Monday Morning Mailbag

We received a comment in response to our Saturday post in which we quoted a 2000 California First Amendment Coalition press release regarding the City of Claremont's Black Hole Award. The release included some choice quotes from Karen Rosenthal, Claremont's mayor at the time.

As one reason for the award, the CFAC piece cited Claremont's proposal to station a "mental health professional" at City Council meetings to evaluate the potential dangers presented by speakers during public comment. The professional would have provided the City grounds to have offending speakers removed from the council chambers.

In case you've forgotten, the author of the staff report for that proposal was former Assistant City Manager Bridget Healy, who is chair-elect to the Claremont Chamber of Commerce board and who ran unsuccessfully for council in 2009.

Our reader wrote:

Date: Sat, March 26, 2011 5:28:47 PM
To: claremontbuzz@yahoo.com
Subject: crazy

"...its short-lived proposal to have mental health professionals standing by to assess the threat level posed by citizen speakers at public meetings..."

My guess is they dropped the proposal to have mental health professionals at city council meetings because the mental health professionals would have been able to witness the behavior of the city council members. "Yes, I was noticing the unstable person at the front of the room who keeps sighing loudly and rolling her eyes when other people speak. Have your officer keep a close eye on that one -- she covers about thirty pages in the DSM-IV."

(Pause)

"Also, about the man on the side of the dais who keeps turning beet red and screaming threats at people..."

At the end of the note, the reader alluded to Bridget Healy's former boss in Claremont and in Indio. Here we see him in all his red-faced glory as he does self-inflicted damage to his reputation:

Heard This One Before?

Former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard (photo, left) may be settled into retirement, but he continues to cast a long shadow over the city of Indio, where Southard fled to in 2005 after it became clear his days here were numbered.

Just as was the case after he left Claremont, Southard remains a factor in Indio's politics. Southard, you'll recall, engineered a golden parachute for himself earlier this year, leaving Indio to contend with the $9 million budget deficit he left in his wake. Now he's a humble pensioner struggling to make ends meet on $255,600 a year from his CalPERS retirement plan, of which Claremont is on the hook for $131,500, according to the Daily Bulletin.

The Desert Sun reported last month that most of the candidates for Indio's November 2nd city council election are running as fast as they can from Southard's record:

During a meeting with The Desert Sun's editorial board last week, five of the six Indio council candidates distanced themselves from controversial former city manager Glenn Southard.

The only candidate expressing full support was Elaine Holmes, a local businesswoman who helped organize a half-page newspaper ad commending Southard for his work after he retired amid the credit card saga.

Maybe Holmes' support is part of the reason she's also the only candidate to get a $1,000 donation from Southard.

When he was still in Claremont, Southard never shied away from maneuvering behind the scenes in city elections. Perhaps our man Glenn is angling for a consulting gig with Indio and is just trying to ensure he has a friendly face on their council when he makes his pitch. A call to arms has been circulating Indio, and it seem that some citizens there are trying to head Southard off at the pass by removing the incumbents who supported Southard and his policies.

Strange, isn't it, that Southard somehow managed to elicit the same "throw the bums out" fervor in Indio that he did in Claremont? And, just as he did here, Southard slipped off just as things were heating up, leaving the sitting council members to take the fall for the wreckage he wrought. As a result, the Indio voters are feeling mighty chippy:

CITIZENS OF INDIO:

A group of concerned Indio citizens have formed a "Committee to Oppose Melanie Fesmire, Gene Gilbert and Ben Godfrey for Indio City Council, 2010". This committee wants to remind the taxpayers of Indio about the past few years of City Council issues and why everyone should vote against the incumbents.

The issues are simple: honesty, integrity, character, and leadership.

The Indio City Council has repeatedly said "we have $14 million dollars in reserves and we do not have to lay off employees". Even the public spoke out about financial concerns. The incumbents lied to us the taxpayers. They failed miserably to be honest, truthful, with integrity and show leadership. Show up to heal the current City of Indio Council and The People we are hoping to replace them.


COME

Date: October 19th – Tuesday, 6:00PM SCSH Club House

Bring your questions and if you have a broom Sweeping bring it to show that we want to sweep out the Incumbents

See more below the signs and make sure you pass this to everyone you know that votes in Indio. Help save our city !

What are we the voting public to make of this failed leadership?

· Are we to turn our heads?

· Are we to simply overlook the facts that they chose not to lead by example?

· Are we to settle for City Council members who are not trustworthy?

· City Council members who do not have character?

Are we to believe their word has any value?

So when you hear them say "I'm a leader with honesty and integrity", you know these are untruths and their prior actions speak louder than words. For these reasons SHOULDN'T CHARACTER MATTER?

Our group is supported by donations and we need money to purchase signs -

Call:
THE COMMITTEE TO OPPOSE INDIO CITY COUNCIL INCUMBENTS
PHONE # 760-342-6115
or Email : NOT4INCUMBENTS@AOL.COM

The incumbents of Indio are not deserving of your vote to be re-elected.

SHOULDN'T CHARACTER MATTER?

SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW THAT LIVES IN INDIO TODAY

Southard Redux

Former Claremont city manager Glenn Southard is the subject of a Steve Lopez column in the LA Times today. Lopez holds Southard up as an example of the excesses in the city manager profession.

In addition to the perks we and others noticed, Lopez noted that Southard, who went to the city of Indio in 2005, received a $30,000 signing bonus with his 2007 contract. Lopez also went to lay out some of the other hidden benefits Southard got while in Indio:

Southard's contract called for a $50,000 life insurance policy and a second policy, for good measure, valued at $500,000. In addition to city contributions to his pension with the California Public Employees Retirement System, "City agrees to deposit the maximum sum allowed" into a separate, deferred retirement fund known as a 457. That put the city on the hook for as much as $22,000 a year more.

He was given 30 days of vacation time the day he started work, with 30 additional days (six weeks) per year. "Such vacation may be carried over, if not used, with unlimited accumulation," said the contract, which allowed him to accept cash, instead, for up to 120 hours of vacation time each year.

In addition, the contract called for 90 days of sick leave, health insurance, a $600 monthly car allowance, 13 paid holidays and two personal days annually.

