Coming Attractions

A glance at the ol' community calendar (really old community, really old calendar) tells us of some upcoming events:

CITY STUFF

Claremont Human Services Director Mercedes Santoro (Mercy to her Claremont 400 friends) honors her bureaucratic fiefdom with Claremont Night at the California Reign Saturday night, the city's website says:

Claremont Night at the Ontario Reign Game March 6

The City of Claremont and the Ontario Reign Hockey Team are hosting Claremont Night at the Citizen's Bank Arena on Saturday, March 6, 2010. Join Claremont fans as the Ontario Reign take on the Las Vegas Wranglers starting at 7:00pm Proceeds from the ticket sales will be used to support park improvements for Claremont's youth sports organizations.

The City of Claremont's parks and fields are used by more than 3,700 youth each year in organized sports groups. By providing quality sports facilities, the City hopes to encourage the community's youth to engage in healthy behaviors. The benefits of youth sports are numerous and include a reduction in obesity, self esteem building, a sense of teamwork, and improved physical development.

Tickets to the Ontario Reign game can be purchased individually are at a discounted rate for groups. Tickets are available in the upper or lower levels of the arena and range from $12-$20 for adults and $10-$15 for children. To purchase tickets, please contact the Human Services Department at (909) 399-5490. This discounted ticket price offer is not available at the Arena Box Office or TicketMaster.

The Citizen's Bank Arena is located at 4000 E. Ontario Center Parkway, CA 91764.

ANGEL'S FLIGHT

Fans of the angel in Claremont's Mallows Park, located in at the northeast corner of Indian Hill Blvd. and Harrison Ave., will want to weigh in on whether or not the angel, Ambrosia, should be moved. Again, the city website speaks:

Mallows Park Angel Feedback

The City is considering moving Ambrosia, the angel located at Mallows Park on Indian Hill Blvd.It is one of the City's public art pieces, originally located on the south side of the park. The City is seeking input from the surrounding neighborhood on if they would like it to remain at the park or if they would like to see it moved to a different location. Please contact Francine Baker, Arts Coordinator at (909) 399-5391.

• E-mail Francine Baker, Arts Coordinator

COUNCIL BUDGET MEETING

The Claremont City Council is having a budget workshop this Saturday, March 6, from 12pm to 5pm in the council chambers at 225 Second Street.


ATHENAEUM SPEAKERS

If you want your thoughts provoked, check out the upcoming speakers at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum at Claremont McKenna College. The lectures begin at 6:45pm, except for the one tomorrow, which starts at noon.

The Athenaeum is located at 385 E. 8th St., and the lectures are free and open to the public. You can get more information by calling (909) 621-8244. You can also check their website. Here are the speakers for the next couple weeks:

Thursday, March 4	Larry Diamond, professor by courtesy of political science and sociology; senior fellow, Hoover Institution; Stanford University; author, The Spirit to Build Free Societies Throughout the World (2008) and Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to bring Democracy to Iraq (2006); "Asian Values and the Future of Democracy in Asia"
Friday, March 5	Peter Bossaerts, William D. Hacker professor of economics and management, California Institute of Technology; author, The Paradox of Asset Planning (2002) and Lecture Notes in Corporate Finance (2001); "What Decision Neuroscience Teaches Us about Financial Decision Making" (12:00 p.m.)
Monday, March 8	Ian Frazier, author, Gone to New York: Adventures in the City (2005) and On the Rez (2000) and Jamaica Kincaid, Josephine Olp Weeks Chair and Professor of Literature, CMC; author, Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalayas (2005) and The Autobiography of My Mother (1996); "Ian Frazier and Jamaica Kincaid in Dialogue"
Tuesday, March 9	Abdourahman Waberi, visiting professor of literature, CMC; author, The Land Without Shadows (2005) and In the United States of Africa (2009); "A Nomadic Soul"
Wednesday, March 10	Joanna Strober, senior managing director of private equity, Sterling Stamos; co-author, Getting to 50/50: How Working Couples Can Have It All by Sharing It All, and Why It's Great for Your Marriage, Your Career, Your Kids,... and You (2009); "Getting to 50/50"

Pay Now, Pay More Later

Look out, Claremont. Your city staff just may cost you a trip to the poorhouse. A reader wrote in to tell us that the city of Vallejo voted earlier this month to file for bankruptcy.

