City Council Election Kicks Off

CAMPAIGN SEASON BEGINS

The 2009 Claremont City Council race begins this month with the smallest field in many years. Three candidates are vying for two council seats (in alphabetical order): Corey Calaycay, Bridget Healy, and Larry Schroeder.

It's a shame Citizen Michael John Keenan (pictured right, courtesy of CMJK) isn't running this time around. From time to time we get missives from him, and he brings a perspective to these races that's different from most of the other candidates. Sorry, Michael, if we haven't gotten around to posting all the news and info you pass on, but we do appreciate the tips.

We'll know more about the three candidates in this year's council race in a few more weeks. The nominator lists are out, with each candidate having filed their nomintation papers with the City last month. These are lists of the 30 people who nominated their respective candidates for the election, and they offer a preview of the wider support the candidates will end up receiving.

As the election draws nearer, you'll start seeing ads in the Claremont Courier with supporter lists, which typically number in the hundreds of names for viable candidates. Judging from the nominator lists that are out, there's may be some fence mending going on, at least with the Calaycay and Healy campaigns.


A LITTLE BACKGROUND

Incumbent Calaycay, you might recall, ran as a change agent in 2005 and was the target of a uniquely ugly smear campaign that year. That campaign was organized by a group of town fathers and mothers who called themselves "Preserve Claremont." The PC group, which was really an independent PAC, raised nearly enough money to fund a candidate of their own. They used all those thousands of dollars to run full-page ads (at $680 or so a pop) twice a week in the Claremont Courier during the height of the campaign.

Preserve also had a spin-off called "Claremont Business PAC" that got money from people like commercial realtor Nick Quackenbos and Claremont Toyota owner Roger Hogan, who donated $2,000 to the CB PAC (calendar year donations are limited to $250 per person to city council campaigns, but PACs have no such limits). The spin-off was a last minute thing, the brainchild of Human Services Commissioner Valerie Martinez, who used the CB PAC money to send out two city-wide mailers on the Friday before the 2005 election (you've seen the reasons for this tactic before).

Preserve Claremont, incidentally, had a paid city staff member, City Arts Coordinator Francine Baker, as its treasurer, and there seemed to be a number of ways in which some city staffers tried to influence the election. A couple employee unions, for instance, were involved in a parallel political attack on Councilmember Jackie McHenry, who had been critical of then-City Manager Glenn Southard, an attack that featured Valerie Martinez standing up at a city council meeting during the election and calling McHenry "a cancer on this community."

Southard provided the motivation for the twin attacks. He and some of his employees spread the fear that if Calaycay were elected, he and McHenry would team up and cause an exodus of city staff (even though they represented only 2 votes out of 5).

The real reason Southard spread this fear seemed to be his own fear - a fear of a council reining him in and questioning things like his own spending. Everyone forgets the thing that really set Southard off against McHenry was her asking him to provide receipts for his expenses. All of Southard's false claims of harassment that McHenry had created a "hostile work environment" stemmed from that. Keep in mind that Southard's outburst occurred right at the outset of the 2005 campaign and served as the jumping off point for Preserve Claremont in all its incarnations:

GLENN SOUTHARD GOES BERSERK



Southard quickly abandoned his attack on McHenry after seeing that the witchhunt was turning the Councilmember into a sympathetic figure with a lot of citizens, and he left it to his Preserve Claremont friends to press their offensive against Calaycay. Shortly after Calaycay won election in 2005 (along with Ellen Taylor), Southard announced he was leaving Claremont for Indio and was taking his longtime faithful assistant, Bridget Healy, with him.

Like any bully will, after enough people finally saw through the blustering and stood up to him, Southard took his ball and left.


HANDICAPPING THE RACE

Now that Calaycay's been on the council for nearly four years and Southard's been gone for three years and eight months, the ill-will the former city manager stirred up against Calaycay seems to have abated. In fact, some people who didn't endorse Calaycay the last time around, and even some who supported other candidates in 2005, are listed as Calaycay nominators this time around. There is even one name, that of Citrus College board member Sue Keith, that appears on both Calaycay's and Healy's nominator lists. So maybe the peace has finally been made in some backroom in town.

Community Services Commissioner Larry Schroeder's nominator list doesn't have a lot of names we've seen associated with past candidates, so it's difficult to assess at this point where his support comes from or what his stands on different issues are.

