organizations sounds familiar, you might be recalling James McPherson, the man behind the online Pasadena Now. In May, 2007, McPherson made the national news when he hired some workers in India to cover the local Pasadena scene, including city council meetings, via the Internet. Other less well-known online news sources quickly followed suit.

The McPherson news, even in the Internet Age, apparently didn't get around all that fast. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd jumped right on the story on this past November 29th, 18 months after the story first broke.

The mainstream media's going to have to move a bit faster if they hope to compete with a person typing away in Bangalore, India, for a penny a word, as Dowd noted:

[McPherson] said he got the idea to outsource about a year ago, sitting in his Pasadena home, where he puts out Pasadena Now with his wife, Candice Merrill. Macpherson had worked in the ’90s for designers like Richard Tyler and Alan Flusser, and had outsourced some of his clothing manufacturing to Vietnam.

So, he thought, “Where can I get people who can write the word for less?” In a move that sounded so preposterous it became a Stephen Colbert skit, he put an ad on Craigslist for Indian reporters and got a flood of responses.

He fired his seven Pasadena staffers — including five reporters — who were making $600 to $800 a week, and now he and his wife direct six employees all over India on how to write news and features, using telephones, e-mail, press releases, Web harvesting and live video streaming from a cellphone at City Hall.

“I pay per piece, just the way it was in the garment business,” he says. “A thousand words pays $7.50.”

A penny for your thoughts? Now I knew my days were numbered.

Kids Being Kids; Parents Being Kids, Too

Photo Uploaded to Flickr by floodllama

At the Insider staff Thanksgiving (pictured, right) the latest community kerfluffle occupied much of the table-talk, and the topic continues to be of interest around town.

The Daily Bulletin followed up on the Claremont Indian-Pilgrim Wars with a story about the backlash Michelle Rajeha faced after she and 15-20 other parents sent an email to a Condit teacher expressing their concerns about the annual Thanksgiving feast this past Tuesday. Traditionally Condit and Mountain View kindergartners had in the past dressed up as Pilgrims and Indians.

In case you've been out of the media stream this past week (lucky you!), the whole event devolved from Thanksgiving feast to media feast, and Rajeha claims she had to contact the police because of a some of the more hateful phone calls and emails she has received.

Yesterday's Bulletin article said:

At the Tuesday feast, Raheja said her 5-year-old daughter was harassed. A parent dressed up as an American Indian, Raheja said, "did a war dance around my daughter." The parent then told her daughter and others to "go to hell," she said.

Raheja, a UC Riverside instructor, said she has contacted the Claremont Police Department and the UC Riverside police because of the hateful phone calls and e-mails.

On Wednesday, she said she had received more than 250 "hateful and intimidating" e-mails.

"They go from being anxious about political correctness to calling me (an epithet). They don't know my daughter's name, but they've said hateful and disgusting things about my daughter."

There have been as many positive e-mails from people in Claremont and worldwide, too, Raheja said.

The Bulletin also had an editorial yesterday that concluded that maybe the adults have forgotten something or someone in this whole exercise:

The main point here is that debate at a school board meeting is entirely appropriate, but a protest ought not involve kindergartners. Innocence is lost soon enough; 5-year-olds should not be used to promote an agenda.

We don't hold ourselves out to be experts on any of this parenting or educational stuff, but it sure seems as if whenever we hear the magic words, "It's about the kids," it's really about the parents.

Joan Acocella in the November 17th issue of the New Yorker magazine had a book review titled "The Child Trap" that examined several recent works touching on the increase in overparenting by so-called "helicopter parents." Acocella noted the paradox of overprotective parents who are also overly demanding of their children:

This used to be known as “spoiling.” Now it is called “overparenting”—or “helicopter parenting” or “hothouse parenting” or “death-grip parenting.” The term has changed because the pattern has changed. It still includes spoiling—no rules, many toys—but two other, complicating factors have been added. One is anxiety. Will the child be permanently affected by the fate of the hamster? Did he touch the corpse, and get a germ? The other new element—at odds, it seems, with such solicitude—is achievement pressure. The heck with the child’s feelings. He has a nursery-school interview tomorrow. Will he be accepted? If not, how will he ever get into a good college? Overparenting is the subject of a number of recent books, and they all deplore it in the strongest possible terms.

