Special Council Meeting Thursday Night

The three newly elected Claremont City Council members, incumbent Sam Pedroza and newcomers Joe Lyons and Opanyi Nasiali, will be sworn in Thursday at a special council meeting in the council chambers at 225 W. Second St. in the Claremont Village.

After all the ceremonies are complete, the council will reorganize and chose a new mayor and mayor pro tem. We expect those two positions to go to Sam Pedroza and Larry Schroeder, respectively. The council's regular meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday, March 22.

If you can't make tonight's meeting in person, you can watch it streamed live here. The video is also archived for later viewing.

Quick Hits

Click to Enlarge
There's more information on that counter demonstration set for next Saturday in response to the planned National Socialist Movement's rally and march on Foothill Blvd. and an as-yet unnamed cross street. The anti-Nazis are being organized by a group calling itself Claremont Peace.

The Claremont Peace rally will take place in Memorial Park. Click here to read more.

Claremont Peace has a Facebook page set up if you're interested in getting more information. If everyone who has signed up to attend actually shows up, the NSMers are going to be greatly outnumbered.

The NSM rally is supposed to run from noon to 1pm. The anti-rally starts at 10am and goes until 6pm.

* * * * *

Tony Krickl has the official vote count from last week's municipal election. Nothing really changed. And one of our readers wrote in to comment on the low voter turnout (about 25%):

Date: Sat, March 12, 2011 9:45:52 AM
Subject: election results
From:
To: claremontbuzz@yahoo.com

The voters who bothered to vote on the 8th (only 5,483 out of 21,731 eligible voters) have made the decision for the rest of Claremont. One wonders what the other 16,248 thought about the election and what kept them from voting. Perhaps it was because they had to choose from a less than stellar field of candidates. Perhaps the negative campaigning by the supporters of Pedroza, Haulman and Lyons kept them away. Or perhaps, like more than a few people I have talked to over the years, they believe that it does not matter who is on the City Council as they all drink the Kool-Aid eventually and only care about themselves and getting re-elected.

Whatever the reason, 25% of the voters in Claremont chose who will govern us for the next 4 years. We can thank the other 75% for giving us Dumb (Pedroza) and Dumber (Lyons). Yet another time that so many have done so little for their city.

Town Calendar

Now that the city election is over, the Claremont 400 have slunk back to their burrows to lick their wounds and heal up until their next opportunity to make fools of themselves. In the meantime, the rest of us can settle back into our regular lives and enjoy some of the finer things in town:


BILL GATES IS IN THE HOUSE

If your PC crashed recently, taking with it that bloviating blog post you slaved away at all night, you can voice your frustrations directly to the man whose company gave us MS-DOS and Windows. Bill Gates comes to the campuses of Harvey Mudd College and Pomona College today.

Gates will meet with groups of students during the day and will speak at Bridges Auditorium at 5pm. The Pomona College website has all the details:

In "A Conversation with Bill Gates," he will discuss a wide range of subjects with Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College, and then take questions from students. This event is co-sponsored by the Harvey Mudd College Annenberg Speakers Series and the Pomona College Distinguished Speakers Series.

Tickets for Pomona College students, faculty and staff (one ticket per ID) are now sold out from Bridges Box Office, which is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Limited general admission tickets may be available to the general public, from the Bridges Auditorium Box Office, as of March 1. There is no cost to attend the event, which will also be streamed live on Pomona’s web.

You can watch the webcast here.


FRIDAY FILMS

Vince Turner over at Claremont Community College has invited the community over to his newest event, Friday Night Flicks in the Claremont Village Expansion:

Date: Wed, March 9, 2011 11:32:49 AM
Subject: Friday Night Flicks
From: Vincent Turner

Friday Night! 7 pm!

Flicks!

We're starting Friday night flicks at The Center!

We are beginning with four interesting video lectures showing advancements in technology and how they will affect film making.

If you like watching cool stuff, this is for you. We'll have the chance to discuss these.

Come enjoy yourselves!

101 North Indian Hill Blvd
Building C2 Suite 203

We don't hand out degrees! Because the learning never stops!

--
Vince Turner
(909) 477-1747

FAREWELLS AND NEW BEGINNINGS

Claremont Mayor Linda Elderkin (photo, right) chose to not run for reelection this year, and the City will bid her a fond farewell Thursday, March 17.

That evening, at 6:30pm in the City Council chambers at 225 W. Second St., Elderkin will step down and the three winning candidates from Tuesday's election - Sam Pedroza, Opanyi Nasiali, and Joseph Lyons - will be sworn in. Expect Pedroza to be named mayor and council member Larry Schroeder to be named mayor pro tem.

Come on out on the 17th and see how you like your new council.


AN EARLY 4TH OF JULY

Plenty of fireworks will be on display Saturday, March 19, when the National Socialist Movement (yes, those guys) arrive in Claremont's Memorial Park for a rally and march of some sort. A counter demonstration is also planned.

Here's what the City's website says:

City Response to March 19 Demonstrations

The City of Claremont is aware of the rally and march being planned by the National Socialist Movement and counter rally at Memorial Park scheduled for March 19, 2011. The Claremont Police Department has prepared a tactical plan and is in contact with the organizers. The Claremont Police Department has scheduled additional officers for the day and will be assisted by neighboring police agencies if necessary.

The City of Claremont is respectful of every organization's right to demonstrate and encourages the peaceful expression of differing viewpoints.

The City has a Committee on Human Relations to address and respond to citizen's concerns on issues of diversity. Citizens wishing to contact the Committee on Human Relations to may call (909) 399-5356.

The Results Are In

The unofficial results from Claremont's municipal election are in, and the winners are:

SAM PEDROZA - 24.3%, 3,336 votes
OPANYI NASIALI - 19.7%, 2,697
JOSEPH LYONS - 18%, 2,470

Robin Haulman ended up with 2,275 (16.6%) , or 195 votes behind Lyons. Jay Pocock had 1,430 votes (10.4%). You can see the vote totals here.