When the wider supporter lists come out, the campaign finances are released, and the candidates have had a chance to debate each other in forums, we'll be better able to gauge how the race is shaping up. Conventional wisdom would say that Calaycay and Healy are the favorites, with Schroeder the dark horse. But these are strange times, and the signs can be difficult to read.

Magic 8-Ball says, "Ask again later."


CANDIDATE FORUMS

Speaking of candidate forums, there are two scheduled that we know of:

• Active Claremont
  Thursday, January 15th, 7pm
  
  Active Claremont will host its candidate forum on the 15th in the Padua Room of the Alexander Hughes Community Center at 1700 Danbury Rd. in Claremont.
  
  Call (909) 621-5412 for information.
  
  (Thanks to the Daily Bulletin's Wes Woods II for that event news.)
  
  
  
• League of Women Voters of the Claremont Area
  Monday, January 26th, 7pm to 9pm
  
  This one's also at the Hughes Center. According to Wes Woods:
  

  Claremont League of Women Voters president Barbara Musselman will moderate but the public can write questions down they want the candidates to answer, said the league's voter services vice president Angela Bekzadian-Avila in a news release.
  
  Once the questions are gathered, Musselman will "choose a range of questions to ask the candidates," officials wrote in the release.
  
  Of course, I don't know if your question will be picked or if it will be answered but go and find out.
  
  Information: Angela Bekzadian-Avila at (909) 621-7809 or angelanb25@yahoo.com

That last bit about Musselman picking and choosing the questions points up one of the problems with the League of Women Voters' forum. Musselman, who was a big Glenn Southard and city staff defender back in 2005, is far from unbiased and will be the gatekeeper at the LWV forum. Additionally, the jungle drums are saying LWV member and former Claremont Police Commission member Helaine Goldwater (the woman who gave us Cookiemonster Ellen Taylor) is one of the behind-the-scenes people responsible for Healy's candidacy. So don't expect any questions that might make Healy look bad.

The odds for real questions to be asked are much higher at the Active Claremont event simply because they tend to just read the questions that are submitted, though they do combine multiple questions on the same topic into one.

Here's a useful experiment:

If you have the time, go to both events and submit the same question at each one. Then see if it gets asked. Something about city pensions might be a good. Claremont's own employee pension account with CalPERS is underfunded by several million dollars, thanks to some generous benefits that Healy, in her former capacity as Claremont's Assistant City Manager, helped push.

The public pension question is a big one, with several California cities facing bankruptcy because of the benefits they lavished on city workers when times were good. As the Wall Street Journal recently noted, the city of Pacific Grove is close to bankrupt because of its employee pension plan.

The city of Vallejo is even worse off, having already declared bankruptcy. Vallejo is trying restructure some of its employee contracts, and, if successful, other California municipalities may use Vallejo bankruptcy as a template to get out of employee contracts and benefits they can no longer afford. It would interesting to hear how Healy, who as an employee benefited greatly from the city's generosity to its staff, would handle such benefits as a councilperson in the current fiscal crisis. Also, would Healy's status as a former assistant city manager raise any conflicts of interest if, as we assume, she is elected?

In the past, important issues would never be fully addressed, at least not at the League of Women Voters event, which generally attracts the largest crowds. The LWV has usually offered up softball questions to the candidates it privately supports and has avoided posing the tough questions in their candidate forums, much to the community's detriment.

Council Meeting Moved to Tonight

Because Veterans Day is tomorrow, the Claremont City Council has moved its regularly scheduled meeting to tonight at 6:30pm in the council chambers at City Hall, located at 225 W. 2nd St. in the Claremont Village.

You can read the agenda here. If you're so inclined, you can also watch tonight's meeting on the City's website.

Among the items on the council's slate for tonight:

• Approval of Claremont Police Chief Paul Cooper's recommendations for the allocation of $100,000 from the state's Citizen Options for Public Safety (COPS) grant.
  
  Chief Cooper wants to use the money to: purchase some new equipment; upgrade some existing equipment; and fund training, additional community outreach, more bike patrols, and more patrols in the Wilderness Park.
  
  Oh, and then there's that $1,200 for a McGruff the Crime Dog costume. Seriously.
  
  Guess we know what Chief Cooper is going as to next year's staff Halloween Party.
  