Besides all of those generous gifts, Lopez says that Southard was also able to buy two years worth of retirement (part of a golden parachute Southard engineered under the cover of downsizing Indio's city staff). That meant that, as Lopez writes, Southard got seven years of retirement credit for five years of work.

As we noted previously, Southard was also able to accumulate the equivalent of $162,000 in unused vacation and sick leave, which he cashed out upon retirement. We're still trying to run down how much of that accrued time counted towards his final year of salary, the figure used in determining Southard's pension payments.

It's not Robert Rizzo territory, but it still stings, especially when Claremonters are stuck with a good portion of the unfunded part Southard's CalPERS retirement bill.

Pension Tension

To follow on Friday's post about Bell, CalPERS, and Glenn Southard, we came across a New York Times article by Ron Lieber titled "The Coming Class War Over Public Pensions." (The NYT has toned the title down to "Battle Looms Over Huge Costs of Public Pensions.")

Lieber writes that our labor force is evolving into a two-class system. On the one hand are public employees, who continue to receive generous, taxpayer-funded defined benefit pensions with built-in cost of living increases. On the other are private sector employees, most of whom do not have pensions but who may, if they work at the right place and happen to be savers, have 401(k) or IRA accounts in which they, not taxpayers, bear all of the risk.

According to Lieber, taxpayers will likely be asked to rescue underfunded public pension plans for cities and states when those begin to go underwater. As Claremont city council member Peter Yao said a couple weeks ago, our own employee' CalPERS pension account is underfunded to the tune of up to $50 million, something that the majority of the council (Elderkin, Pedroza, and Schroeder) and the Claremont 400, refuse to admit.

Claremont's pension problems are just one small part of a national problem. How much money are we talking about? Lieber tells us:

At stake is at least $1 trillion. That’s trillion, with a “t,” as in titanic and terrifying.

The figure comes from a study by the Pew Center on the States that came out in February. Pew estimated a $1 trillion gap as of fiscal 2008 between what states had promised workers in the way of retiree pension, health care and other benefits and the money they currently had to pay for it all. And some economists say that Pew is too conservative and the problem is two or three times as large.

So a question of extraordinary financial, political, legal and moral complexity emerges, something that every one of us will be taking into town meetings and voting booths for years to come: Given how wrong past pension projections were, who should pay to fill the 13-figure financing gap?

As Yao could tell Lieber, here in Claremont we won't be having those public meetings until the City is at the verge of bankruptcy. The same is true with nearly every other municipality in the state and nation. As a result, the people Lieber calls "have-nots," private sector workers, will also be the ones asked to bear the burden of maintaining the lifestyles of our current public sector retirees, who for the most part refuse to give any concessions on their benefits.

Our public sector pension costs are compounded by the practice of pension spiking, in which public workers in their final year of employment manipulate the rules to drive up the value of their pensions. CalPERS offers a couple different ways of determining pension payments. Under many, such as in the city of Bell, the amount is determined by the employee's final year of compensation. If employees game the system by working a lot of overtime or by cashing out unused vacation time, their pensions can end up significantly higher than their final base salary.

Those spiked pensions cause additional problems for already underfunded CalPERS plans because the employees end up earning much more than can be covered by the money they and their employers actually paid into the system.

To no one's surprise, former Bell city manager Robert Rizzo has become the poster boy for outrageous public pensions. The Daily Bulletin ran an article Saturday by reporter Sandra Emerson, who explained that as a result of how CalPERS formulates pension payments, the city of Rancho Cucamonga, where Rizzo worked for about eight years, will be on the hook for about $125,000 of Rizzo's estimated $650,000 a year pension, assuming Rizzo survives his tarring and feathering long enough to collect.

As we said Friday, when former Claremont city manager Glenn Southard retired from Indio, his base salary was $300,000 a year. However, Southard also could have earned as much a $30,000 performance bonus, and he cashed out $162,000 in unused vacation and sick time. If Southard's pension is based simply on his final year of earnings, and if any bonus and accured vacation/sick time count towards that amount, he could end up with a pension well in excess of his salary.

Whatever pension Southard gets, because of CalPERS' crazy rules, Claremont will be on the hook for a considerable portion of his pension. Because Southard worked here for 17 years, Claremont will have to pay for those 17 years, but the payout will be based on his final year in Indio. For Claremont's share of his retirement, Glenn will qualify for 2.5% of whatever that final Indio figure was times 17 (each year that he worked here).

The California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility (CFFR) has a website that takes public information from CalPERS and CalSTRS (the California State Teachers' Retirement System) and posts the names and annual pension payments for anyone getting more than $100,000 a year.

Southard isn't on there yet because the figures haven't been updated since his retirement earlier this year, but another familiar Claremont personality did have her information posted. Our own Bridget Healy, Southard's right-hand woman in Claremont and Indio, retired in 2008 .

CFFR puts Healy's CalPERS pension at $166,701.84, of which Claremont will pay around $100,000 for Healy's roughly 18 years in Claremont, based on her $220,000 final year's salary in Indio. Healy, who seems to be maneuvering for another run at a Claremont city council seat, never has explained how she would manage her conflict of interest when it comes to pension matters here. However, we're going to guess that Healy's the pull-the-ladder-up-after-me type and probably won't have any qualms when it comes to cutting future employee benefits.

Here from CFFR are the Indio retirees in the six-figure club, soon to be joined by our friend Glenn:


And, in case you were wondering about our fair city, here is our $100,000+ CalPERS club:


We also present the Claremont Unified School District's CalSTRS pension high rollers:



There will be others joining these lists. Former Claremont Human Services Director Dick Guthrie, for instance, isn't on Claremont's CalPERS list, though his pension has to be well over $100,000. Former Claremont Community Services Director Mark Harmon and former Community Facilities Manager Mark Hodnick, too will join the exorbitant pensions club.

We're also struck by the presence of a number of prominent Claremonters on these lists. Council member Larry Schroeder is represented on the city of Lakewood's CalPERS pension rolls. Also, two influential members of the Claremont League of Women Voters own hefty public pensions: Bridget Healy and Anita Hughes, the wife of the late former Claremont mayor and CUSD assistant superintendent Alexander Hughes.

