Election Reflections

Looking back on the 2007 Claremont Municipal election, we can't help but wonder if party politics isn't hurting our local governance. It may be that what is good for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party on the state or federal levels does not translate to sound policy on the local level.

Party politics, particularly on the national level, have become so polarized that voters are too often left with only two positions, and a range of other choices in between are automatically eliminated. This may be one reason why the number of Californians declining to state a party affiliation has been on the rise. According to an NPR story in January, 2007, the percentage of declined to state voters in California is now about 20% and growing.

Both parties risk becoming caricatures, the Democrats stuck in the 1960's and the Republicans stuck in the 1980's. While the Claremont electorate has traditionally been weighted slightly in favor of the Democrats, there are plenty of fiscally conservative social liberals who've objected to such things as the city's Landscaping and Lighting District. And, there a moderate Claremont Republicans who were bothered by the city's handling of the Landrum shooting.

One risk the incoming council has is to assume it has a mandate to spend freely without considering methods of payment. Last year's assessment district vote showed that there are still strong feelings about that sort of spending, and those feelings cut across party lines. The city has also turned its back on things like the vehicle stop study by the Police Department, and socially liberal Democrats and moderate Republicans alike may have concerns about that, especially if another racially-charged incident comes along.

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As we've noted in the past week, the newly-elected councilmembers and re-elected Peter Yao owe their election to the village vote, which accounted for the difference between third-place Linda Elderkin and fourth-place Jackie McHenry. The danger is that the council will fall back into its old patterns of conflating the good of the village for the good of greater Claremont.

Sam Pedroza ran as a candidate for South Claremont. Yet, what has he really done for them? What ideas does he bring to the council that will invigorate South Claremont and direct more city revenue towards the south, other than to line the pockets of his benefactor Roger Hogan at Claremont Toyota? We have yet to hear.

If areas like South Claremont, Northeast Claremont, and Piedmont Mesa become disaffected again, and if there is another polarizing event like the Landrum shooting, the city will be forced to confront its shortcomings, and some other Jackie McHenry will step forward as a vehicle of change.

The mistake the Claremont 400 makes is to deny their part in this dance of anger.

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We will say that there was one little-noticed comment by Pedroza at the Pitzer College candidate forum the week before the election. Pedroza, in answering a question concerning the police commission, seemed to answer sincerely and from the heart. It was a question that had not come up before in the campaign, so his Claremont 400 handlers had not had a chance to tell him what to say. Pedroza, who growing up must have seen some instances of police abuse, seemed to understand the concern some Claremonters have for the need for civilian oversight of the police. His keepers will rein him in, of course, but the lesson was that Pedroza on his own can speak intelligently. It's when he has the 400 telling him what to say that he puts his foot in his mouth.

(The 400, lead by people like former Police Commission Chair Helaine Goldwater, have watered down the Police Commission to where it's a non-entity. Hence, current Police Commission Chair Kevin Arnold's tantrum at the council meeting immediately preceding the election. Arnold has nothing better or more important to do with his time.)

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The Student Life, Pomona College's newspaper, had good article on the election. Keep it up, TSL!

Johnson's Pasture--Going, Going, Gone?

Just when we all thought Johnson's Pasture was saved, city negotiations with the pasture owners hit a snag, as the Bulletin pointed out earlier this month.

The pasture has been held up in probate court in San Diego County for years, with no real buyers, other than the city of Claremont, whose voters last November approved the issuance of up to $12.5 million in bonds to buy the land.

The city had purchased an option to buy the land but allowed the option to lapse in December 2006 while they continued to negotiate a sale price on the 180 acres of hillside open space.

The original price the city had negotiated with the sellers was $12 million, but that price was based on a flawed appraisal. Claremont also has a $1 million state of California grant that they can use to buy the land, but the state audited the original appraisal and disagreed with it. The state required a second appraisal be done in order for the city to qualify for the state grant money, and the second appraisal came in at $11.5 million. So Claremont officials have been trying to get the sellers to come down $500,000 in order to get the state money.