  
• Acceptance of the resignation of Human Services Commissioner Anne K. Turner. Turner submitted this resignation letter to the City:
  

  October 28 2008
  
  Dear Members of the Claremont City Council and Members of the Human Services Commission:
  
  It is with great regret that I inform you that I can no longer serve on the Human Services Commission. My schedule can't accommodate the commitment necessary to do a proper job.
  
  I have been extremely honored to work with such a wonderful staff and dedicated volunteers. I count myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to be a part of "the process" and I thank you for that. [Are the scare quotes supposed to indicate sarcasm? - ed.]
  
  I apologize for this mid-year decision, but it could not be avoided I wish you all the very best and again thank you.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  Anne K Turner
  
  Anne K Turner MPA.
  VMA Communications

  
  As you can see, Turner is employed by VMA Communications, the public relations firm owned by Preserve Claremonter Valerie Martinez. Martinez is also on the Human Services Commission and reportedly had a hand in the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to the recent resignation of Commission Chair Gwen Carr. You can always count on Martinez to stir the pot.
  
  No word yet on which VMA employee will fill the seat vacated by Turner.
  
  
• An amendment to the city's agreement with Grand Central Recycling and Transfer Station, Inc., to process solid waste and recycling materials. The current agreement expires on November 14th, and city staff would like to extend the agreement one year.
  
  
• An appeal by a group of residents of the Architectural Commission's mitigated negative declaration and site plan approval for the Claremont Commons project at Monte Vista Ave. and Foothill Blvd.
  
  
• Adoption of staff recommendations for new procedures for dealing with foreclosed properties. Staff wants trustees taking possession of foreclosed properties to register vacant homes with the city. They also want enforcement of landscaping requirements reduced to 30 days from the current 180 days.
  
  If the recommendations are adopted, staff also wants the city to approve a fee to register vacant homes (also looking for new revenue, this bunch).
  
  
• Approval of a mitigated negative declaration for the Padua Hills Theatre, as well as a lease agreement between the city of Claremont and the developer, Arteco Partners.
  
  
• Approval of a process for appointing members of Claremont's Sustainability Committee. (In English: We get to pick people who rubber stamp the projects we like.)
  
  
  
  
  

Friday's Environmental Report

EIR BLUES

A Claremonter was in the news recently for Claremont's favorite pastime: A lawsuit involving an Environmental Impact Report.

James Walters, a professor of bioethics at Loma Linda University, likes to build houses on the side. Developer Walters owns a prime piece of real estate outside of Lone Pine, CA, on the road to Whitney Portal, where a trailhead to Mt. Whitney is located. The area, in the foothills of the eastern Sierras, is described as pristine.

Walters made the news in the Los Angeles Times in 2005 when he was trying to build a 27-home luxury development called Whitney Portal Preserve on the property.

(We've figured out how to develop anything - just add the word "Preserve" to the project. Remember Centex Homes' Stone Canyon Preserve at Mt. Baldy Rd. and Padua Ave. in northeast Claremont?)

An organization called the Save Round Valley Alliance (SRVA) argued that the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the project was inadequate. SRVA sued Inyo County, which approved the EIR, and has been trying to get them to consider an alternative to the project, namely working a land-swap deal whereby the developer could get a parcel of land in a less environmentally significant area in return for not building on the proposed site.

According to an article posted on the Sierra Fund website, the Whitney Portal Preserve EIR was improperly passed by Inyo County officials. A three-judge panel in Riverside ruled that the EIR did not fully consider alternatives to the project:

SRVA Advocates for Smart Growth, the plaintiffs in the case, have long advocated for a better blueprint for development in the region. They argued that Inyo County decision-makers should have considered the possibility of a land swap, whereby the threatened landscape could be protected and growth could be focused closer to existing development.

The panel of judges agreed. “We agree with SRVA that the analysis of the land exchange alternative is legally insufficient and reverse on that ground. The failure…effectively preclude[d] informed decision-making and informed public participation, thereby thwarting the statutory goals of the EIR process.”

....

State law requires that environmental review provide decision-makers with adequate information to assess the impacts of a proposed project, including alternatives to the proposal. But, according to the final ruling, environmental review for this project "…includes only the barest of facts…, vague and unsupported conclusions about aesthetics, views, and economic objectives, and no independent analysis whatsoever of relevant considerations.”