Yet another person, LWV president and Claremont Police Commissioner Barbara Musselman, is a former San Bernardino County Human Resources Director and receives a large San Bernardino County Employees' Retirement Association pension (SBCERA doesn't make its individual pension payouts readily available for the public).

Claremont's unsustainable pension obligations are the number one long term threat to our city's financial security. Yet, no one in any position of power, with the exceptions of Council members Yao and Corey Calaycay, are willing to deal with that threat. Instead, groups like the local League of Women Voters, who remained preoccupied with rehabilitating former Claremont mayor Ellen Taylor's image and helping Healy get elected to the council, are content to allow the City fly into a fiscal abyss.

One would expect people like Musselman or Healy to express a little more empathy and gratitude toward the people who fund their wealthy lifestyles. Instead, we constantly see them pushing this or that costly toy - a trolley, say - that only adds to the burden borne by the working stiffs who have to pay for for Musselman's and Healy's retirements as well as their own.

Lost in all this is the unfairness of forcing the public, the majority of whom do not have the luxury of unearned, spiked pension benefits with automatic cost-of-living increases, to rescue these underfunded public pension systems when they become insolvent. If our local and state elected officials and their supporters continue on their present course, that class war that Ron Lieber wrote of will move very quickly from metaphor to reality.

5.4 Quake

If you were around town today and felt the ground shaking, don't worry. Claremont wasn't blowing anything up today.

It was only an earthquake, a moderate one at that. The magnitude 5.4 quake hit at 4:53pm near Borrego Springs and Indio (see, there was a bit of a Claremont connection). The US Geological Survey has all the information on the event. If you felt it, take some time and complete the USGS questionnaire.

Desert Update

More news from the desert city of Indio:

The Desert Sun reports that the Riverside County Grand Jury has questioned some current and former Indio City Council members for reasons unknown. There's no telling what this may be about. The Indio city government has taken a lot of heat recently with regards to its credit card policy, its hiring of former Finance Director Michael Busch and Busch's consulting company, its extremely large budget deficit, and the golden handshakes it extended to a number of city employees.

When one considers the former Claremont employees who went over to Indio in 2005, one can't help but think, there but for the grace of God....

A 2/14/10 Sun article said:

It is unclear what the grand jury is looking into or whether a full investigation has been launched — or if the matter is civil or criminal. But the questioning comes at a time when city leaders are under fire by residents and community members for spending habits — the city faces a multimillion- dollar deficit — and early retirement deals, including one to City Manager Glenn Southard. He is the highest-paid city official in the Coachella Valley and plans to retire April 1.

“I'm concerned, yeah,” Councilman Glenn Miller said about the grand jury examination.

Miller is aware of the probe by a “grand jury committee” but said he has yet to be subpoenaed for an interview.

The article indicated that former Indio city councilmember Mike Wilson acknowledged he was interviewed by the grand jury twice last month, but Wilson could not disclose any details of those inquiries. The article went on to say that if the investigation is a civil matter rather than a criminal one, there could be questions of the propriety of something Indio officials did without the act being necessarily illegal.

Either way, it looks like our friend and former Claremont City Manager Southard bailed out at just the right time. But then, timing (and bailing, for that matter) was always Glenn's strong point.

News Roundup

A few bits of news from Claremont and elsewhere:

• If you've got any cans of old paint, used motor oil, used batteries and such taking up garage space, now's your chance to get rid of the stuff. The City of Claremont is holding a Hazardous Household Waste Roundup this Saturday, February 6, from 9am to 3pm at the Claremont Corporate Yard located at 1616 Monte Vista Ave.
  
  
  
• We didn't see it on the City of Claremont's community events calendar, but this Sunday is the first Sunday of the month, which has in the past been the day the City Council sets up its booth at the Farmers Market in the Claremont Village from 8am to 1pm.
  
  We don't know if the council booth is another casualty of City Hall's budget cutting.
  
  
  
• Meg at M-M-M-My Pomona says the annual Laura Ingalls Wilder Gingerbread Sociable is tomorrow from 1pm to 3pm in - where else? - the Laura Ingalls Wilder room of the Pomona Library at 625 S. Garey Ave. in downtown Pomona. There'll be storytelling, gingerbread, cider, and more. Kids of all ages, from one to 100 and older, are welcome.
  
  
  
• The Fresno Bee has an article about Claremont High School track star Kori Carter signing a letter of intent with Stanford University. Carter will be competing in the high school division of the Run For the Dream Indoor Track & Field Invitation at Buchanan High School in Clovis.
  
  While she's there, Kori can give Claremont's regards to former CUSD superintendent David Cash, who left us for Clovis Unified last year.
  
  
  
• The Sacramento Bee's Kevin Yamamura reports that California not only has the worst Standard & Poors credit rating of any of the 50 states, it is also worse than several countries:
  

  At A-, California still has the worst credit rating of all 50 states. Illinois comes closest to California with an A+ rating.
  
  Countries in the Times' chart with the same A- rating as California include Estonia, Libya and Poland. That's better than Thailand and Greece (BBB+) but not as strong as Botswana, the Czech Republic and Israel (A).

  
  Another sign that Claremont's and CUSD's budget woes won't be going away anytime soon.
  
  
  
• Following up our friend Glenn Southard and his sidekick Michael Busch, we read in the Desert Sun that Glenn's retirement includes almost $162,000 for unused vacation days and sick time he's banked in his time at the city of Indio.
  
  Here's what the Sun said about the details of the deal:
  

  Indio's Glenn Southard is the one of the highest-paid city managers in the state, which is part of the reason for his large final payment. He makes more than $300,000 a year.
  
  According to estimates provided by the city Tuesday, Southard has banked 582.35 hours of vacation, 1,118.55 hours of sick leave and 2.5 hours of administrative leave.
  
  Under the terms of his contract, Southard is entitled to all of the vacation time and half of the sick leave when he leaves City Hall.
  