Haulman's loss was a bit surprising. She was the Claremont 400 candidate of choice, and the turnout was a pretty low 23.9%, which usually favors the 400. Haulman actually outpolled Lyons in most of the precincts' absentee ballot totals. But among yesterday's voters, she lost to Lyons, the 400's backup candidate. So perhaps the combination of missteps by Haulman and her campaign together with Bob Gerecke's dirty tricks changed voters' minds about Haulman by the end of the election.

Incidentally, a glance at today's Claremont Courier informs us that Lynn Savitzky and Cynthia Humes, two of the seven signers of that Bob Gerecke attack ad against Opanyi Nasiali, have disavowed any knowledge of the ad (image, left - click to enlarge).

Apparently, Gerecke and the Claremont Democratic Club, which was circulating the ad at the Claremont Farmers Market last Sunday, used Humes' and Savitsky's names without their permission. As always, Bob is a real class act.

No one's said anything about this, but Sam Pedroza, just as he did in 2007 with Preserve Claremont, enjoyed the benefit of the attack ad without having to take any responsibility for it. He had the full support of the people behind the ad. Gerecke and the Democratic Club endorsed Pedroza, walked precincts for him, and conducted phone banking in support of Sam.

And, just as he did in 2007, back when he had a little more solid backing from the 400, Pedroza ignored the clean campaigning pledge he and the other candidates signed. Another minor commentary on Sam and the worth of his word.

Full Circle

History repeats itself; first as tragedy, then as farce, and finally as desperation.


HISTORY

In 2003, a group calling itself Residents United for Claremont paid for an election eve, citywide mailer that tried to scare voters into supporting incumbents Sandy Baldonado, Karen Rosenthal, and Al Leiga. The RUC letter warned voters that they would face the loss of vital city services if challengers Jackie McHenry and Peter Yao were elected. McHenry and Yao won, and, contrary to what RUC had predicted, the sun still came up in the morning.

Click on Images to Enlarge

TRAGEDY

In 2005 came Preserve Claremont, about whom we've written much. PC raised nearly as much money as some of the candidates' campaigns. They used the money tattacking Jackie McHenry and Corey Calaycay with innuendo, rumor, and, in at least one case, a blatant lie. The PC experience so tarred the people behind it, that many, including a few leftover from the Residents United Campaign, rejected the group or at least started to display independent thinking.


DESPERATION

The hardcore PCers, though, just went underground and work mostly behind the scenes now. Some of the true believers like J. Michael Fay and Bill Baker, respective treasurers for city council campaigns of Joseph Lyons and Robin Haulman, still take active roles when called upon for the their services and PC experience.

Haulman was the original chosen one of the PCers, but some of the antics surrounding her campaign - cheating in a debate or stealing another campaign's fliers - damaged her candidacy to the extent the Claremonsters had to have an insurance policy in Lyons. So, you see people like PC spokesman Butch Henderson donating money to both Lyons and Haulman. And they've hitched the Haulman-Lyons wagon to incumbent Sam Pedroza to get people to vote for the three of them as a slate, the hope being that Pedroza's coattails pull the other two along into office.

Yesterday's Claremont Courier had a full-page ad (purchased at the going rate of a little less than $900), taken out by a group calling itself "Concerned Claremont citizens." (Their civic-minded concern apparently isn't large enough to warrant a capital letter for themselves.)

The CCC ad took what had been a sarcastic letter to the editor from council candidate Opanyi Nasiali and turned it around by interpreting it literally. Nasiali's letter (posted below) appeared in the Daily Bulletin and in the Courier last September.


The ad proclaimed "WE ARE SHOCKED!" and falsely intimated that Nasiali was serious about eliminating the police and public schools. It asked the reader, "Is this someone we want on the Claremont City Council."


What's really shocking is the implied contempt the ad has for voters. They expect readers won't read Nasiali's full text and will just scan the bullet points, helped out by the large arrow pointing the eye neatly past the context-placing introduction.

The ad was signed by eight people, including Ann Joslin, a Claremonster in sheep's clothing along with her life partner in crime Planning Commissioner and aspiring council candidate Bob Tener. Joslin's still sore at Nasiali for opposing the Parks and Pasture assessment district and for his successful backing of the Measure S bond for Johnson's Pasture, both in 2006.

Not coincidentally, also in yesterday's Courier, Joslin and Tener have a letter extolling the virtues of Joseph Lyons. The Joslin-Tener letter, together with another from Architectural Commissioner Susan Schenk singing the praises of Robin Haulman, are designed to work in concert with the "Claremont Concerned citizens" ad. The latter is supposed to drive people away from Nasiali, who has been running ahead of Lyons and Haulman, and the letters are there to attract voters who buy into CCC's attack ad.

Another CCC signer was Bob Gerecke, who has been working for the Pedroza-Haulman-Lyons alliance. Gerecke is a past president of the Claremont Democratic Club, whose repertoire of dirty tricks in this campaign has included appropriating private property for campaign signs. Gerecke's wife Katie, is the past president of another Claremont 400 institution, the League of Women Voters.

Yet another is Sally Alexander, who one reader notes is the 97-year-old mother of Pedroza-Haulman-Lyons supporter Sandy Hester, making Alexander the oldest frontwoman in Claremont election history.

As we say, none of this is new. The Claremonster playbook only has two or three pages, all of them outlining some aspect of their bullying ways. Expect to see more of the same, possibly including one or two hit pieces paid for by municipal employee unions awaiting new contracts.

As this election winds down, we see all these strands coming together so that the all too familiar design becomes visible. In five days, on March 8, we'll see how it turns out. In Claremont, we've always gotten the government we deserve.