The decision is another important example of citizen action to stop illegal approvals of Sierra development. “We are delighted with this decision," said Tamara Galanter of Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP, counsel for SRVA. "The 47 page ruling reflects a careful analysis of the applicable law and recognizes the importance of considering alternatives as part of the environmental review process."

Walters isn't giving up without a fight, as the LA Times reported today.


ODD TIMES

Another sign of the Apocalypse:

Given the nature and location of the development, you might rightly figure that Professor Walters is a card-carrying, property-rights, small government Republican. Guess again. His political donations have been to Democratic candidates: $1,250 to John Kerry in 2004 and $1,000 Barack Obama in 2007.

Perhaps we should expect this. After all, in Claremont's own current EIR battle over the Base Line Rd. affordable housing project, we have such staunch Democrats as Human Services Commissioner Andrew Winnick, HS Commissioner Valerie Martinez, local Democratic Club president Bob Gerecke, Claremont Graduate University professor Dean McHenry, City Councilmember Ellen Taylor, and the entire cast and crew of the Claremont League of Women Voters, arguing that the project go forward.

In this upside-down world, the local Democrats have essentially adopted the logic used by tobacco companies to sell cigarettes, choosing to ignore a 10-year-long study by the USC Keck School of Medicine cited in the EIR that found that building a project so close to a major highway will likely lead to impaired lung development in children living there.

Winnick and the city believe, wrongly, that making the adults who move into the proposed units sign a notice that they are aware of the potential health hazards will waive any city liability in the future should kids living in the project develop lung problems. (Parents cannot sign away the rights of their minor children to sue.)

Our Democrats are also ignoring the recommendation by the South Coast Air Quality Management District and LA County Supervisor Mike Antonovich's office that the project be built elsewhere because of the pollution concerns.

Strangely, Winnick, Martinez, McHenry, and the rest have made their main talking point the argument that people have long lived near freeways, so we should allow the city to continue to build this project next to the 210 Freeway. In doing so, they reject the scientific evidence - evidence not on hand, not presented, when those older homes were built. (People have been smoking for years without harm, they need to be allowed to continue to use our safe, time-tested product.)

And, just as in the Whitney Portal Preserve case, the City Council, Winnick, Martinez, McHenry, et. al. (sound like defendants in a lawsuit?) are ignoring the alternatives. In fact, Winnick and others, have failed to mention the very realistic alternatives to the Base Line Rd. site. They act as if the alternatives don't exist. (Maybe if we don't talk about it, no one will remember there are other possibilities.)

Incidentally, does anyone know where Winnick, Martinez, and the rest were when Claremont's Village Expansion was being developed. Maybe they can explain why, with all the housing units that went in, there was no affordable housing component there or in any of the other housing developments that have been put into Claremont in the last 15 years. Apparently, it wasn't important to them.

Coincidentally, the Washington Post recently had a list of top 10 potential government ethics scandals. Number 10 has special significance for Claremont:

10. FEMA knowingly let Katrina victims live in hazardous trailers: Records indicate that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had cautioned its workers about trailers contaminated with formaldehyde. But the agency has been accused of delaying testing for the substance in trailers occupied by people left homeless by the hurricane.

A Republican adminisration's faux-pas serving as a template for Claremont's future foibles. Left is right, right is left. Strange times indeed.


BB & K WINDFALL

Of course, not everyone loses if there is an EIR challenge because of Winnick & Co.'s muleheaded intransigence. At least City Attorney Sonia Carvalho's firm, Best, Best & Krieger, will likely get to defend the challenge, and litigation will mean hundreds of billable hours of defense work for the firm or whomever gets the case.

It may not be the best public policy, or the best process for developing that policy, but it's what we allow it to be.

The City Council Writes Us

A FAMILIAR TUNE

Our post from Wednesday was a riff on a theme we here at the Insider have written about several times. It's been our contention, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that the net effect of that social network known in local circles as the Claremont 400 has been the creation of an inflexible, counter-productive, regressive, intolerant system of local governance.

On the surface, things look swell, but look deeper and you will see a consistent pattern of missteps and misjudgments that in a non-dysfunctional community would result in a change in leadership, a change in direction.