  Administrative leave — a perk relatively common for city managers — cannot be cashed out, so he would have to use it before leaving, according to assistant to the city manager Mark Wasserman.
  
  That means Southard, who makes $148.74 an hour, would be entitled to 1,087.625 accrued hours of leave — worth $161,773.34.

  
  The Desert Sun tells us that Indio's golden handshake did get approved, by the way, and some people in there are not too happy about that, not that they are people who count for anything.
  
  Coincidentally, the Desert Sun also had an article about how to avoid being a scam victim.

GIGO*

THE OL' REVOLVING DOOR

You may have seen the series of articles the Los Angeles Times wrote last year about the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and its use of highly compensated consultants called placement agents who help steer CalPERS to various investments.

The initial article in the Times on 11/3/09 focused on Alfred Villalobos, a former CalPERS boardmember. The Times piece reported that over a seven-year period, Villalobos earned over $53 million from private equity firms who hired Villalobos because of his ability to give them a friendly introduction to the decision makers at CalPERS.

The Times article laid out Villalobos' sterling qualifications for the business of public employee pension investments (think Peter Principal):

In 1993, newly elected Los Angeles Mayor Richard J. Riordan, a Republican, tapped Villalobos as his deputy mayor for economic development. Villalobos resigned five months later after a series of damaging disclosures in The Times.

The paper reported that Villalobos had declared personal bankruptcy in 1982, writing off $350,000 in debts instead of trying to work out a court-sanctioned repayment plan.

Seven years later, Villalobos bounced $30,000 in checks to pay a weekend's worth of gambling debts in Lake Tahoe, which he refused to pay until the casino sued him.

After leaving City Hall, Villalobos shifted his focus to Sacramento, where, a year earlier, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson had appointed him to the state Personnel Board. That panel, in turn, named Villalobos as its representative to the 13-member CalPERS board, where he served from 1993 to 1995.

The Times article raised the issue of that $53 million Villalobos earned from his investment firm clients. Remember, the cost of all those consultant fees get passed on to the customer - in this case CalPERS and all of its current and future pensioners, as well public agencies like our fair city.

The article also shined a spotlight on public officials at all levels of government who don't appear to be as concerned with the public good as they are with lining their pockets with taxpayers' money, and that's another cost that ultimately gets passed along to the citizens of California. People like Villalobos seem to seek public service merely as a stepping stone to a much larger payday once their time in whatever position they've been elected or appointed to is over.


A READER WRITES

Speaking of revolving doors, we wrote last weeks about Claremont's former city manager, Glenn Southard, and his announced retirement from his current job in Indio. Southard spun taking a "golden handshake" as a sacrifice he made in order to help Indio deal with the multi-million budget deficit that was Southard's gift to Indio.

A reader wrote in regarding a rather obvious point that we completely overlooked. The sort of golden handshake savings Indio is looking for come about because the people stepping down don't get replaced. Cities are willing to foot the expense of golden handshakes because it saves them money in the long run by reducing the number of workers. In fact, Claremont used this strategy to deal with its own budget deficit. However, Southard will be replaced by another city manager with his own six-digit salary.

And, of course, Southard also wants his own consulting gig, seeking to continue to work for Indio after he retires in order to help the city complete the projects he started. It maybe not as lucrative as the one Alfred Villalobos landed, but it's one that Southard will be sure to milk for as much as he can squeeze out of the poor fools on Indio's council, as well any other cities willing to contract Southard's services.

Here's our reader's note:

SUBJECT: Southard PAYOUT
DATE: Saturday, January 30, 2010 12:26 PM
TO: Claremont Buzz

Perhaps you have already mentioned this in a previous posting, but Southard taking the golden handshake is totally inappropriate and will not save the city of Indio any money, as golden handshakes are supposed to do, as the city will be hiring another city manager to take his place. Golden handshakes are primarily given to move on senior employees and then NOT fill their jobs, therefore saving money. So, Glenn gets the gold, perhaps even more money by consulting back with the city, plus the retirement he will draw on top of that, and taxpayers in Claremont will foot the majority of that retirement bill as he worked here the longest. As I have always said “Glenn Southard, the gift that keeps on giving”, except what he gives people is usually the shaft.

THE GANG'S ALL HERE

The Indio-Claremont revolving door came full circle when Indio announced it was considering turning to former Claremont Finance Director Michael Busch to come in and help the city "right size" its government by determining what areas can be streamlined or even eliminated. You may remember that Busch followed Southard from Claremont to Indio.

The Desert Sun's Xocticl Pena had an article yesterday that explained exactly what Indio was hoping to accomplish:

Michael Busch, a former Indio finance director who also worked with City Manager Glenn Southard in Claremont as the treasurer and finance director, will be tasked with creating a “fiscal recovery plan” that could include everything from a forensic financial audit to identifying positions for layoffs. And his work could be shielded from public scrutiny, given the attorney/client privilege clause in the proposed contract

According to the article, Busch is now president of a company called Urban Futures, Inc., a company that appears to be composed almost entirely of former local government employees. Indio will pay Urban Futures and Busch $14,000 per month under the proposed contract, the Desert Sun said.

The Desert Sun has posted the proposed UF contract here. As the newspaper points out, if hired, Busch would work 20 hours per week. The monthly $14,000 would work out to $175 per hour - more than Southard himself was paid. Marvel at the irony in this. Busch helps Southard oversee an operation that ends up with a deficit that runs as high as $14 million, then gets hired on to help fix said problem. You wonder how many others at UF have called on their former employers for contract work.

With money like that flying around, it can't be long before Southard himself signs on with a firm like UF. You'd think that some of Southard's other flunkies would get into the act as well. Or maybe they already have:

(Click image to enlarge)

Should we be looking out for a future UF contract here in Claremont?


*Garbage in, garbage out, as programmers say.

Desert Update

Well, it turns out that the Indio City Council did decide to offer some of its employees, including our friend Glenn Southard, golden handshakes as a way of reducing its payroll. As expected, Southard, having designed the very package he desired, took it.

The Desert Sun reports that Southard has announced his decision to retire from Indio, leaving the desert town with a $5 million budget deficit. Southard gets high marks from many in Indio for all the things he accomplished in his five years there. The Sun article lists those good works, some of which included revamping of the city's water system, repaving Indio's roads, and revitalizing of the city's downtown area.

