City Meetings

Only two more Claremont City Council meetings to go until the council's annual August break. Here's what to expect tonight in the council chambers at 225 Second St. in the Claremont Village:


CLOSED SESSION

The Claremont City Council will meet in closed session at 5:15pm for a super secret briefing from City Manager Jeff Parker on negotiations with the Claremont police rank-and-file and management associations.

The council will also discuss a liability claim against the City by Kiran Se Corporation, the company that wanted to put a 7-Eleven convenience store in the prize-winning building at 601 E. Foothill Blvd. Seems understandable - the Kiran Se people were encouraged by city staff to proceed with their plans and then had their feet knocked out from underneath them when citizens complained about the proposed store for a variety of reasons (pedestrian safety, worries about binge drinking by college students, the usual Claremont snootiness).

In keeping with a long-standing Claremont tradition, we can probably expect a lawsuit by Kiran Se Corp., which has filed a claim against the the City of Claremont for unspecified damages. We're not sure how far that will go, though. As we recall, Kiran Se withdrew its appeal of the Planning Commission's denial of their Conditional Use Permit, so they did not exhaust their administrative remedies.

If you're interested, you can read the closed session agenda here.


REGULAR SESSION

As usual, the council's regular session begins at 6:30pm. You can see the meeting streamed online or watch it later. Just click here.

It's a light agenda.

The consent calendar shows that the City will likely deny a claim for property damage due to the construction of Padua Park.

The public hearings portion of the regular session will take up the matter of Claremont's crosswalk policy with a recommendation to not have new crosswalks installed on Mountain Ave. between Foothill Blvd. and Harrison Ave.--something that may ruffle some feathers in the neighborhoods along Mountain.

City staff is also recommending revising the City's system of in-lieu parking credits by introducing a second price tier. Businesses in the Claremont Village have a certain number of so-called parking credits that are supposed to reflect the number of actual parking spaces a business requires for customers and employees. The number is dependent on the type of business. Retailers have fewer parking credits than restaurants because stores generally don't bring in as many customers restaurants.

The parking credits can become a problem when someone wants to convert shop space into a restaurant. Under the City's current policy, that businessperson would have to pay $9,000 for every parking space deficiency they had under the formula used by city staff. The City allows businesses to purchase credits in lieu of having the actual spaces available. The proposed modification to the in-lieu parking credit policy would be to create a second tier at $1,000 per credit. The new tier would apply only to businesses employing more than 15 people or that will bring in over $500,000 annually.

We found the way City Hall looks at parking very illustrative of the general myopia afflicting our fair city. According to Housing and Redevelopment Manager Brian Desatnik's report for this agenda item, the council's recently passed resolution 97-105 states:

The Village is a mixed use neighborhood as well as a City center. People desiring to visit the Village should be able to park there. However, people should not expect that parking be available immediately adjacent to the business or place to which they are destined. The supply of parking shall not be deemed a problem as long as persons visiting a Village destination can park somewhere in the Village.

Notice that it's the City defining the parking problem. If you're from out of town and you stop in the Village to buy something, you should know that you have no right to expect to park near your destination. If you think there's a problem here, you are wrong, says Claremont.

Like many area residents, we know what to expect with Village parking, so we don't begrudge a little walk. Neither we nor the City, however, gets to define the problem. Customers and visitors do, and they'll vote with their wheels if they find the parking arrangements inconvenient.

By the way, the Conscious Claremont blog has an interesting take on this issue. They're attributing this parking policy redefinition solely to one location: the old Casa Flores building at 232 Yale Ave. Conscious Claremont says:

But, after taking a longer view, I suspect this policy may be created specifically for the Casa Flores location---there are few cases with usage change [i.e. retail to restaurant]. I was told the $150,000 CDBG grant has been earmarked for this property---the proof seems to be the lack of advertising about the funds availability, & a year has gone by with no takers. This would fit the pattern of altering general policy to facilitate specific plans.

Um, excuse us, but did we miss the City Council meeting the disposition of that $150,000 Community Development Block Grant was decided? Who decided this? If true, it's just another case of the way public policy is decided in Claremont..