Really, the city is looking at a $1.5 million turnaround if the sellers agree to the lower price--a half-million for the lower sale price, and the million dollars from the state. This reduces the debt the taxpayers have to take on. The city is also compelled to argue for the lower price because there are other open space parcels adjacent to Johnson's Pasture that the city might like to acquire in the future. The city would need additional state grants to do that, but Claremont might jeopardize qualifying for any future grants if they show a history of paying above market value for the land.

The families that are selling Johnson's Pasture are running their own campaign--to make more profit. They've been posturing and politicking, claiming in Bulletin that the state grant would prevent the city from using the threat of eminent domain to buy the land. The owners want that eminent domain threat because they can get additional tax breaks with that threat--even if the City really didn't intend to exercise eminent domain.

The pasture owners seem to really be posturing here. Their spokesman Mike Vasilove sounded like a used car salesman in the Bulletin article:

• Vasilove said the owners would still prefer for the city to buy the land, but noted that they have other options.
  
  "There is no lack of interested buyers to develop this property," he said. "The owners have never really needed the city to step up and purchase this property."

Yes, if you don't buy now, this baby'll be gone by the afternoon. We had another couple in this morning ready to buy.

Vasilove is pretty transparent. If the sellers had other options, they wouldn't bother carrying out their negotiations publicly in the Bulletin and in an open letter to the Claremont Courier on 3/1/2007. If there were really other buyers, the owners would just say, Thank you Claremont, Goodbye, and sell to whatever developer they had lined up. Moreover, if they sold to a private party, there would be no eminent domain threat for them to use with the IRS.

In their Courier letter last Wednesday, the pasture owners sound like they're trying to squeeze the extra $500,000 from the city:

• City officials are premature and incorrect regarding their statement about the pasture being saved. It isn’t yet and we believe strongly the voters will again speak loud and clear on March 6th if the city fails to acquire “The Jewel of the Foothills” this time. That’s our opinion.
  
  —The Owners of Johnson’s Pasture

Why don't they just send Rocco out to break a few knuckles? It amounts to much the same thing. The owners are just trying to throw a scare into Johnson Pasture supporters hoping they will frighten the city into action. Nothing like sowing a little panic to get some action.

Funny how these things come up right before the election--mining, affordable housing, Padua Park, Johnson's Pasture, Police Commission Chair Kevin Arnold's recent tantrum (noooooo, that didn't have anything to do with electioneering). What was everyone doing the last two years?

Postscript: The city has its response to the pasture owners' mini-PR campaign: http://www.ci.claremont.ca.us/download.cfm?ID=1077.

Give the city's staff credit, they are working pretty hard on a lot of these issues. They're using a lot more imagination in coming up with solutions than the prior administration did, and they get precious little credit for it. They've taken the professionalism up a notch in town. They just need to realize that Ellen Taylor, Sandy Baldonado, Paul Held, Valerie Martinez, et. al., do not represent the entire city. If fact, they represent an increasingly smaller demographic.

Council contretemps

The Claremont 400 had Kevin Arnold carrying their water for them at last night's city council meeting. Arnold came in and ripped into councilmembers Calaycay and McHenry, and slightly into Peter Yao in public comment for discussing City Manager Jeff Parker's contract and compensation publicly at the city council meeting two weeks earlier.

Odd, even though at that earlier council meeting ALL five of the councilmembers were speaking, Arnold focus his fire on McHenry and Calaycay. Arnold was mad because he claimed they were discussing closed session subjects in public. The city attorney didn't think there was any violation here, and at any rate, she didn't stop the council meeting when the subject came up--something she normally does if it appears there might be a procedural violation. Of course, the 400 only believes the city attorney's opinions when they want to, as they did with the Elderkin fib about the conflict of interest matter (check that one out at city hall--it's a public document).

Like Lynn Forester, Arnold singled out McHenry and Calaycay for doing exactly what the other councilmembers present were doing.

Why Kevin Arnold? Well, he was a schoolboard candidate, and he had considered running for council this time around (Paul Held and Valerie Martinez were stoking that fire). This may have been an opening salvo in an Arnold campaign for 2009. We'll try to post Arnold's attack on YouTube once the video is up on cable (it should air next Monday night on local cable).

Just another case of the 400 trying to stir the pot before the election. More on that subject later.