....Overparented children typically face not just a heavy academic schedule but also a strenuous program of extracurricular activities—tennis lessons, Mandarin classes, ballet. After-school activities are thought to impress college admissions officers. At the same time, they keep kids off the street. (In the words of one book, “You can’t smoke pot or lose your virginity at lacrosse practice.”) When summer comes, the child is often sent to a special-skills camp. Extracurricular activities and camps are areas where competition between parents, thought to be a major culprit in this whole business, is likely to surface. How do you explain to the other mother that while her child spent the summer examining mollusks at marine-biology camp, yours was at a regular old camp, stringing beads and eating s’mores?

In her review, Acocella also mentioned the work of Hara Estroff Marano, the author of “A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting":

Marano assembles her own arsenal of neurological research, guaranteed to scare the pants off any hovering parent. As children explore their environment by themselves—making decisions, taking chances, coping with any attendant anxiety or frustration—their neurological equipment becomes increasingly sophisticated, Marano says. “Dendrites sprout. Synapses form.” If, on the other hand, children are protected from such trial-and-error learning, their nervous systems “literally shrink.”

Such atrophy, Marano claims, may be undetectable in the early years, when overattentive parents are doing for the child what he should be doing on his own, but once he goes off to college the damage becomes obvious. Marano sees an epidemic of psychological breakdown on college campuses: “The middle of the night may find a SWAT team of counselors calming down a dorm wing after having crisis-managed an acute manic episode or yet another incident of self-mutilation.” Overparented students who avoid or survive college meltdowns are still impaired, Marano argues. Having been taught that the world is full of dangers, they are risk-averse and pessimistic. (“It may be that robbing children of a positive sense of the future is the worst form of violence that parents can do to them,” she writes.) Schooled in obedience to authority, they will be poor custodians of democracy. Finally—and, again, she stresses this—their robotic behavior will threaten “American leadership in the global marketplace.” That was the factor that frightened parents into hovering. And by their hovering they prevented their children from developing the very traits—courage, nimbleness, outside-the-box thinking—that are required by the new economic order.

All this overparenting and the atrophied psyches Acocella speaks of certainly sounds a lot like the apotheosis of the Claremont Unified School District's philosophy of education and child development. This may explain the lack of intellectual flexibility we've seen expressed over the years both with CUSD boards and the Claremont city government.

Perhaps that "robotic behavior" that Marano fears is really what CUSD and our other local leaders want. Let's hope they don't get what they wish for.

Yet More Mail

A reader commented on the Daily Bulletin's coverage of Claremont's residential trash collection rate hike, which a number of citizens believe is being implemented in an underhanded manner by the City and the City Council. The reader took issue with what he/she felt was uncritical thinking on the part of the Bulletin's reporter, Wes Woods II:

DATE: Thursday, October 9, 2008 12:47 PM
SUBJECT: DAILY BULLETIN ARTICLE ON TRASH FEES
TO: Claremont Buzz

I AM APPALLED THAT THE REPORTER FOR THE DAILY BULLETIN TOTALLY MISSED THE POINT ABOUT THE CITY INCREASE IN RESIDENTIAL RATES FOR TRASH. He (or perhaps his editors) mislead the public by saying that a part of the letter sent out by the city to 10,000 residents included a sentence that said residential fees WOULD be increased to the CPI every year. It is clear (and perhaps the only clear thing about the letter) to anyone who received that letter that the word RESIDENTIAL was never used in reference to residential fees. The reporter further says “The confusion appears to stem from the fact that in one portion of the notice that deals with a price hike to several classes of services, the single-family residential service is not mentioned”. TRUE, but then here is the obfuscation, “But in another portion, which discusses the application of a new Consumer Price Index fee, the notice states that single-family residential service is included”. NOT TRUE AT ALL. The reporter could have at least quoted the sentence from the city letter that city staff says refers to single-family residences “ In addition to the proposed rate increases listed in the above table (they are referring to a chart above showing increases in multi-family, commercial and bin rental fees) , an annual increase to all solid waste service rates at the rate of inflation as determined by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is being proposed”. In that way he could let the public objectively decide whether that sentence meant to include SFR in the proposed fee increases, but he chose not to do so. I guess it is a matter of what “is” is.