WEDNESDAY, JULY 14 - COUNCIL MEETING WITH SUPERVISOR ANTONOVICH

Now we know why Claremont lets L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich ride in the City's annual 4th of July parade. It requires a lot of buttering up to secure those much-needed county grant dollars for the city's projects.

Tomorrow at 8am, the council will hold its annual meeting with Antonovich. The meeting will take place in the Citrus Room, right above the council chambers.

The council has four items on the agenda for tomorrow's meeting:

• Sycamore Canyon Park
  
• The College Ave. affordable housing project
  
• Funding for more open space
  
• Library hours
  

These are all items involving county funds. Come on out and watch the supplicants perform.

Antonovich Pans Wagner

Soundrack for the Holocaust

Claremont's County Supervisor, Michael D. Antonovich, weighed in on the plans by L.A. Opera to stage a "Ring" Festival next year, featuring composer Richard Wagner's famous work, Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Antonovich is not amused.

It seems Antonovich doesn't have enough to do riding in local Fourth of July parades, solving the County budget isses, doling out County largesse and getting backroom deals made. These days everybody's a critic, and Mike has become an opera critic.

He issued a statement Tuesday decrying the idea that that the "Ring" Festival should bring out any pieces by that ol' anti-Semite, Richard Wagner. His press release, which we haven't found on his County website, is quoted on LA Now:

“To specifically honor and glorify the man whose music and racist anti-Semitic writings inspired Hitler and became the de facto soundtrack for the Holocaust in a countywide festival is an affront to those who have suffered or have been impacted by the horrors of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialistic Worker Party.”

He goes on to suggest that maybe the Wagner "Ring" Festival could “delete the focus on Wagner and incorporate other composers as headliners including Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Schubert, Schumann, Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn and others.”

So Supervisor Mike joins that band of modern-day censors--Pomona President David Oxtoby is another--who subscribe to the Cootie Theory of Historical Cleansing and Rewriting: Because we find objectionable something, somewhere, related to a piece, let's do some feel-good hand-wringing to put our own goodness and superiority on display and trash everything related to the "badness" we have identified.

Supervisor Antonovich in Claremont's 2009 Fourth of July Parade

Transportation Monday

The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension is getting in line for $150 million of those federal stimulus package dollars. Habib Balian, the extension project CEO, has a letter on posted online explaining the politicking that went into convincing the LA County Metropolitan Transit Authority to seek federal funds for the Gold Line.

You'd think it'd be a no-brainer, with all the talk about how the stimulus money is supposed to favor so-called "shovel-ready" projects. But nothing is simple with the MTA, whose board includes a number of members, including Zev Yaroslavsky, who don't want the Gold Line leap-frogging over other projects like the LA Expo Line.

In any event, the MTA board gave in at a February 26 meeting after some lobbying by Duarte City Councilmember John Fasana and LA County Supervisors Gloria Molina and Michael Antonovich, all of whom are on the MTA board. At the February meeting the board was considering a motion to seek $300 million in stimulus package money for the Foothill Extension and the Expo Line. Habib Balian's update explained:

During the debate on the motion, an amendment was made to remove the section regarding the Gold Line. Proponents argued that the Federal Transit Administration had yet to issue funding guidelines for rail projects, so the item containing the Foothill Extension should be removed from the motion. Board members Fasana and Antonovich protested, arguing the board should support the Gold Line because it is ready to go and could leverage the Measure R funding to secure additional federal money. Measure R is the county’s half-cent sales tax that goes into effect on July 1.

LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavksy countered if the motion was supported as it was written the Foothill Extension could “leapfrog” other rail lines for federal funding, adding that the board’s support for the measure would be tantamount to giving permission to the Foothill Extension Construction Authority to apply for federal funds. Supervisor Molina stood up in support of the Foothill Extension, saying the effort to remove the Foothill Extension from the spending proposal was “payback” for the San Gabriel Valley’s vote on Measure R.

Molina’s argument immediately shifted the debate, forcing proponents of the amendment to retreat and support the staff proposal, with some minor amendments that allow the board to alter its recommendation depending on the federal guidelines for rail projects.

* * * * *

It turns out that your morning cup of Joe may be good for more than merely getting you brain revved up. The Original Skrip had a post yesterday about the potential for coffee to fuel cars. Skrip found an article from The Economist magazine that explained how coffee grounds can be converted to biodiesel fuel.