Here, however, given the unique and an entrenched nature of the 400, when Claremont started down the road to a more responsive city council beginning 2001 in reaction to the fatal shooting by Claremont police of 18-year-old motorist Irvin Landrum, the 400 snapped into action, working tirelessly by spreading false rumors about critics of the local scene in an effort to undercut anyone who stood to threaten their control of City Hall.

The result has been that voices of critics like ourselves have been either been silenced or driven underground. The 400 and their main representatives on the Claremont City Council (Ellen Taylor, Linda Elderkin, and Sam Pedroza) refuse to acknowledge this past and current behavior on the part of the people who got them elected.


A BRIEF HISTORY OF PACS

The August 18th edition of the Claremont Courier carried a very good article (not available online) by Tony Krickl that explored the phenomena of local political action committees that really began in 2003 with Residents United for Claremont (RUC), a PAC organized to support the three city council incumbents in that year's municipal election.

RUC was organized by Claremont Human Services Commission Chair Valerie Martinez and received the support of many former councilmembers and commissioners, as well as one future councilmember: Sam Pedroza.

RUC was the precursor to the Preserve Claremont campaign two years later that attacked sitting Councilmember Jackie McHenry and then-candidate Corey Calaycay. The Krickl article noted:

Mr. Calaycay referred to a full-page advertisement in the COURIER in February 2005 featuring a letter written by a man whom Mr. Calaycay had never worked with that offered false information about his career and character. Paid for by Preserve Claremont, a political action committee active during the 2005 election, the ad was one of several that the group received criticism over for being negative and malicious.

Preserve Claremont included spokespersons Valerie Martinez (again), former Claremont Mayor Paul Held and Homer "Butch" Henderson, the former head pastor at the Claremont United Church of Christ and the recent chair of the city's Youth and Family Master Plan Steering Committee.


2007 - ALL ROADS LEAD TO CASM


What happened after that Preserve Claremont debacle? Was there a backlash against PACs? Hardly. In this year's campaign there were two active PACs. The Krickl article noted that the anonymous Claremont Progress group was created by two former Claremont residents, including a Newport Beach attorney who largely funded the groups $2,000 operating budget.

Claremont Progress sent out a pre-election mailer critical of Mayor Peter Yao and candidates Elderkin and Pedroza. The mailer endorsed McHenry and candidate Opanyi Nasiali.

The other group that was active in the 2007 election was Claremonters Against Strip Mining (CASM), which Krickl noted spent more than four times the amount Claremont Progress did - over $8,000 total. CASM was organized to fight the proposed Vulcan Materials Co. gravel and aggregate mining project in Northeast Claremont.

CASM and its president Mike Kunce, were largely a single issue PAC. However, the Preserve Claremont group wasted no time in trying to co-opt CASM in order to get two candidates, Elderkin and Pedroza elected. CASM ended up endorsing those two and also endorsed candidate Mike Maglio, whom the 400 knew could not win.

The strategy was to use Maglio to siphon off votes that might have gone to McHenry and Nasiali. That much was evident from the involvement of Pedroza supporter and Human Services Commissioner Ed Leavell in Maglio's campaign.

According to the Krickl article,

Several local political leaders and observers believe that the group was influenced by behind-the-scenes players who were seeking CASM's endorsement for their favored candidates.... This was done, they say, by feeding CASM's leadership questionable information and rumors about the prospect of mining in the city and certain candidates' stances on the issue.

In the run up to the election, CASM president, Mike Kunce, approached the COURIER with unverifiable information, claiming that the city council had voted in closed session to authorize negotiations with Vulcan Materials Company to allow strip mining....

Mr. Kunce's named former mayor and spokesman for Preserve Claremont, Paul Held, as his source on the information leaked from closed session, as well as "someone very close to the inner workings of city hall." If the statement is true, Mr. Kunce's claim could imply that a Brown Act violation occurred on the part of either council members or city staff for leaking information out of closed session. [Emphasis added.]

No outcry from the public on that last bit, so we can assume it's okay for the Claremont 400, without being anonymous but manipulating behind the scenes, to break the law and to spread false rumors in order to get Elderkin and Pedroza elected.


PEDROZA RESPONDS

Another thing we've observed repeatedly is the habit of the Claremont 400 to constantly erase the past, to refuse to acknowledge any error in judgment. When critics arise with valid points, the 400 will never address the facts of those arguments. They consciously avoid engaging on the issues. Instead, they attack the person speaking out. So, we ask, is it really surprising that things like anonymous blogs would arise?