City Election News

COURIER ENDORSES PEDROZA, NASIALI, AND ?

Besides the story of Flyergate, last Saturday's Claremont Courier also carried to Courier's endorsements for the March 8 municipal election.

Like the Daily Bulletin, the Courier endorsed incumbent Sam Pedroza, who looked a little gaunt in his Courier photo, his weight loss apparently the by-product of a bicycling regime of one sort or another. As much as we hate to admit it, we really can't fault either paper for choosing Pedroza as one of its endorsees. We don't usually agree with him, but he gets the nod incumbents usually get absent any scandals or missteps in office.

The Courier also echoed the Bulletin in its endorsement of Opanyi Nasiali, who is running for the third time. The Courier cited Nasiali's volunteer work and his participation as a City commissioner and economic sustainability committee member. The Courier also pointed out that Nasiali worked both on the successful Johnson's Pasture Measure S bond campaign in 2006 and on the campaign against the $95 million Measure CL school bond.

While the first two picks were easy calls, the choice for the third and final seat was a tough one. Claremont 400 candidate Robin Haulman might have been the Courier's pick, but her campaign continually shot itself in the foot, with the final disgrace coming at the February 17 League of Women Voters candidate forum when Haulman's husband Alexander Sweida swiped a bunch of candidate Jay Pocock's fliers and threw them in the trash. So between her actions and her hubby's, Haulman's chances of that coveted Courier endorsement were nil.

Presuming the Courier didn't take Citizen Michael John Keenan, Joseph Armendarez, or Rex Jaime seriously, that left the Bulletin's third choice, Jay Pocock, and former Democratic State Senate candidate Joseph Lyons. The Courier went for Lyons, who because of his lack of past civic involvement has been something of a cipher. Lyons really is the a great Claremont 400 candidate, relying on them for their votes, especially from local retirement communities like Pilgrim Place, and apparently without any of his own opinions or experience in city issues to muck things up for the 400.

We'll see how the Courier and Bulletin endorsements hold up. The last three or four council elections the Courier has been the more accurate of the two newspapers, but a lot can happen between now and March 8. We await the Claremonsters' usual election eve surprise, either through a letter or ad in the Courier the Saturday before the election, or through a last minute mailer landing in the last few days of the campaign. The 400 usually tries to stir up some imagined scandal very late in the game - too late to be rebutted by their target.

As Flyergate, Pasturegate, Signgate, and Shillgate (say, they really are giving new meaning to the term "gated community") have shown in this election, the one thing we can count on is that the Claremonsters will do just about anything to win, and, much like Wile E. Coyote's schemes, their tricks often blow up in their faces.

* * * * *

Speaking of Flyergate, Courier reporter Tony Krickl has the Paul Harvey "Rest of the Story" on his Courier City Beat blog. LWV president Ellen Taylor doesn't come off much better than Haulman's husband does in Krickl's post:

Further defending his actions, Sweida said he was just following the League of Women Voter's policy on negative campaign material. He asked Ellen Taylor, president of Claremont's chapter of the League, if he could remove the fliers. Taylor told him to go ahead, even though she didn't inspect the material beforehand to see if it actually contained "negative" information.

This incident is troubling from many perspectives. With his actions, Sweida has certainly embarrassed his wife and may have cost her the election. Dirty tactics like this just don't sit well with voters.

Taylor defended her decision by saying the League is anti-biased in local elections. However by approving this behavior, she showed a clear bias against Pocock. And that reflects poorly on the entire organization.

And what do other League officials think about what happened?

"It would be better to actually look at the material before making a decision on what to do with it," said Jack Mills, Vice President of the League.

Krickl also quotes Mills as saying that he is unaware of any LWV policy against negative campaigning.

Here We Go Again

Reporter Tony Krickl has an article in yesterday's Claremont Courier that tells of a post-debate incident at last Thursday's League of Women Voters forum. Krickl's article said that Alexander Sweida, the husband of City Council candidate Robin Haulman, took about 50 fliers belonging to candidate Jay Pocock and threw them in the trash.

Not surprisingly, former Claremont mayor Ellen Taylor, a/k/a The Cookie Monster, a/k/a Queen Ellen, was centrally involved. Taylor (photo, right) is the Claremont LWV chapter president.

Krickl reported that after the LWV forum ended, Betty Crocker, who works for candidate Opanyi Nasiali's campaign, was talking to Sweida when she saw him accidentally drop "about 50 [Pocock] fliers" onto the floor. Sweida scooped up the fliers and by his own admission threw them away. Krickl quoted Crocker as saying "He looked like he got caught caught with his hand in the cookie jar," which turned out to be a apt metaphor, considering Taylor's involvement in Thursday's incident.

Krickl spoke with Sweida, who claimed he took offense to the fliers because "he felt they contained lies about his wife." The article said the part Sweida took exception to was a line that said "Haulman and [Joseph] Lyons support tax increases (DO YOU?)."

For your reference, here's a Pocock flyer insert from yesterday's Courier. It contains the exact quote cited by Krickl:

Click on Image to Enlarge

In the Courier article, Sweida defended himself by saying he checked with Taylor first and asked "if he could dispose of the material because he felt it contained negative claims about his wife." Notice that he did not used the word "lie." Taylor gave the okay, and Sweida said, "I was just complying with the League's policy on negative campaign material...."

Incredibly, Taylor, who was quoted in the Krickl article, said she didn't review Pocock's fliers before giving Sweida permission to throw them away, she just took his work and allowed him to do it.

Well, we just don't know where to start. Setting aside the First Amendment, which Taylor and the LWV apparently support only on a situational basis, from our perspective this incident simply underscores what we've said all along: The LWV is very closely aligned with certain candidates in every election, picking and choosing who wins and who loses, their hypocrisy is embodied in their actions, and anyone considered an outsider in Claremont local politics faces an unlevel playing field.