As ever with Southard, there is always a price to pay, and the Desert Sun article also noted Southard's downside:

In recent months, however, Southard's leadership has drawn sharp criticism from council members and valley residents:

In October, Southard asked council members to withdraw consideration of a change to his contract that would have given him more than 10 weeks of vacation a year. He said the issue and swirling questions “became a distraction.”

The city jeopardized $1.5 million in federal funding — earmarked for a major road project and for improving community housing conditions — when two different agencies questioned how the money was spent or the city's actions leading up to it.

City Hall revoked most of its credit cards and drafted new oversight requirements after a Jan. 3 Desert Sun report showed the city's 62 cardholders had charged more than $805,000 since January 2008. That included nationwide travel, frequent meals out and tickets to three national sporting events.

So, Southard sails off into the municipal managment sunset, taking with him a $300,000-plus yearly CalPERS pension, to which he'll indicates he'd like to add consultant fees, hoping that Indio will bring him to let him help with some of the city's unfinished projects.

All this just goes to show the truth in the old saying: when the going gets tough, Glenn gets going.

Where Are They Now?

Former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard was back in the news recently. Southard, who is now the city of Indio's City Manager, seem to have gotten into hot water over his and his staff's use of city-issued credit cards.

Two reporters for the Desert Sun, Erica Felci and Xochtil Pena, have covered the issue in a series of articles this month. According to the a January 4 Sun article, Indio's city staff spent around $805,000 on its credit cards in a two-year period beginning January, 2008. The Desert Sun article said:

A Desert Sun review of nearly 1,000 pages of credit card statements, however, shows that through October, the city's 62 cardholders spent at least $43,000 more than they had during the same period last year.

The newspaper's investigation also found:

• Tens of thousands of dollars in credit card bills were racked up monthly with charges to local restaurants, NFL and major league baseball teams — even a a women's clothing store. City administrators have repeatedly refused to explain the purpose of these charges.
  
  
• About one in five employees has a card. Records show the cards were issued to employees at all levels, including a front desk receptionist and the five members of the city's executive team.
  
  
• Statements are not seen regularly by City Council members. After reviewing The Desert Sun's findings, the mayor [Gene Gilbert] said he feels “blindsided” and believes some spending liberties were “abused.”
  

With Indio facing a current $5 million budget deficit, the Indio City Council took a lot of heat for the credit card expenses, which included the cost of a trip to Quebec for Southard's wife Gale, who accompanied Southard on an official trip. Southard claimed the matter was a mix-up. He had no defense, however, for the cost of a $15 airline baggage charge for Gale for a trip to Sacramento.

Mayor Gilbert's shock came as something of a surprise. Another Desert Sun article noted that in 2006, an accounting audit recommending a review of Indio's credit card policy:

In January 2006, city officials released an audit that showed 18 areas where accounting standards needed to be tightened. That included a notation that receipts were not always included with card statements, making it difficult for the city to determine if a charge was valid.

The following year, the auditor did not include any reportable conditions.

Still, the City Council in 2006 formed a subcommittee to review the issues raised in the audit — including Indio's credit card policy.

Councilwoman Melanie Fesmire was one of two council members on the subcommittee. Former councilman Mike Wilson, a frequent critic of the city's spending habits, was the other.

“2006. Wow. I can't remember doing it,” Fesmire told The Desert Sun last week. “I don't remember being on the committee. I don't remember the audit frankly. If we met, I assume we came out with a report. I don't recall any of it frankly.”

Wilson told The Desert Sun the subcommittee never met.

The Desert Sun also showed the credit card statements to former Indio City Manager Tom Ramirez:

Ramirez recently met with The Desert Sun to review the city's credit card statements, noting the documents contained “big red flags.”

“There is no way in hell they can justify buying Minnesota Viking tickets,” Ramirez said, pointing to a $1,156 charge in October 2008 on the card issued to assistant to the city manager Mark Wasserman. “Nobody at the top is setting the standard for performance. You're talking about taxpayer money.”

Naturally, Southard defended the credit card policy (or in this case non-policy) as the normal way of doing business.

So, once again, Southard creates a problem for a city council, and that council has to take the public heat. Southard's solution, as always, is to runaway. As part of their cost-cutting efforts, Southard and his staff have recommended offering golden handshakes to employees to get them off the payroll. Part of the deal includes giving employees who are over 50 and who have over 5 years of service (read: Glenn Southard) the option of buying up to two additional years of CalPERS retirement credit.

Southard, who has wrangled similar retirement options in his prior places of employment, has never missed chance to feather his nest. The Sun reported that Southard, who has worked for various cities for 36 years, actually has 40 retirement years.

Let's say that Southard can average 2.5% of his salary for each of those years (he gets 2.5% from Claremont and 2.7% from Indio but has also worked for San Clemente and West Covina*). And let's also assume that Southard buys the extra 2 years he is proposing for himself and the rest of his eligible employees. That would give Southard a yearly pension of 2.5% times 42 years, or 105% of his $300,000 annual salary (actually an average of his highest years of salary), along with yearly cost of living increases.

Southard has indicated that if the Indio City Council adopts the golden handshake to balance their budget, he may sacrifice himself by taking it. Southard, as always, is two steps ahead of the rubes he works for. He is turning a self-created crisis into a golden opportunity for himself.

All of this takes us back to Glenn's year in Claremont. Recall that he attacked then-councilmember Jackie McHenry because she questioned Southard's refusal to submit receipts for his reimbursed expenses. Then, he had a majority of the council on his side, so he could afford to take the offensive. This time, though, the Indio City Council is having to take a harder line because of the bad press they've gotten, and Southard is having to step more carefully.

Indio has already recalled most of its city-issued credit cards (though not Glenn's, we suspect), and there will likely be other reforms in the offing. We suggest one more. Go ahead with the golden handshake for all except senior management. It's worth it to eat the cost of firing him rather than rewarding Southard for his constant refusal to implement commonsense financial checks-and-balances.