The reporter then goes on to say that “The city analyst”, and he means Anna Sanchez, “said the wording on the notice outlining a price increase for single-family residential pickups was spelled out, and there was no intention of deceiving residents”. Notice that he is not quoting her, merely paraphrasing so we do not know if she actually said that or not. But we do know that on the videotape of the July 22nd City Council meeting when this issue was discussed, Ms Sanchez, in her report to the council on this item, clearly stated that staff was not proposing to increase single-family residential rates (you can get a copy of the tape from the Claremont Public Library for free or view it at city hall by requesting it from the city clerk or buying a copy for $5 and see and hear her exact words on tape). So where is this reporter getting his information?

It is disappointing to see a new reporter get it so wrong so soon in his career, and I hope that your readers will write letters to the editor correcting this misrepresentation. At the very least , if they oppose this CPI increase, which will be in place FOREVER with no review by the council again, that they each write a letter of protest stating their name ,address parcel number (assessor’s id number on their property tax bill) and stating which rate increase they oppose( in this case single-family residential CPI increase in trash fees) and get it to the Claremont City Clerk on or before Oct 14th. If they want to be present at the public hearing which will be held at the regular City Council meeting on Oct 14th no earlier than 7pm (we do not yet know the agenda item it will be but they cannot hold a public hearing before 7pm so people should get there no later than 7pm), that would be great. We are appealing to the sense of fair play and doing the right thing that we hope the council will consider and not impose the CPI on single-family residential rates as we pay the highest rates out of 17 cities (16 pay less than we do)and we feel it was not properly or clearly noticed.

And thanks for your coverage of this and other important issues that don’t seem to get coverage in the media, or at least, in many cases, not competently reported upon

Intrepid Columnist Braves Blogosphere Year II

Congratulations are in order for Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen, whose blog last week celebrated its first birthday. Allen had a print column on the happy occasion:

My 10th anniversary as a Bulletin columnist slipped away last spring, as best as these things can be pinned down.

I say that because even though my first every-single-week column was April 26, 1998, I'd managed to sneak 19 of them into the paper at random points in the previous 13 months.

So the anniversary of my column is hard to explain...much like my column's appeal.

What's easier to pinpoint is the date I became a blogger: Sept. 12, 2007. Or one year ago last Friday.

Butler, bring me a cake and candle.

In case we're not past the what's-a-blog discussion yet, it's an online column. You know, on what President Bush calls the Internets.

Allen also blogged about the anniversary:

Based on comments I get, most of you are happy enough with this blog. And that's satisfying. I wish it were better, frankly, and were blogging my fulltime gig it would be. But I barely have time to think about it, really.

So this is what you get for the hour or two a day I can spare -- something off-the-cuff, mildly entertaining, more personal and casual than my columns (is that possible?), plus responses to many of your comments.

Some stats I've been pondering as I look to the future: Although there are readers at any point of the day or evening, on weekdays there's a peak around 9 or 10 a.m., and then a second peak around 4 p.m. Hmm.

And while weekends have the lightest readership, the 250-ish people reading then, compared to 300-ish to 500-ish on weekdays, is higher than I'd have expected.

In response, the boss has suggested that I post not just weekday mornings but in the afternoons as well, to give the morning people an excuse to check back for something other than fresh comments and, of course, to rack up more page views.

"It doesn't have to be long," he says. "Just something like 'I had a burrito at lunch.'"

Uh, well, I'm skeptical anyone would check back for dispatches like that. But I can kinda see his point. I could do with some shorter posts.

Daily Bulletin: Baseline Project "Effectively Killed"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baseline Site Woes

The Daily Bulletin editorial board this weekend weighed in on Claremont's troubled Baseline affordable housing project. The Bulletin's conclusion: put it out of its misery. We couldn't find the editorial online, but provide a low-quality a scan here:



The Bulletin opinion concludes,

At Tuesday's meeting, council members will...no doubt take another look at alternate sites for the project, some of which are closer to schools and public transit than the Base Line land.

They should maintain the same zeal to get an affordable-housing project built at one of those alternate places...

In reaching this conclusion, the Bulletin reprised some of the points made many times earlier: the USC study cited in the environmental impact report showed freeway vehicle exhaust "detrimental to residents, especially children." However, the silver bullet seemed to be the decision by Los Angeles County to disqualify projects within 500 feet of a freeway.