Taylor tried to claim that the local LWV is an unbiased organization, and she cited the fact that they had San Dimas resident Ruth Currie moderate the candidate forum. Taylor didn't say that this is a new development for the LWV and that during the last City election in 2009, former LWV president Barbara Musselman moderated the LWV's forum. Musselman, along with people like Katie Gerecke, another former LWV president, supports Haulman and Lyons in this election.

If nothing else, this latest incident should put to rest any idea of impartiality or credibility on the LWV's part, at least when it comes to Claremont's local issues. In this campaign, as in every Claremont city election, the LWV is very much in the corner of their chosen ones. For instance, at the beginning of the debate Thursday, Haulman was introduced as the only woman running this time. Odd how the LWV used gender as a factor to single out one of their favored candidates and overlooked race with respect to the only African-American running, Opanyi Nasiali, or Rex Jaime, the only Filipino-American in the contest. Consistency, as is usual with the LWV, is not in evidence.

Now what about Alexander Sweida's claim that the Pocock flyer contained a lie about his wife's position on taxes? We checked the video for the mid-January Active Claremont candidate forum and discovered that the very first question posed by moderator and former council member Jackie McHenry was:

Do you believe that a tax increase is necessary to address revenue shortfalls [in Claremont]? If so, what taxes do you believe should be raised?

The first two candidates to answer were Joseph Lyons and Robin Haulman. Both cited the Mayor's Committee on Economic Sustainability, and both Lyons and Haulman supported a hike in the City's utility tax. So you tell us, where's the lie in Pocock's line about Haulman and Lyons?

Here's video of Lyons and Haulman answering the tax question last month (notice how Haulman refers to her cheat sheet for her response):




Those of you out there in the real world, those outside the Claremont city limits, can see here just how crazy our local politics are. A truth refracted through the narrow lens of the Claremont 400 and the Claremont League of Women Voters becomes a lie, the perpetrator lays blame on his victim. Just as in the case of Haulman's false claims about her involvement in saving Johnson's Pasture, the truth matters not one bit.

Let's not let the Claremonsters confuse the issue. The central point in this instance is not whether a given candidate does or does not support tax increases; the heart of this matter lies in the sorry ethical behavior of those who control the reins of power and in the corresponding actions of those who would be kings and queens of this ridiculously small and silly fiefdom.

Pinocchio Haulman

Robin Haulman Claims "Vigorous" Support
for 2006 Measure S.
However, Did Not Vote
in Measure S Election;
Did Not Join Supporter List.
Statement Questioned

We received a mailer earlier this week from the Friends of the Bernard Biological Field Station. "Friends of what?", we hear you ask. It is true that the Friends have been a bit moribund in recent years. The last updates on their website seem to be from a couple of years ago--well, 2007 to be exact. We guess being a biological friend is a busy demanding time-consuming task.

It seems that what awakened the friendly Friends from stasis is the upcoming city election. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry organization in town sends a questionnaire to candidates, publicizes the candidate responses, and in some cases endorses a candidate or two. Except the Sierra Club. It reflexively endorses Sam Pedroza with no interviews, statements, muss or fuss.

You may see grave and serious candidate statements in the Claremont Heritage Newsletter. Four years ago the crisis du jour was Mining; how often have you heard about that recently? It was just enough of a hook to get Pedrozancrantz and Lindanstern elected--indifferent children of the earth, they. The leader of the mining group, we hear, after inflicting Sam and Linda on the town, sold his $3 million mansion and decamped to Laguna. We should all be so lucky.

But back to the Friends of the Bern. Bio. Fld. Sta. What caught our eye was the candidate statement by Robin Haulman. Now, we could spend a whole post just deconstructing this statement. But read it yourself. Click on the image to enlarge it.

click to enlarge

Really. When we read this to Mrs. Insider, she wondered aloud if it had been ghostwritten by Robert Burns, with the Golden Currant in full yellow bloom, the Sage luminescent, and the snowy white flowers aplenty.

Still, our pleasant pastoral reverie was snapped by a gloomy thought called up by the statement highlighted in the graphic above. We wondered, was there a White Lie in there? Did Robin Haulman really campaign vigorously for the bond measure to purchase Johnson's Pasture? We didn't think so. Couldn't remember her one way or the other. Given her, shall we say, "exotic" looks, how could we have possibly forgotten her?

So, we asked around. Nobody on the steering committee could remember her, and her name does not appear in any of the ads for Measure S. We even dug back into the Insider Archive to check. We reproduce below the ad that appeared in the Courier the week before the Measure S election in 2006. Click on it to enlarge.

click to enlarge

Three council candidates appear on the ad: Opanyi Nasiali, who got slammed by an uninformed dowager in a recent Courier who said he was against Johnson's Pasture; 180 degrees incorrect--Sam Pedroza, who made sure he was on the steering committee but didn't actually do much as we hear it, and Michael Keenan. Notable by their absence are current candidates Robin Haulman and Joe (my middle name is "Sustainability") Lyons. What's that all about? How can you say you campaigned "vigorously" for the measure and your name's not even on the list?

Now Claremont has a history of council candidates making statements that are fibs, tall tales, whoppers, misstatements, prevarications, lies, damned lies, etc., etc., usw., --and excuse us for being all judgmental, but those shadings of the truth seem to come from the Claremont 400 side. The most recent notable example being God's Gift to Claremont Bridget Healy who was caught two years ago lying about her involvement or non-involvement in the acquisition of the Wilderness Park. In that case, the unplanned and unforeseen existence of a deposition was her undoing.

Why do these people, such as Robin Haulman and Bridget Healy, have the urge to take credit for something they have nothing whatsoever to do with? Maybe Haulman, as Healy before her, thought no one would notice. But as we've said before, character is something you have when no one is looking. And statements like this show an astounding lack of character.