According to an Associated Press article about the bankruptcy:

VALLEJO — With hundreds of concerned residents looking on, the Vallejo City Council voted unanimously late Tuesday to file for bankruptcy, making the city the first of its size to seek protection due to unaffordable labor contracts.

The dramatic vote came despite a last-minute appeal by state Sen. Pat Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, and an aide for Assemblywoman Noreen Evans for the city to avoid bankruptcy....

....Vallejo has been slammed by increasing costs of its public safety contracts, the housing crisis, lower property values and state raids on local coffers.

The city faces a $16 million deficit in the 2008-09 fiscal year which starts July 1. Tuesday night's dramatic vote came after months of fruitless talks between city and labor representatives.

After those talks, which continued through the weekend and failed to produce a long-range fiscal plan, Vallejo's top administrators recommended bankruptcy as the only option remaining.

Chapter 9 bankruptcy will allow the city to gain temporary protection from creditors and enable the city to continue to offer citizens necessary services.

Another AP story explained the reasons why employee costs are dragging down city budgets and talked about the downside to a municipal bankruptcy:

Like Vallejo, many U.S. cities are saddled with labor contracts that offer salaries, overtime pay, pensions and health benefits they say they can't afford. Those expenses are expected to balloon as health care costs soar and employees retire earlier and live longer.

Vallejo officials hope the bankruptcy judge will allow the city to rewrite its labor contracts and bring compensation down. If they're successful, other cities may follow their lead, experts say.

"The solution that will come out of Vallejo may very well be a model for other cities facing similarfiscal challenges," said Marcia Fritz, vice president of the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility. "If Vallejo turns out better after declaring bankruptcy ... that will be an avenue (other cities) look at to break contracts."

But bankruptcy is not without risks. It will cost the city millions of dollars in legal fees and damage its credit rating. As a result, borrowing money to build roads, schools and other projects will become much harder - and more expensive.

Claremont has some experience with ballooning employee costs. Before he left for Indio, former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard got the Claremont City Council to raise city employee pension benefit to 2.5% at 55, meaning that once employees reach 50 years of age, they are qualify for a pension equal to 2.5% of their annual salary at retirement for every year of employment. So an employee who started working for Claremont at, say, 25, and who retired at 55, would qualify for a pension benefit of 75% of their salary - 30 years of service, times 2.5%.

Claremont police officers qualify for an even higher pension. CPD gives out 3% at 50.

To those of you working in private industry, do you receive such generous pension benefits? If you are a worker in one of the 87% of private businesses not offering a defined benefit pension, you're pretty much on your own to fund your own retirement through a 401(k) plan or an IRA. But public employees are in a different class from you.

Prior to the current pension benefit going into effect in July, 2004, Claremont's non-public safety pension benefit was 2% at 55. What Southard didn't tell you, what he didn't care about, was that the .5 % increase was retroactive back to each employee's date of hire. Consequently, Claremont's non-public safety pension account with the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS) became instantly underfunded by as much as $10 million - a fact that Councilmember Peter Yao tried without much success to get Southard's staff to face.

Those of you who recall the meeting where Claremont's City Council voted on the pension increase may remember the unseemly spectacle of senior city employees lined up in the front row and cheering when the council approved the pension.

This all raises the a second problem - that of the blurring of the line between employee and friend. While it's great that the elected and appointed people who run the city love their staff, it's terribly irresponsible for them to abandon their duties to safeguard the public coffers by allowing themselves to become too close to their employees.

Claremont Human Services Deputy Director Mercedes Santoro, for instance, is no doubt a very nice person. She and her family live in Claremont, and they are involved in the community. However, is she really worth $130,000 in salary and benefits (as of the end of 2006)? Is anybody? And she is relatively young. What will her pension be when she retires?

No wonder cities - not just Claremont - seek to hide their employee compensation and are willing to take any step, no matter how questionable to cut off access to that public information. But just look to Vallejo or San Diego to see what happens when elected officials ignore their financial responsibilities.