Of course, Council could proceed by finding buckets of money to make up the shortfall, but to do that it appears that the City would have to have a live project--such as the one by Enhanced Affordable Development with a detailed design and that has undergone environmental scrutiny. As Will Bigham details here, City staffer Brian Desatnik has been busy trying to get Enhanced Affordable Development to walk the plank; failing that, Desatnik plans to push them. Bigham reports,

On Wednesday, Desatnik sent Marc Gelman, CEO of Enhanced Affordable Development, an e-mail seeking to terminate the exclusive negotiating agreement [ENA] between the city and Enhanced.

Desatnik asked Gelman to sign the termination agreement before 2 p.m. Friday. If it was not signed, Desatnik said, the city "intend(s) to exercise our unilateral authority to terminate the (exclusive negotiations agreement)," Desatnik said.

The e-mail exchange is quite informative; we include it at the end of this post.

All in all, the city council will have a lot to discuss at its Tuesday meeting, (February 12, 6:30 p.m. at Taylor Hall [not named for Ellen Taylor so far as we can determine, but we have to check with Judy Wright], 1775 N. Indian Hill, corner of Scripps). Don't imagine for a minute, though, that the council discussion will be free-wheeling; council members will have already been briefed on their roles by City Staff, and the speeches will likely be mere set-pieces. Maybe, as the staff report says, there will be a study session: [page 3 of the link, "Staff also schedule a study session [sic] with the council on alternative sites...].

While all this is going on, life imitates art over at the Courier. Some time ago we posted correspondence we received imagining how low the Courier might go. It went there last week in its article containing, among other things, the bit about La Verne City Manager and Claremont resident Marty Lomelli eating a sandwich. Oy.

* * * * *

As promised, here is the email exchange referred to by Bigham above [E-mail addresses have been slightly altered to help keep the bots away, and a cell phone number has been redacted].

From: "Marc Gelman"
To: "Brian Desatnik"
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 19:14:50 -0800
Subject: RE: Termination and Release Agreement
Message-ID:

Dear Brian:
We have no intention of signing any release that would potentially release the City from any liability or obligation to defend and indemnify us for any claims that may arise out of the political, zoning, environmental studies or other work done on this property by the City, when we've been bombarded with potential threats of lawsuits by local residents and interest groups.

Most importantly, we have difficulty understanding why (after 18 months) there is this sudden rush to get this termination signed when last week you were trying to rush us to sign a DDA. Also, it is strange that the voice mails from you and Tony suggest that the Council has already decided to terminate the ENA when there hasn't been any public discussion on this issue. Unless this is another attempt to replace us with another developer, the ENA should be terminated the same way like it was approved, as an item on the Council agenda presented to the public. We are taking a lot of unnecessary heat in the press and on the Internet and we can't let the City dump their political garbage on us and make it look like we are walking away from something that we have worked very hard for the people of Claremont.

Sincerely, Marc Gelman, CEO
Enhanced Affordable Development Co.
4221 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 260
Los Angeles, CA 90010
Dir: (323) 634-0561, ext. 215
Cell: (323) xxx-xxxx
Fax: (310) 356-6007
marcgatenhancedaffordable.com

_________________________

From: Brian Desatnik [mailto:bdesatnikatci.claremont.ca.us]
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 1:41 PM
To: Marc Gelman
Cc: David Rubin
Subject: Termination and Release Agreement

Marc: Please find attached a termination and release agreement. As you know, I requested documentation as to your third party costs pursuant to the ENA last Thursday and have yet to receive a response. Therefore there is a blank in number 3 of the agreement to be filled in upon our receipt of your third-party cost documentation. Please execute this document and return to me via fax or e-mail by Friday, February 8th at 2 p.m. If we do not receive a signature from you by this time we intend to exercise our unilateral authority to terminate the ENA. Call me if you have any questions.

Brian Desatnik
Housing and Redevelopment Manager
City of Claremont
909) 399-5342
909) 399-5366 fax
bdesatnikatci.claremont.ca.us

Farewell, Leo

Daily Bulletin writer Leo Greene passed away overnight Friday, the Daily Bulletin reported today in an article by Deputy Managing Editor Jeff Keating.

Green, who was diagnosed in August, 2006, with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), wrote about his journey through the progression of his illness in a remarkable series of columns for the Bulletin, as today's article noted:

In the newspaper and on his Web site, Leo's candid assessments of the toll the disease was taking on his body were countered in his words and pictures by what he described as a growing spiritual awareness, increased concern for the needs of those around him - especially family - and a pressing desire to pass on his skills and life lessons to the generations to follow.