If you want to know the truth, Robin Haulman didn't even vote in the November 7, 2006 election where Johnson's Pasture Measure S was decided. We had to go to our political sources in County government to figure that out, and it's a little hard to show in a compact graphic, but it is a fact. You could look it up. Moreover, her voting record in City elections is only recent and is very spotty in school board elections over the past decade. She appears to have first registered to vote in Claremont in February 2003.

Her participation in statewide elections is equally checkered. She voted in the 2004 gubernatorial recall, and the primary and general in 2004, but took a pass on the two primaries in 2008 and the special ballot measure election in May 2009--as well as having passed on the November 2006 general election. She voted absentee in the June 2006 primary election, just before the property owner ballot for the ill-starred "Parks and Pasture" assessment district. Which made us wonder, did she cast a property owner ballot in that election? Claremont election wonks will remember that four years ago vanity candidate Mike Maglio claimed to have voted for the assessment district until confronted with a copy of his ballot indicating a NO vote. [note: Nothing illegal here. Assessment District property owner ballots are not elections under State law; they are not secret; the filled-out and signed ballots are subject to public disclosure.]

Asking around elsewhere, we found out that she did not participate in the property owners ballot for the "Parks and Pasture" Assessment District. There was no ballot cast, YES or NO, for her home at the time in Claraboya. Now, you'd think that someone who purports to "firmly believe that we have narrow windows of opportunity to own our hillsides and open spaces" might also have AT LEAST VOTED in this campaign, and maybe even attached her name to the Parks and Pasture supporter list. Nope. Since she voted absentee just before the 45-day balloting period that ended July 25, 2006, maybe she was out of town, in Europe or some exotic locale, missing in action, for the assessment district.

click to enlarge

We are thinking Robin Haulman's Jiminy Cricket must be having a coronary--or whatever it is that crickets have. Here you have an ostensibly credible city council candidate conveniently misstating her involvement in an issue and measure that took most of 2006 in Claremont, where the method of financing divided the town and took months and two tries to get right. Maybe she ought to get out her granny glasses--or as her campaign literature would state it, her "glamma" glasses) and read a little more carefully from her briefing book or iPad. Or maybe she, like Mr. Dooley's Supreme Court, "follows th' election returns", and wants to be on the right side of the 70 percent plurality of Claremont voters who approved Measure S.

Sorry Robin, they did it without your help.

Haulman's New, More-Truthy Brochure

Yet Another Reader Writes

We're heard talk on the street that two of the three Claremont 400 slate candidates, Joseph Lyons and Robin Haulman (Sam Pedroza is the third), have been struggling of late.

Lyons, who at the Active Claremont candidate forum admitted that he hadn't attended any city council meetings until he decided to run for council, seems lost at times when it comes to understanding the details of the issues (pensions, cuts in services, and economic development, to name a few) that the City is wrestling with. Other than environmental sustainability, which he seems genuinely interested in, Lyons has been limited to mouthing positions laid out for him by his 400 handlers (i.e., Lyons' campaign treasurer J. Michael Fay).

Haulman, as we've noted, can't even be counted on to memorize talking points and has to recite them from a script.

Given these relatively weak candidates, the 400 have resorted to their traditional dirty campaign tactics. Word comes to us from one of the eight campaigns that the 400 have spread a lie about one of the candidates being a child molester. And the 400's false information has found its way into the Claremont Courier's letters to editor:

From the Claremont Courier, 2/16/11 -

No on Opanyi, Pocock

Dear Editor:

The purchase of Johnson’s Pasture was one of the best and smartest things ever accomplished by the city of Claremont. I am very glad to learn Opanyi [Nasiali] did not get his way on that issue. A good reason to vote against Opanyi for council. As I read the literature put out by Opanyi and [Jay] Pocock, it is clear they are against everything I value about our city. I will be voting against both of them.

Dawn Sharp
Claremont

We certainly hope the Dawn Sharp who penned this letter is not the same Dawn Sharp who taught history at Chaffey College, though her rewriting of Claremont history would be in keeping with the revisionist practices of Claremont 400. Note to the ironically named Sharp: Nasiali did get his way.

The information Sharp related about the Johnson's Pasture purchase is completely false. As we've remarked, Nasiali not was not only crucial to Claremont's securing Johnson's Pasture at a quarter of the cost of the assessment district the Claremont 400 had tried to force on us, but he helped build a community-wide consensus that resulted in the open space bond passing with 72% of the vote. Only in Claremont could an individual's positive contribution to the community be turned on its head.

Dawn Sharp's letter to the Courier prompted this response from one of our readers:

DATE: Wed, February 16, 2011 10:28:07 AM
SUBJECT: letter to the editor
TO: Claremont Buzz

Check out the letter to the editor in the Courier today (Wed. the 16th)from Dawn Sharp about Opanyi. I do not know if the lady was referring to the previous letter to the editor about how Opanyi was right about so many things and when referring to his being right about Johnson’s Pasture she interpreted it as his being AGAINST Johnson’s Pasture purchase. How stupid. Opanyi was instrumental in getting the bond passed and helped get the College President’s on board. Can we now expect a letter to the editor from the members of that committee like Lissa Petersen, Jill Benton or Suzanne Thompson correcting this misperception by Mrs. Sharp? It would be nice if they did, but I am not holding my breath. Let the games begin.

We're not waiting around for a correction forthcoming from Petersen, Benton or Thompson, either. They're all either captive or party to the "mean girls" psychology that's held us hostage for the last 30-plus years. Thus does peer pressure make cowards of us all.

Mailbag

We received this note in response to our post from a couple days ago regarding the Claremont Police Officers Association and their preparations for contract negotiations with the City (to be filed under "Prepping the Battlefield"):

DATE: Wed, February 16, 2011 1:26:41 PM
SUBJECT: "crime scenes"
TO: Claremont Buzz

Really smart post -- nice work connecting the dots, and a pleasure to see. I like Dieter Dammeier, and think highly of Claremont cops, and still thought you righteously nailed them to the wall on this one.