It's worth it here to take a trip in the Insider Wayback to Claremont in January, 2005, when Southard staged a fight with former Councilmember McHenry in order distract the public from the questions McHenry was raising about Southard's receipts. Time just may be proving McHenry right.

For your viewing pleasure:





*CORRECTION: Southard actually worked for San Juan Capistrano, not San Clemente.

Solis and Friends Honored

U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis (pictured, right) was back in the San Gabriel Valley last week to accept an award from the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership and the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments.

Solis, and three others each received Jack Phillips Awards for their "outstanding contributions to the betterment of the San Gabriel Valley." The ceremony took place in the City of Industry last Thursday evening.

One of the other award winners was none other than former Claremont city manager Glenn Southard. We don't know about any betterment Southard contributed to the SGV, but ol' fellow was never shy about the betterment of Glenn Southard, at least in terms of his public compensation.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune covered the awards ceremony and had this to say about Southard's award:

Former Claremont mayor Judy Wright gave an award to Southard, who currently serves as city manager in Indio.

A founding member of the COG, Southard worked hard in the organization's early years to make sure it got off on the right foot, Wright said.

One thing is for sure: no one worked professional networking as well as Southard (left). He and his staffs exploited these things to no end in tireless efforts to get appointed to boards of organizations like the Municipal Managment Association of Southern California or the California City Management Foundation, which Southard also helped found.

You notice, when you look at some of these groups, that there are an awful lot of municipal vendors - like engineering and law firms - that either have employees on the groups' boards or that donate money to the associations. Once on the boards of these groups, Southard and his staff would leverage those networks to do things like find a new job if they wore out their respective welcomes, as Southard did when he fled Claremont for Indio.

Southard's betterment program for the City of Indio hasn't fared well, incidentally. The desert city faces a deficit of $14 million. Southard and Indio also face a $10.5 million lawsuit by the developer of a regional transportation center, and a recent Desert Sun article indicated that Southard may be up to his old tricks, promising one thing but meaning something else with the project. Here's a hint to our friends in the Coachella Valley: Compare notes.

In any event, it won't be long before Southard wins another award for his betterment of Indio. In the meantime, he and Hilda Solis can savor their Jack Phillips Awards.

Look What Blew in from the Desert

In case anyone was feeling nostalgic longings for former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard and his winning ways, a couple readers forwarded news items to us regarding the news of Indio. It's reassuring in these uncertain times to know that some things remain constant.

The first bit of news concerned the ongoing war between His Southardness and former Indio City Councilmember Mike Wilson, who had the temerity to question Southard's iron-fisted authority. Southard chased Wilson off the council and has now issued an edict to Indio's IT people to block all emails from Wilson to city staffers.

Wilson had been making email public information requests to the City of Indio but now has been told that all such requests from Wilson must be sent by mail or by fax. Indio's City Council had been scheduled to meet in closed session to discuss a possible lawsuit by Wilson, but that was cancelled after Wilson notified Indio City Attorney Edward Kotkin that he would not be suing Indio.

The Desert Sun newspaper reported:

Kotkin said it was City Manager Glenn Southard's decision to block Wilson's e-mails.

Southard declined to comment on his decision.

Kotkin, however, said the decision had to do with “personnel issues.”

“The city manager terminated his e-mail access upon the fact that e-mail communication in the past had given rise to personnel issues,” he said. “And I won't comment on what those personnel issues are.”

David Greene, executive director and staff counsel of First Amendment Project in Oakland said the city could be in violation of the California Pubic Records Act.

“Under the public records act they don't have a right to limit the ways in which a request can be made,” he said.

This would not be the first time Southard was accused of violating the California Public Record Act, and you can bet it will not be the last.

* * * * *

One of the issues that came up in the recently concluded Claremont City Council election was the perception that losing candidate Bridget Healy was too closely linked to Southard and his crisis-inducing management style. Healy, after all, worked under Southard for 18 years in Claremont as assistant city manager, and then followed Southard to Indio for three years in the same capacity.

Healy's campaign downplayed (ignored) this complaint about Healy, but many Claremont watchers believe this played a big part in her defeat. A vote for Healy was tantamount to a vote for Southard, the thinking went.

Click to Enlarge

But really, how close was Healy to Southard? We do know that when she retired from Indio last fall, Healy said in the Indio employee newsletter (right) that she and Southard had worked together more than 20 years and that "we have seen, spoken to or emailed each other for about the last 7,482 days in a row. Constant communications with Glenn will be another old habit hard to break."

Still, we've never heard from Southard himself on the subject of his reliance on Healy. Until now.

Another reader sent us a link to the California Redevelopment Association's website. This is a job listing posted with the CRA by Southard, who is searching frantically for Healy's replacement:

Jobs: City of Indio - Assistant City Manager

Tue, January 27, 2009 01:36 PM

Help!

The Assistant City Manager I've worked with for the last 20 years has retired. She will be a hard act to follow and I can't do real work.

I am very much an external manager concentrating on economic development, redevelopment and long range planning, leaving the responsibility of day-to-day internal management to my Assistant. My Assistant City Manager functions as a Chief Operating Officer being an ever present internal resource to management and line staff. My Assistant City Manager reviews all Council Agenda Reports; manages Human Resources, Risk Management, City Clerk and Public Information functions; serves as ombudsperson to the City Council; and writes a variety of articles, letters, reports, speeches and other documents for the City Manager and City Council. My Assistant City Manager also assists in the preparation of the budget and special projects as assigned.

The successful candidate will have a Bachelor's degree in public or business administration, political science or related field and 10 years increasingly responsible experience in local government. Masters degree preferred.

Salary: $15,354-$20,576 plus an excellent benefit package including 2.7% @ 55 coordinated with Social Security and paid retiree health. Employee will serve "at will" on a contract that includes a 6 months severance provision. Submit applications marked confidential to: Glenn D. Southard, 100 Civic Center Mall, Indio, CA 92201; (760) 391-4015.

In case you were wondering, that $15,354-$20,576 salary is PER MONTH. And, the second sentence is a killer: "...I can't do real work."

Honesty from Glenn. Pigs can fly after all.