"Having a notion of when the end might come allows time to prepare, to adjust priorities," Leo wrote in a column published one year ago today. "Spiritual knowledge can be found in an awareness of the life around us."

Greene's columns are maintained by the Bulletin on a page called "Leo's Story." Greene also maintained a blog where he posted letters from readers.

PBS station KCET's "Life and Times" also profiled Greene.

Funeral arrangements are pending. Our condolences go out to Greene's family and to the Bulletin staff, where Greene was a beloved friend and mentor.

Police [Station] in Our Time

Yesterday's Daily Bulletin had a funny editorial suggesting possible land deals to get Claremont that land in Pomona at Bonita and Towne. Claremont wants to build a new police station there but forgot to tell its neighbor they were planning this. What's next, the Sudetenland?

Of course, Pomona Mayor Norma Torres is a good deal tougher than Neville Chamberlain. And, as David Allen notes in today's Bulletin, Pomona's better-armed than Claremont.

We think the Claremont-Pomona land switch may be a good idea. Or better yet, how about a council switch? We may be on to something with that one--let's do a reality show! Something along the lines of ABC's "Wife Swap."

We'd love to see how Councilmember Ellen Taylor's snootiness (snottiness?) plays without the backup of the Claremont 400. It'd be something like the bully who turns around and finds himself all alone. "Council Swap," coming this fall to your local station. Let's do it!

_______________________

Overheard at Sunday's Claremont Museum of Art Grand Opening:

A 40-year Claremont resident looking around Village West and seeing the parking structure, the new housing and all the construction for the Casa 245 hotel and new movie theater, commented that Claremont was becoming just like any other town. The person told their spouse that maybe they should move to Sierra Madre.

There's some irony in that comment given the hubbub in that town over the recently passed Measure V anti-growth initiative.

New Police Station

The city has a solution as to the where to locate Claremont's new police station. According to today's Daily Bulletin, the city is looking to a plot at the corner of Bonita and Towne--in Pomona!

As the Will Bigham article indicates, letting Claremont build a new police facility is the least Pomona could do since that city's criminals insist on crossing over into our fair city to commit their crimes (at least that's what some police officials and a good number of Claremont 400ers believe).

Pomona's mayor Norma Torres didn't seem to thrilled with the idea, however, since Claremont has long used it's neighbor to point to as a comparison for any problem (crime, homelessness, redevelopment, municipal finance, etc...).

Maybe we shouldn't tell her about Claremont secret motto: Thank God for Pomona!

Monday Morning News

Today's Daily Bulletin had an article by Will Bigham on former President Clinton's lecture at Bridges Auditorium yesterday. The online article includes a video link that features a possible future president.

______________________

Bigham also had a piece on the new Claremont Stars amateur women's soccer team, which will compete in the Women's Premier Soccer League. The new team will practice at El Roble Intermediate School and play its games at Claremont High.

For those not familiar with soccer, the Stars are a club team--a much more serious and competitive soccer group fielding boys and girls teams for different age groups. Players have to tryout to win a place on a Stars team, and coaching is more skilled and professional than AYSO, which uses parent volunteers. Also, the Stars can recruit players from anywhere to play for them.

Each summer, the Stars host their Summer Classic tournament, which draws teams from all over the U.S., as well as Canada and Europe.

In a way, the Stars are in competition with the more amateur and volunteer AYSO for the field space on city and school district practice fields, and the downside to the new team is that they add another group that besides occupying the fields will create a good deal of wear-and-tear on the facilities.

News Briefs

Will Bigham in today's Daily Bulletin reports that the family of an 83-year-old pedestrian killed at Mountain Ave. and Ninth St. last year has filed a $15 million claim against the City of Claremont, alleging that the city should have installed a crosswalk at the intersection where the accident occurred.

_______________________

Bigham also had a short note on the city's sustainability forum scheduled for this Saturday at the Alexander Hughes Center from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. As we noted yesterday, the League of Women Voters for the Claremont Area is co-sponsoring the event.

We are always struck by the irony implicit in Claremont's and the League's call for sustainability. League stalwarts like Judy Wright, Diann Ring, Ellen Taylor, and Helaine Goldwater talk a good game about the subject while at the same time supporting Claremont's dependence on sales tax revenue from Roger Hogan's Toyota dealership.