Yes, it's unfortunate that the CPD officers give residents the false choice of having to either support their contract demands or else fear for their collective safety. We don't doubt that our police work hard for their money, but let's face it, a Claremont officer doesn't face nearly the same daily challenges as, say, an officer working the LAPD's South Bureau. The CPOA needs to set aside its own selfish interests and start thinking about what sacrifices they can make rather than insisting that everyone else - their fellow non-safety employees, people who count on services provided by the City, and cash-strapped taxpayers - pay for the CPOA's every demand.

Driven by an Inland Empire unemployment rate of 13.9%, public sentiment is lurching away from support for the CPD officers refusal to pay their share of their CalPERS pension plans. Witness the Daily Bulletin's editorial on just this subject. The Bulletin noted that Claremont's Ad Hoc Committee on Economic Sustainability came to the conclusion that the status quo for the City's budget is no longer viable.

That committee report, which was released last week, recommended a 1.5% hike in the City's Utility Users Tax, from the present 5.5% to 7%. The report also called for all city employees, including police officers, to start picking up their share of the costs of their pensions. The Bulletin agreed that the employees need to pay their fair pension shares, but they disagreed with the committee's proposal to increase the utility tax:

We admire the committee's thoroughness, looking at all sorts of possible tax and fee hikes before settling on the utility users tax as the most feasible and effective. But we do not favor raising the tax in this economic climate, nor did the three council candidates we have endorsed - Sam Pedroza, Opanyi Nasiali and Jay Pocock. We doubt that voters would approve the hike.

Nasiali, one of nine members of the economic sustainability committee, was the only one to oppose any utility tax hike. He was one of two who wanted employees to pay their own share of pension costs as quickly as possible, rather than phasing the change in over four years as the majority favored. (The employee share for public safety employees is 9percent of salary, for other employees 8percent.)

Requiring employees to pay their share ASAP - or perhaps, to reduce the discomfort somewhat by requiring them to pay 4percent in 2012-13 and the full amount from the next year on - is a reasonable course of action. (Glendora has imposed such a change on its employees; Claremont sanitation workers have already agreed to pay their own full amount.)

Government agencies started picking up employees' share of pension obligations as well as paying their own employer share when times were good - but times are no longer good and, besides, such largesse never was sustainable in the long term. Better for employees to pay that share than for mounting pension costs to require more and more layoffs and reductions in service over the years.

There are two items worth noting here. First, according to the Bulletin, incumbent Sam Pedroza is opposed to a utility tax hike. So it seems unfair and hypocritical to us that Pedroza supporters, some of whom are working behind the scenes to elect a slate consisting of Pedroza, Robin Haulman, and Joseph Lyons, are lambasting Nasiali and Pocock for being similarly opposed to raising the utility tax. Second, the same Pedroza-Haulman-Lyons supporters are spreading false rumors that Nasiali wants take away employee pensions. As the Bulletin piece stated, Nasiali is simply advocating that employees pick up the eight- or nine-percent that they are supposed to be paying in the first place. And, by the way, the city would continue to pick up its share of the employee pension payments.

So any talk of a wholesale elimination of the pensions is a lie, and we urge readers to get the name of any campaign volunteer who makes such statements, along with the name of the candidate they're working for. Better yet, ask for them to commit such statements to paper or to a recording, and forward those to us for a future post.

With election day only a few weeks away, the gloves are coming off those Claremont 400 fists, and it's up to the rest of us to hold them accountable for their silly games.

Crime Scenes

BURGLARY SPREE

From reading the local papers one would think we in Claremont are in the midst of a crime wave. The February 12 edition of the Claremont Courier carried an article about a Claremont Police Department neighborhood meeting organized by resident Jim Keith. The Courier didn't identify Keith fully - he and his wife Sue are firmly ensconced in the ranks of the Claremont 400, a/k/a the Pod People, and Sue holds the 400's seat on the Citrus College Board of Trustees.

The article, by Courier reporter Tony Krickl, said that Keith organized the meeting in response to a burglary at the Keiths' home in March 2010. It turned out that three other homes on the same street had been burglarized that same day. The article went on to say that, "According to police, nearly 30 burglaries have been reported in southwest Claremont since August."

And the upsurge in crime hasn't been confined to South Claremont. The same Courier edition had a police blotter item reporting that 17 vehicles were burglarized in North Claremont in the evening and morning hours of February 6-7.

So what gives? How is it that at a time when crime is supposed to be down nationwide, Claremont has become perp central?


A HISTORY LESSON

We're beginning to think that at least a portion of this crime wave may be due to the confluence of the March city council election and the City's upcoming negotiations with the Claremont Police Officers Association (CPOA). It certainly wouldn't be the first time Claremont employees inserted themselves into an election.

Back in 2005, Preserve Claremont supporters carried on a two-pronged attack to try to prevent current council person Corey Calaycay from being election. The first goal was to go after council person Jackie McHenry, who had been elected two years earlier as a reform candidate. The second was to tie Calaycay to McHenry with the use of full-page ads in the Courier, public comment at council meetings, and letters to the editors of the local newspapers.

Then-City Manager Glenn Southard (photo, right) and some of his senior staff, including Southard's Assistant City Manager Bridget Healy, worked behind the scenes to feed information to the PCers, which they then used to publicly pressure McHenry, as well as Calaycay's campaign. In January, 2005, in the middle of the municipal election season, four of the City's employee unions submitted a joint, written complaint against McHenry, whom Southard had accused of harassing employees, thereby creating a hostile work environment. The employee complaint was, of course, run as an ad in the Courier.