Southard Granted Contract Extension

The city of Indio gave their city manager, Claremont refugee Glenn Southard, a performance review recently. Turns out Indio likes Southard a great deal more than a lot of Claremonters did. Southard was granted a three-year contract extension by the Indio City Council. However, Southard was not given a raise this year because of the city's uncertain budget prospects and because of the bad economy.

Southard's zero raise will make for an interesting comparison to tomorrow night's unveiling of Claremont's new contract terms for current city manager Jeff Parker.

After the council had awarded Southard his contract, they announced they are facing a $14 million budget deficit. At least they had the good graces to save the bad news for last. The Desert Sun covered the Indio news:

“We're very pleased with his performance this past year … so we're very eager to have him commit,” said [Indio Mayor Melanie] Fesmire.

Despite the council's satisfaction, Southard did not receive a raise because of the economy she said.

“He certainly deserves it. We'd like to give it to him … but there's so much uncertainty (with the economy),” Fesmire said.

Southard started April 18, 2005 with a base salary of $240,000, but now is making $300,000 a year. In June 2007 he received a one-time performance bonus of $30,000.

In the middle of a national recession and faced with tight times, Fesmire said it will be important to have a seasoned manager like Southard at the helm.

“We're going to have to make some hard decisions in the next year,” she said. “He's going to be a valuable asset.”

One of the challenges will be dealing with a projected $14 million shortfall in the operating budget for fiscal year 2009-2010.

Southard said $4 million of the city's $14 million general fund reserve will need to be used to lower the deficit to $10 million.

An Indio reader wrote to alert us to the Desert Sun article. The Indio reader had some choice comments and a warning about Southard's longtime assistant, who is currently running for a seat on Claremont's City Council:

DATE: Saturday, January 10, 2009 9:45:31 AM
SUBJECT: (no subject)
TO: Claremont Buzz,

Have you checked out the Desert Sun this morning in the Coachella Valley? Glenn Southard gets a three year extension on his contract and the City announces a 14 million dollar deficit. After two years of telling the Community that the City Budget was fine. This is part of Bridget Healy's Legacy, and the Claremont residents should know before they elect her.

Mailbag

We received this email yesterday in response to our post about contracting police services out to the LA County Sheriff's Department:

DATE: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 11:37 AM
SUBJECT: "Contract Policing"
TO: Claremont Buzz

I live in West Hollywood, which is policed by the LASD, and I've lived in Altadena, which is also policed by the LASD. They're great -- highly professional, quick to respond, well-trained, all that stuff. Pomona is badly underpoliced -- the Sheriff's Department would make a lot of sense there. Claremont is maybe a different question, but the LASD is a *really* high-quality agency.

* * *

Another reader sent in a link to a Desert Sun article about Indio Assistant Manager and Claremont City Council candidate Bridget Healy's retirement from Indio. The Sun article noted Healy's candidacy and also noted how close she is to Indio City Manager Glenn Southard, who in his capacity as Claremont's City Manager was the source of endless strife and crises.

The Sun also noted that Healy spent most of her time these past three years in Indio, coming back to her Claremont home on weekends:

Her reason for leaving: “I need to get home. My family, my friends ... are all in the Claremont area,” Healy, 56, said.

She rented in Indio while maintaining her Claremont home and would travel there on the weekends.

Prior to Indio, Healy worked with City Manager Glenn Southard as assistant city manager for 17 years in Claremont.

Southard hired Healy as his second in command when he started in Indio as city manager in April 2005.

“We finish each other's sentences. We have an exceptional relationship,” he said.

All the more to look forward to when Healy assumes her seat at the dais in our Council Chambers.

The Enforcer Returns to the Scene of the Crime

We received some inquires about our post from last Saturday. The image we posted with Indio Assistant City Manager Bridget Healy's retirement farewell note to that town's staff was indeed real. It was taken without alteration from page 1 of the Indio city staff newsletter for October, 2008.

As Healy's goodbye note indicated, she is returning to Claremont, and she apparently wants to run for the Claremont City Council next March, at least according to the October 22nd issue of the Claremont Courier (the article is not posted online).

When she formerly worked here, Healy, along with former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard, was responsible for any number of scandals and missteps - the roundabout at Indian Hill Blvd. and Bonita Ave. that had to be removed after complaints and accidents piled up; the failed investment of over $5 million in the Orange County Investment Pool in the early 1990's; the handling of the Irvin Landrum shooting and lawsuit; the behind-the-scenes support of Preserve Claremont affair; and much, much more.

Now, like an arsonist who just can't resist returning to the scene of the crime, Healy is slinking back into town to add to the damage she inflicted in her last go around. This time, with the urging and support of people like former Police Commissioner and town busybody Helaine Goldwater, she intends to stick it to us as an elected official.

Goldwater, not content to have given us Ellen Taylor, wants to give us an even worse choice for council in Healy, who was the enforcer on Glenn Southard's Claremont and Indio staffs. Like Taylor, Healy presents a smiling public face; unlike Taylor, Healy is smart enough to keep her nastiness from public view.

You can bet, too, that Healy isn't done with Southard, as Saturday's post indicated. Expect the invisible presence of His Southardness to be performing His usual sleight-of-hand. You might, for instance, expect plenty of cost overruns on projects - He always loved to pay much more than expected for big ticket items, but those are costs that can easily be passed down to the taxpayers. Say, where do those cost overruns go, anyway?

So, the Healy-Southard axis will be back among us. Here it is in Healy's own words from her Indio farewell:

You all know that Glenn and I have worked together for over 20 years….27 years if you consider community and professional projects we worked on prior to working together in the same City Hall. Either way, we have seen, spoken to or emailed each other for about the last 7,482 days in a row. Constant communications with Glenn will be another old habit hard to break.

Healy was certainly right about old habits, so there was more than a little irony in what the Indio city staff had to say to Healy about the criminal life:

Bridget Healy, you are all done stapling the blue form to the red form and for that, we must offer our sincerest CONGRATULATIONS! It is an awesome accomplishment and we’re grateful for having had the chance to work with you!! We’re confident you will not turn to a life of crime after this, but will come back here if retirement is boring.