Sure, Hogan sells a lot of Priuses, but he also sells a lot of gas-guzzling, greenhouse emission producing 4Runners, Tacomas, Highlanders, Sequoias and such. According to the city's website, Hogan's Claremont Toyota is sixth largest Toyota dealership in the world in terms of sales volume. (Notice the big pickup on Hogan's website?)

Pitzer Meets the Prez

The Daily Bulletin reported today that President Bush will present 22-year-old Pitzer College student Hannah Locke with President's Volunteer Service Award. Locke has been the volunteer coordinator for the Jumpstart program at Pitzer. Jumpstart began at Yale University 14 year ago and offers college students an opportunity for community service by working in early childhood education.

Bush will present Locke with a lapel pin today in Los Angeles. We were worried that the President might not be make the ceremony after reading in The Onion of a sticky situation that he was having trouble extricating himself from. However, President Bush did make it and will be in Southern California for a short visit.

Claremont in the News

Bits and pieces found in the Daily Bulletin:

Police stopped a trio of home young burglars, reports Melissa Pinion-Whitt.

The Claremont United Church of Christ has an anti-Iraq War art statement set up in front of it, according to a brief article by Will Bigham the Bulletin's "The Buzz" section.

[NOTE: This post originally contained the entire briefs from the Daily Bulletin's reporters Pinion-Whitt and Bigham. A reader has pointed out that these items are copyrighted and should not be reproduced in their entirety without the paper's permission. We have corrected accordingly.]

Media Matters

Question: Is the Claremont Courier a dying institution?

There's a lot of talk going on now about the role of newspapers in the digital age. The PBS show Frontline recently did a four-part series called "News War" that looked at the future of the news profession. The series included a look at blogs and their contribution to two events: the downfall of former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and the retirement of Dan Rather from CBS.

One person skeptical about the power of blogging is Columbia School of Journalism dean and New Yorker writer Nicholas Lemann. Frontline interviewed Lemann for their report, and he has some pointed observations regarding the relationship of journalism to blogging.

The third episode of the series spent a good portion of the segment looking at the Los Angeles Times and the struggle between the editor and publisher and the Tribune Co., which owns the Times. There does seem to be a real struggle between the media conglomerates that own most of the news outlets in the U.S. and the idea of journalism as a kind of public service. Like most service industries, the news business is undergoing an efficiency craze--make fewer people do the same job or more.

But where does that leave a paper like the Courier? Is there a niche market for extremely localized news? Or do papers like the Courier end up being not much more than Lemann's description of blogs: the equivalent of church newsletters?

For a time, the Courier did a pretty good job reporting local issues. Reporters like Gary Scott or Chris Bray were independent enough thinkers to look beneath the surface of an issue and report the news in context. But the revolving door of reporters at the Courier hasn't allowed the new ones to develop a deep enough understanding of the community's dynamics before they move on.

And, if the Courier seems bad, the Daily Bulletin in many ways is worse. The Bulletin has greater resources than the Courier, but it doesn't allow reporters like Will Bigham or Jason Newell to do much more than sketch out an issue. As a result, things are presented in black-and-white, without much of the nuance a complicated subject like the water company buyout requires. Even when the Bulletin ran a special last Sunday on the water issue, it still missed many points and accepted official statements without really looking at the facts.

For instance, Claremont Councilmember Ellen Taylor in a recent Bulletin article attributed the lack of movement on the the city's prospective water company purchase to "micro-management" (meaning Councilmember Jackie McHenry). Yet, neither Taylor, Sandy Baldonado or Peter Yao (who claims to be for the purchase) moved forward with a proposal in the last year for an eminent domain proceeding. Taylor claims that McHenry and Councimember Corey Calaycay were opposed to using eminent domain, but no proposal was ever considered. Taylor was in the majority on the issue. Why didn't she do something? And what about last year's eminent domain initiative, Prop. 90, putting the kibosh on such proceedings until after the November election?

These are the sorts of questions the Bulletin should have asked but failed to. Blogs for local news exist because traditional news outlets often overlook the nuances of events.

So, where does that leave the Courier? One day in the not-so-distant future, the Courier may come up for sale. If someone like former Mayor Diann Ring decides to buy it (as was rumored a few years back), then the paper becomes something worse than a church newsletter. It becomes a uncritical propaganda sheet, and that isn't really journalism either.