It's important to note that all the details in the complaint were based on hearsay, and none were ever substantiated. Southard tried to have McHenry censured, but he backed off when it became clear that there was a chance of a real, independent investigation into the charges. Not coincidentally, two of the four employee unions that signed onto the joint complaint against McHenry happened to be in contract negotiations with Southard and the City.


TIMELY CRIME

So, given the community's fairly recent experience with city employees and election games, when we see some of the same PCers, including the now-retired Bridget Healy, stoking fears of a crime wave driven by staff reductions caused by budget constraints, we have to at least take a second look.

Healy's friend and supporter Barbara Musselman has been among those who've complained about current City Manager Jeff Parker's cuts, which she and former council member Sandy Baldonado claim were one of the driving reasons behind CPD Chief Paul Cooper's applying to Glendora for their top cop job.

A number of the same people and their present candidate of choice, Robin Haulman, have claimed that we've rolled back police staffing to 1984 levels. They neglect to tell us that crime has also rolled back, at least according to last year's CPD stats, and Part I crimes (violent crimes and property crimes) dropped 23% between 2008 and 2009. We'll have to wait until March to see what the 2010 crime numbers look like.

Healy, et. al., also don't like to tell us that, while police staffing has dropped to 1984 levels, the costs of safety employees' have soared, in part due to overly generous pension benefits (3% at 50) for which Healy and Baldonado are responsible.

All of this leaves City Manager Parker in an awkward negotiating position with regards to the CPOA's contract. Because of the state of the economy, as well as Sacramento threat to go after redevelopment agencies, the City has to watch every penny, and Parker will need to take a hard line with the police union. But, at the same time, he has people like Healy and Musselman undercutting him by trying to frighten residents with talk about the allegedly weakened state of Claremont's PD.

If the public pressure gets great enough and if Healy and Musselman get a majority on the council that they can control, then Parker will have to roll over for the police union.


ON ADVICE OF COUNSEL?

Claremont Police Officers Association counsel and former CPD officer Dieter Dammeier

And where, exactly, does the CPOA fit into all of these machinations?

More than one reader has pointed us to the website of the CPOA's counsel, Upland attorney and former CPD officer Dieter Dammeier, whose office is in Upland. Dammeier (photo, above) has apparently carved out a niche as a public safety employee contract negotiator.

Dammeier's website makes it clear that to have the strongest negotiating positions, police unions need to pursue a political strategy, as well as a kind of public relations program to shape (skew?) public perception about their safety. It's the sort of fear-based strategy that the Claremont 400 and their political arm, Preserve Claremont, love to use.

The attorney's website has posted a blueprint for dealing with stalled contract negotiations that states:

The association should be like a quiet giant in the position of, "do as I ask and don't piss me off." Depending on the circumstances surrounding the negotiations impasse, there are various tools available to an association to put political pressure on the decision makers.

Public Message

Always keep this in mind. The public could care less about your pay, medical coverage and pension plan. All they want to know is "what is in it for them." Any public positions or statements by the association should always keep that focus. The message should always be public safety first. You do not want wage increases for yourselves, but simply to attract better qualified candidates and to keep more experienced officers from leaving.

And:

Storm City Council - While an association is at impasse, no city council or governing board meeting should take place where members of your association and the public aren't present publicly chastising them for their lack of concern for public safety.

Here the CPOA have the advantage of being able to have civilians like Sandy Baldonado or Barbara Musselman do the chastising. Dammeier's negotiation training materials go on to say:

Press Conferences - Every high profile crime that takes place should result in the association's uproar at the governing body for not having enough officers on the street, which could have avoided the incident.

The website counsels police unions to take more time to complete their activities (this would generate concerns or complaints about lowered response times and reinforce concerns about public safety):

Work Slowdown - This involves informing your members to comply closely with Department policy and obey all speed limits. It also involves having members do thorough investigations, such as canvassing the entire neighborhood when taking a 459 report and asking for a back-up unit on most calls. Of course, exercising officer discretion in not issuing citations and making arrests is also encouraged.

And Dammeier tells his clients to get involved in local elections:

Campaigning - If any members of the governing body are up for election, the association should begin actively campaigning against them, again for their lack of concern over public safety. If you are in a non-election year, make political flyers which you can explain will be mailed out the following year during the election season.

In the present election, the CPOA is using its influence to try to undermine any candidate who might support an attempt by City Manager Parker to negotiate a CPOA contract that would rein in police salaries and pensions.

The website also says police employees should remember to get their message out, even if they have to pay for newspaper space:

Newspaper Ads - Again, keep the message focused on "public safety."

All of which places the CPOA's activities in proper perspective. The February 12 Courier also carried a small CPOA ad endorsing three city council candidates: Robin Haulman, Joseph Lyons, and Sam Pedroza:

Click on Image to Enlarge

We can't help but think how nice it would be if we got to hire our own bosses. Who wouldn't go for a deal like that? We rail against businesses that try to influence elections by supporting candidates, so how is this any different? In dealing with contract issues, we want council people who are impartial, not ones beholden to or afraid of their employees.

The ad raises some big conflict of interest concerns for the three chosen ones. When it comes down to the CPOA's contract negotiations later this year, if elected, would Haulman, Lyons and Pedroza place the CPOA's wants above the City's fiscal well-being?

But, as we say, none of this is new to Claremont. The lines between employer and employee get blurred constantly, and the Claremont 400 ideal is a kind of vertical integration of council and staff, hence their desire to have Bridget Healy on the council or to have a native Claremonter like Paul Cooper running the police department. They fail to see the need to have checks and balances built into the system and want staff, council and commissions to be one, with the result that dissenting voices and ideas are disregarded, poor decisions get made and staff are vulnerable to pressure from the 400.

The 400 wants us to forget the past, but one must look in the rear view mirror once in while to avoid the kind of costly and divisive crises we've had before.

On the Campaign Trail

THE BULLETIN ENDORSES

The Daily Bulletin came out with its endorsements earlier this week, and there was at least one surprise.