We think that what frustrates the 400 the most about our humble efforts is the fact that they don't have anyone to attack, so they are left with having to deal with the information we provide - something they tend to be inept at responding to intelligently.

A case in point. We received an email from Councilmember Sam Pedroza in response to our posting from Wednesday. Did Pedroza address the concerns we raised? Did he use his skills in debate and argument to refute our points of contention? We'll let Sam speak for himself:

Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:24:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: "sam" spedroza1@verizon.net
To: claremontbuzz@yahoo.com
Subject: Claremont Insider : Why are We Here?

sam has sent you a link to a blog:

weak response, if you are just providing another view then why hide... just another coward.

Blog: Claremont Insider Post: Why are We Here? Link: http://claremontca.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-are-we-here.html

We suppose cowardice takes many forms. The worst, we feel, is that of the weak, insecure man placed in a position of power and who allows himself to manipulated, who refuses to use his position to speak out against serious things like possible Brown Act violations and the leaking of information from closed session city council meetings in order to influence elections. Cowardice need not be limited to anonymity; often it is masked in respectability.

Theater of the Absurd

A BRIEF NOTE APPEARS

A reader pointed a short, one-sentence note at the very end of the June 6th Human Services Commission meeting minutes:

There will be a meeting on June 19 with the City Manager's office and the Houston Group to discuss Padua Park and funding options.

We thought this worthy of interest because the sports complex at Padua Park has been a particularly contentious issue for the past six years. As Human Services Chair Valerie Martinez and the rest of the Claremont 400 are wont to do, the opposition to the sports complex has been framed around several false notions: "They [opponents] hate kids"; "They hate parks"; "They're just a small group of NIMBY's."


DISSECTING PARK OPPOSITION

The Padua Park opposition, as we understand it, is composed of several different cohorts. The Claremont 400 has been too lazy or arrogant or both to bother to look at the dynamics involved. They just sort of lump everyone together under the heading "HATERS."

One component of the opposition is the population of newer residents of Northeast Claremont, neighbors of the park site, who live in an area that had been designated Rural Residential and which had severe street and landscape lighting restrictions that created a very dark at nighttime atmosphere. The Claremont 400, in their autocratic way, simply did away with the Rural Residential designation so that they could put sports stadium lighting on the park, even though the majority of people in the area seem to enjoy the darkness.

There are also older residents who remember when they agreed to be annexed by the city long before the new developments like Stone Canyon Preserve went in. Those people, many of whom have lived there 30, 40 or 50 years, submitted to annexation by the city in exchange for Claremont's promise that the area would remain rural with one-acre lots. These folk say they can see how well the city kept that promise and simply don't trust what they view as the city's false promises downplaying the park's traffic, lighting, and noise impacts.

The largest opposition to the park comes from fiscal conservatives and extends throughout the city. The park - which the city in 2001 was advertising as costing $3 million - is now estimated to be a $10 million-plus project for there currently is no funding, other than $900,000.00 to clear rocks off the land. As we pointed out recently, the city's own survey in December, 2005, showed that only 39-
percent of the respondents felt that building new park facilities was a priority. New parks and recreation facilities were, in fact, last on a list of eight priorities named in the survey.


THE GREEN FACTOR & VULCAN MINING

There is also a "green" factor to the opposition. According to the readers who've written in on the subject, about half of the park site's main 20 acres is comprised of a habitat called Riversidean Alluvial Fan Sage Scrub (RAFSS). The green opponents to the park have argued that a smaller park should be built and that the RAFSS should be preserved as an interpretative park.

There is more than a little irony to the green bit. First, in the Environmental Impact Report for the park, the city's consultant used a biology expert whom the Claremont Courier reported had a Ph.D that he got for $100 from the Internet's Universal Life Church. The biologist downplayed the significance of the RAFSS.

And, whereas with the Padua Park site the city claimed the RAFSS was not worth saving, with the adjacent Vulcan Materials Co. project they are are using the opposite argument, saying that Vulcan should not be allowed to mine gravel there because of the sensitive RAFSS habitat. Can you spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E-S?