According to The Economist article:

The researchers found that coffee biodiesel is comparable to the best biodiesels on the market. But unlike biodiesels based on soya or other plants, it does not divert crops or land from food production into fuel production.

A further advantage is that unmodified oils from plants, like the peanut oil used by [German engineer Rudolph] Diesel in the 19th century, have high viscosity and require engine alterations. Diesel derived from coffee is less thick and can usually be burned in an engine with little or no tinkering.

The diesel-extraction method for coffee grounds is similar to that used for other vegetable oils. It employs a process called transesterification, in which the grounds react with an alcohol in the presence of a catalyst. The coffee grounds are dried overnight and common chemical solvents, such as hexane, ether and dichloromethane, are added to dissolve the oils. The grounds are then filtered out and the solvents separated (to be reused with the next batch of coffee grounds). The remaining oil is treated with an alkali to remove free fatty acids (which form a soap). Then the crude biodiesel is heated to about 100ºC to remove any water, and treated with methanol and a catalyst, so that transesterification takes place. When cooled to room temperature and left to stand, the biodiesel floats up, leaving a layer of glycerine at the bottom. These layers are separated and the biodiesel is cleaned to remove any residues.

Although some people make their own diesel at home from leftovers and recycled cooking oil, coffee-based biodiesel seems better suited to larger-scale processes. Dr Misra says that a litre of biodiesel requires 5-7kg of coffee grounds, depending on the oil content of the coffee in question. In their laboratory his team has set up a one-gallon-a-day production facility, which uses between 19kg and 26kg of coffee grounds. The biofuel should cost about $1 per gallon to make in a medium-sized installation, the researchers estimate.

Does this mean Starbucks can now enter the energy business?

Foothill Cities Blog Blamed for Passage of LA County Transit Measure R

In a wave of bitter recrimination, opponents of the Metropolitan Transit Authority's Measure R, another half cent sales tax increase for transportation, blamed the now-defunct Foothill Cities Blog for the defeat.

"We were counting on Foothill Cities to be there when we needed it," lamented a chastened Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. "There was nothing in Measure R for the San Gabriel Valley, and we frankly expected Foothill Cities to point that out to its wide readership. But Foothill Cities has been silent on this issue for more than six weeks."

In fact Foothill Cities has been off the air for almost seven weeks. A lonely note claiming a server crash is all that now greets the visitor to thefcblog.com. According to Publius, the founder of the Foothill Cities Blog, "This was a major technological error. Centinel is on it." Sure.

Mayor Ellen Taylor of Claremont, secretly very happy to have another half-percent added to her shopping cart, making Claremont still less competitive with Montclair Plaza, nonetheless put on her game face: "We just don't understand why the voters would have done this. I published a letter with all the arguments in the Daily Bulletin and even in the Claremont Courier. If only the Foothill Cities Blog had covered it. This is really, really sad."

Pomona City Council member George Hunter, whose name was left off the ballot argument in a conspiracy that included Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean C. Logan, piled on. "Foothill Cities bears a heavy responsibility for the passage of this measure. We had counted on that blog, and it wasn't there." Councilmember Hunter called us from his car with this quote; he was stuck in traffic on the 71 at Mission Blvd in Pomona, an Intersection From Hell that will not be addressed by Measure R funds.

As of this writing Measure R appears to have passed with a mere 18,080 vote margin over the 2/3 of the 2.4 million voters who inked a preference, one way or the other, for the measure. It is unclear whether late absentee or provisional ballots could possibly change the outcome. But with the aforementioned Registrar-Recorder Dean C. Logan counting the votes, no worries; right?

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a key supporter of Measure R, was ecstatic. "Now we can build the subway to the sea for my Westside supporters, and to hell with those hicks in the San Gabriel Valley. Who wants to go there, anyway? Gold Line Schmold Line." He added, "I'm just grateful we weren't up against the Foothill Cities Blog."

Supervisors Gloria Molina and Don Knabe issued a joint statement blaming the Foothill Cities Blog. "A shocking abdication of responsibility," the statement said.

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All quotes in this post were made up.