As expected, Sam Pedroza made the cut, which we would expect given that he's the incumbent, and the local papers generally defer the such. Also, Sam's brought home plenty of Sacramento pork in the form of three large grants totaling several million dollars from the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (more of which in a future post). So Sam's done Claremont's part to both save and destroy the environment while at the same time contributing to California's $25 billion budget deficit.

The Bulletin also endorsed Opanyi Nasiali, which was a mild surprise, seeing that the Claremont 400 have never liked him because he's not their black man. Ever since the Irvin Landrum shooting in 1999, the 400 have been all for supporting African-Americans (have we dropped the hyphen? - we can't keep it straight). Nasiali's both African and self-made American, but that seems to irk the 400 to no end and also, for some reason, the local Democratic Club, who are apparently desperate enough to have their volunteers running around generating complaints while putting up Pedroza and Robin Haulman signs.

Nasiali, by the way, is living proof that no good deed goes unpunished. In 2006, Nasiali argued successfully against the $45 million or so Parks and Pasture Assessment District, saying that it was wasteful and that a more limited general obligation bond would be a better way to go. To prove his point, after the assessment lost 56% to 44%, he turned around and helped lead the successful Measure S campaign, which ended up winning 72% of the vote. Nasiali also convinced the Claremont College presidents to agree to allow the colleges to waive their non-profit status under the bond, which lowered the overall Measure S tax burden to individual property owners. The 400, hypocrites that they are, ignored Nasiali's key contributions in building a true community consensus on the Johnson's Pasture issue and worked actively to defeat him in the 2007 council election.

Lastly, the Bulletin endosed newcomer Jay Pocock, who (with Nasiali) helped lead the No on CL campaign against the Claremont Unified School District's $95 million school bond. That measure lost 60% to 40% and was eerily similar to the Parks and Pasture/Measure S campaigns in that the No side argued, again successfully, that there was a better way help the schools. Sore losers that they are, the CUSD school board and the Claremont 400 are aiming for payback in the city council election. Still, the Bulletin went for Pocock over Haulman, the 400's candidate of choice, for the last of the three seats up for this election.


MORE EVENTS

And word comes to us from another candidate, Citizen Michael John Keenan (image, left), that the Claremont Forum, which also sponsors Claremont's Sunday Farmers Market, will be the site of a Keenan campaign even tonight from 7pm to 9pm, so says CMJK:

Bill McClellan has agreed to play some of the folk like-struggle-getting-to-the top inspirational acoustic music. Some buddies may sit in too! Find Bill at http://www.fairmarketband.com/ or http://www.fairmarketband.com/.

There will be a table of Trader Joes fare and a table of Trader Joes drinks. Definitely a Sangria and an Ale selection. Tea, Coffee and Juices for the ineligible imbibers should they show up.

The Claremont Forum is located at 586 W. First St. in the Claremont Packing House.

* * * * *

Oddly, in this council race the Claremont Democratic Club is not supporting Keenan, who is a registered Democrat, nor are they supporting another Dem, Joseph Armendarez. As we've said, they are actively campaigning for Haulman, Pedroza, and candidate Joseph Lyons, who admitted at last month's Active Claremont forum that he had never attended a City Council meeting before deciding to run in this election and who has never really been involved at all on local issues.

To be fair to the Democratic Club, Joe Armendarez has been similarly disinterested in Claremont issues, at least for the past 10 years or more. Keenan, however, has been very active in nearly every important Claremont issue for at least the last dozen years, and he has probably attended more City Council and city commission meetings than Haulman and Pedroza put together. So the lack of support for him from the local Dems puzzles us, since they claim to not endorse any single candidate and say they're merely trying to support the Democrats running for council. Based on his community involvement, Keenan deserves the club's support as much as Pedroza or Haulman and certainly has earned it more than Lyons, who may be a nice guy but who seems lost when it comes to what's happening locally.

If you want to ask the club or their president, Zephyr Tate-Mann, about this, you can take it up with them this weekend. Our friends within the Democratic Club who aren't happy with the direction the club's taken, have told us the club will be precinct walking tomorrow for Haulman, Pedroza and Lyons. A special Insider shout-out to any reader who forwards a photo of Zephyr or her hubby Rudy on one of their walks! Rudy, who hails from Louisiana, brings his own muddy bayou brand of electioneering to Claremont. Rudy runs every local issue through the narrow prism of his party politics rather than any out of any sense of community interest or fairness.

We hear, but haven't been able to confirm, that the Manns and company will be out walking in two shifts from 10:30am to 12:30pm and 1:30pm to 3:30pm, so keep your eyes peeled. You can start watching for them at the United Food and Commerical Workers (UFCW) Local 1428 hall at 705 W. Arrow Hwy., where they'll assemble before their morning and afternoon walks.

We understand that the Manns and the Democratic Club will also be phone banking. (A special Insider award to whomever can forward us a digital recording of one of these calls.) If you like what you see and hear from them, or if you want to complain, you can reach them at the club's phone number, (909) 632-1516, or you can contact Zephyr at (909) 626-2858, which is the contact number listed by the party for her here.

We'd give you the same information for the local Republican club, but they seem to be sitting this one as an organization, apparently because it's supposed to be a non-partisan race.

Huff Wins Republican Nomination for 29th Senate District

According to results posted on the California Secretary of State website, Assemblyman Bob Huff trounced former Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy for the Republican nomination in the 29 Senate District race.

Huff: 28,320 votes, 68.4%
Mountjoy, 13,137 votes, 31.6%

Joseph Lyons, the lone entrant in the Democratic primary, received 22,363 votes, 100%

Libertarian Jill Stone won her primary with 209 votes, 100%

As noted yesterday, because the 29th was gerrymandered to be a safe Republican district, Huff's win in the primary virtually assures his election to the state senate in November.