Which brings us back to the Human Services Commission note about a June 19th meeting with the Houston Group. That company is a lobbying concern that advertises its services as "Governmental Affairs Consulting." The Houston Group's website lists among the company's clients:

• California Nevada Cement Promotion Council
• California Concrete Contractors Association
• California Portland Cement Company
• Cemex California Cement LLC
• Construction Materials Association of California
• Hanson Aggregates Mid-Pacific, Inc. and Affiliates
• Hanson Permanente Cement
• Lehigh Southwest Cement Company
• Mitsubishi Cement Company
• National Cement Company of California, Inc.
• RMC Pacific Materials
• Riverside Cement Company
• U.S. Borax, Inc.

These companies are all in the construction materials business, just like Vulcan. So, the city's money is going to a lobbying group that represents a large number of companies in the very industry the city is currently fighting on a plot of land right next door to the park site.

What all of this really shows is that the Claremont 400 has pushed a $10 million-plus project that it acknowledges will not provide the fields the town's sports groups say they need. Why push such a misconceived project rather than simply build a smaller park on the Padua site for much less money and work for a partnership with La Verne or Upland on a shared regional site that would spread the costs and provide all the fields needed?

Because it's all about punishment now. The Claremont 400 and Valerie Martinez don't care about real solutions, they just want to shove a flawed project down the throats of anyone who has opposed it for any reason, fiscal, environmental or otherwise.

Rather than looking rationally at the situation and considering all options, they just keep repeating to themselves, "Stay the course, stay the course."

August Blues

DOG DAYS

It's August - that time of year just before schools start back up, and when the city power brokers take a collective vacation. The City Council and City Commission take a month-long break, and the town relaxes.

But, the Claremont 400 never takes a break. For them, late-July and August have traditionally been harvest time, the time when they can let city or school district staff take action on all those controversial agenda items that have been festering through the year. Last year, for instance, the votes for the Parks and Pasture Assessment District were counted on July 25th, and the council had a special meeting on August 1st to certify the vote before slinking out of town to lick its wounds after the assessment failed by a 12-percent margin.

What surprises does the 400 have in store for us this year? We'll just have to wait and see....

_______________________


FORGETTING THE PAST, AGAIN

In other news, Will Bigham writes in the Daily Bulletin today of Claremont Progress, a group funded by a Riverside attorney who sent out a citywide mailer in the last election that the article says "urged support for incumbent Jackie McHenry and candidate Opanyi Nasiali, and opposed Pedroza, Linda Elderkin and Mayor Peter Yao."

The article quotes Councilmember Sam Pedroza:

"That's the thing with the anonymous campaigning: You don't know who it is, and it allows for people to lob bombs and not have to account for it," said Councilman Sam Pedroza....

As opposed to Pedroza, who, thanks to his Claremont 400 support, doesn't have to be accountable for anything either. We did some checking and found that in the 2003 Claremont municipal election, a group calling itself Residents United for Claremont also sent out a city-wide mailer on the eve of the election.

The group was organized by Claremont Human Services Commissioner Valerie Martinez, who is a professional political consultant by trade. The Residents United mailer urged Claremonters to reject candidates Jackie McHenry and Peter Yao and to vote for the three incumbents: Al Leiga, Karen Rosenthal, and Sandy Baldonado.

The Residents United mailer was not anonymous. It used the opposite strategy - to use the names of influential Claremont 400 members to try to convince voters to go their way. Among the signers were: Former mayors Nick Presecan, Diann Ring, Bill McCready and Judy Cody; city commissioners Bill Baker, Nancy Brower, Suzanne Hall, John Seery, Muriel O'Brien, Bob Ryan and SAM PEDROZA.

Also on the list were Randy Prout and Nick Quackenbos, both of whom would two years later participate in the Preserve Claremont campaign, for which Valerie Martinez was a co-spokesperson.

The mailing address for Residents United was Randy Prout's insurance agency on Baseline Rd.



Don't see any accountability there, do you? What Pedroza and his Claremont 400 supporters want is accountability for everyone but themselves.

_______________________

Current Councilmember Linda Elderkin was also quoted in the Bigham article:

"I just feel the society benefits so much from open dialogue," said Elderkin, who was elected to a City Council seat in March. "These anonymous approaches are very regrettable."

"We have the most fabulous disagreements on every subject here," she added. "It is one of the great strengths of Claremont that we have so much open dialogue."

Here, Elderkin is just so typically Claremont 400 in her remarks. The problem is that what she calls "open dialogue" has been anything but that. The 400 has controlled all the levers of power and has effectively stifled dialogue.