Claremont should be so lucky!

Click on Image to Enlarge

Hot Air Blowing in from Indio

DESERT CITY NEWS

Bridget Healy, long-time Assistant City Manager in Claremont, who followed Glenn Southard to Indio, has announced to staff in Indio, and Indio's council has been informed that she plans to retire in two months, on December 17th.

She was recently spotted by the Indio Desert Sun newspaper purchasing the first bag of popcorn at a new SuperTarget store in that desert land of the Open Spaces and Big Boxes. Referring to the Coachella Valley SuperTarget, she was quoted, "It's awesome, and the popcorn is great."

Bridget has maintained a pied-a-terre here in Claremont since decamping to Indio in 2005. Her name has appeared since on supporter lists in several local political contests. She signed the Courier ads for the ill-fated "Parks and Pasture" assessment district measure of 2006. Last year, during the school board election, her Claremont digs sported a Hilary LaConte sign (don't blame us or accuse us of stalking, Google Streetview caught it). So, she's definitely a beautiful person.


We have the vague recollection, though, that she supported a losing candidate in the 2005 school board election, and until we research that one a bit more, we'll say no more.

We are reminded of a party we attended more than a year back in a town a hundred miles from Claremont. There we met a shirttail relative of "Bridget Distelrath"--this relative couldn't shake the name she went by for years. The story goes that at a family gathering a few months earlier, Bridget spoke of her desire to return to Claremont and "run for Mayor". We guess her heart is in the highlands of the Inland Empire and not in the below-sea-level lowlands of the Coachella Valley. Maybe it's too hot there.

If we were Jeff Parker or Tony Ramos, we would be worried about the return of someone with Bridget's knowledge of where the skeletons in City Hall are hidden, and with too much time on her hands.

Desert Trolley News

Trolleys have become the latest urban planner fad. Some trolley company representative must be making the rounds at League of California Cities conferences.

Claremont's trolley-folly begins in October, and now news comes to us of a proposal in Indio to include a trolley at Indio's Polo Square mixed-use development.

The Desert Sun reported on the Polo Square trolley:

Polo Square, the city's flagship project on Highway 111, will include an electric trolley system that will weave through the more than 50-acre, mixed use project.

Hailed by some as a unique feature for retail projects, the anticipated trolley system will not only ease traffic congestion, but serve as an attraction as well.

“It looks like the old double-decker buses in England,” said Janet Cook, executive director of the Indio Chamber of Commerce. “I think people will come to Polo Square to ride them.”

The project is at the corner of Shields Road and Highway 111 in what is considered one of the gateways to Indio.

The high-rise project has been marketed as a “city within a city” and may eventually include about 500 dwelling units in vertical condo buildings, two hotels, various retail boutiques, a department stores, high-end supermarket and subterranean parking.

It is estimated to cost about $850 million and is scheduled for completion in 2012.

Claremont Resident Tabbed to be Pasadena City Manager

Claremonter Michael Beck has been hired as Pasadena's next City Manager and will begin his new duties on October 1st. The Claremont Courier yesterday had a profile of Beck that noted that Beck has been the Assistant City Manager for Riverside for the past seven years and worked for the University of California, Riverside, before that.

The Courier article explained some some of the similarities and differences between the two cities:

Pasadena and Riverside are both regional job centers with high levels of drive-through traffic and drivers heading into the city for work. Both cities have a strong emphasis on education, arts and historical preservation, he said. And both have 7 council members representing their jurisdictional territories.

But Pasadena is significantly smaller than Riverside, both in size and population. Pasadena is roughly 26 square miles and has a population of about 145,000. Riverside is roughly 86 square miles with a population of 305,000.

Among the perks of being a city manager, Mr. Beck will be driving a city-owned hybrid vehicle. His salary has not yet been determined by the city council; however the previous city manager in Pasadena earned nearly $236,000, according to the city website.

$236,000. It's not Indio money, but it's not bad either.

Catch the Fever!

Below:
Atascadero City Manager Wade McKinney and Indio City Manager Glenn Southard pose for the April, 2008, edition of the City Manager Newsletter, a publication of Trackdown Management and Jack Simpson. All three, McKinney, Southard, and Simpson, are on the board of the California City Management Foundation, which Southard helped found.

We've been writing this past week about the situation in Indio where a portion of the city's utility tax has reportedly gone uncollected from nearly 8,000 homes and 650 businesses. Our fascination with the story has less to do with the fact that former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard in now ensconced in that desert down and much more to do with the opportunity to view the story as a case study in crisis management by Southard.

Southard would like to have the public believe the under collection of the 23-year-old Indio utility tax preceded his administration by decades. But has anyone bothered to look at how many of those 8,000 homes and 650 businesses were constructed in the past three years during Indio's great real estate boom? Indio's population, according to U.S. Census estimates, went from 49,116 in 2000 to 76,896 - a better-than-50% increase.

So if the taxes that weren't collected came as newly constructed properties, and if many or most of those new properties were built during the Southard years in Indio, then he would have to bear a much greater share of the blame than he's been willing to up to this point.

We also suspect that Southard will do his best to slip any blame at all for the mess, which likely runs into the millions of uncollected tax dollars. As we've noted, Southard survived a number of crises in Claremont by effectively controlling the public message - defining the story himself; by using his ability to charm councilmembers into supporting his actions even at the cost of their council seats; and by marshaling the power of city employee unions to get involved politically to exert pressure on councils (see the Preserve Claremont campaign of 2005).

Spinning the public and the press is certainly not a new phenomena. It's really not much different than a medieval king having his favorite scribe write a chronicle of the monarch's most recent war of conquest.

We've seen it go on here in Claremont as well. The recent Cookie Monster flap with Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor is a good example with Taylor trying to counter the negative attention she received by portraying herself as being concerned about the safety of the girls involved.

These things are scalable, from the local level to the highest international circles. In a lot of ways, the current Beijing Olympics is a massive PR campaign by China, complete with lip-syncing and digitally-enhanced fireworks.

And that's not all:


Chinese Officials: Deadly Virus Sweeping China Is Just Olympic Fever