They talk, you listen. Elderkin conveniently ignores that behavior. Our main complaint with the 400, with Elderkin and Pedroza, is that they themselves refuse accountability. And they have all the power in town!

Until Bigham and other observers wake up to the reality of this power relationship, the 400 will continue to play the victim while all the time playing out their petty politics without consequences.

Church and State

Tonight at 5:30pm at the Alexander Hughes Center, the Claremont City Council will hold a special meeting on the adoption of it's Youth Master Plan Update. The Steering Committee for the update was chaired by Homer "Butch" Henderson (pictured at left), the retired senior pastor from the Claremont United Church of Christ. For those of you who are out-of-towners, the UCC is the church in Claremont.


LOOKING BACK ON BUTCH AND THE PRESERVE CLAREMONTERS

Back on July 20th, we wrote about Henderson's role as a spokesperson for the Preserve Claremont campaign during Claremont's 2005 City Council election.

We decided to take a trip in the Wayback Machine and looked up the 2/19/05 edition of the Claremont Courier. In that issue, reporter Melissa S. Mansfield had a long story about the Preserve Claremont effort and the uproar it was causing. The issue isn't available online, but you can try the Courier, as well as the Claremont or Pomona Public Libraries.

The Preserve Claremont campaign had two goals: 1) To publicly censor City Councilmember Jackie McHenry, who had been elected as reform candidate, and who had been critical of then-City Manager Glenn Southard; 2) prevent candidate Corey Calaycay from being elected.

The PC organizers raised thousands of dollars and ran a series of full-page ads in the Claremont Courier. A number of them, headed by Claremont Human Services Commissioner Valerie Martinez, also formed a second PAC called "Claremont Business PAC" and sent out two last-minute city-wide mailers to try to boost the support for Councilmember Llewellyn Miller, who was running for re-election.

The 2/19/05 Courier article quoted Butch Henderson in a telling couple paragraphs:

Mr. Henderson responded to a complaint he had heard that the [Preserve Claremont] ads were "manipulative."

"Of course they are," he said. "That's what politics is all about. Claremonters like things to be nice. They say, 'Let's do powerbrokering behind the scenes and be real nice.' But politics is about leaders. Mr. Calaycay is running for office, and we're trying to get out factual information about him."

The "factual information" Henderson spoke of included an ad containing false statements that alleged that Calaycay had left the employment of a California state legislator's office under a cloud. That legislator sent not only endorsed Calaycay but sent a letter refuting Henderson's "factual information." The legislator's letter ran as a full-page ad in the Courier.

Perhaps what is most disturbing is that here we have Butch Henderson, senior pastor at the main church in town, the Claremont United Church of Christ, basically acknowledging that his group was manipulating public opinion. It confirmed what we and others have complained about for years regarding the Claremont 400.


NO CONSEQUENCES

The Courier article also reported that "The PAC was formed under the name and address of Francine Baker, the art director in the Human Services Department, who is listed as the group's treasurer. So, in addition to the UCC's senior pastor, Preserve Claremont also had city employees working to influence the election of the people who would be their bosses.

What is striking about the article is how no one would take responsibility for the group's organization:

Ms. Baker declined to comment on how she became treasurer, saying, "I don't remember, it was a ways back." [The group got their first donations less than one month before the article came out.]

She referred all questions about the committee to Ms. Martinez, [former Councilmember Bill] McCready and Mr. Henderson. When asked who founded the group, none of the 3 indicated a specific ringleader or group of leaders.

And then there was this representative of one of the 2005 council candidates:

Ed Leavell, a 26-year resident of the city, said [former Claremont Mayor Paul] Held invited him to come as a representative for one of the council candidates. "He was vocal at the meeting but wasn't running it. It seemed like [former Claremont Councilmember Bill] McCready was running it."

As we've noted in the past, several of the candidates from the 2005 campaign benefited from the false claims made by the Preserve Claremont group. For instance, current City Councilmember Ellen Taylor won election and refused to speak out against the false campaign claims the Preserve Claremonters were making. Further, several of Taylor's supporters, including her treasurer Cindy Sullivan's family, were also Preserve Claremont financial supporters.

The Preserve Claremonters needed a lot of public image rehabilitation, especially their spokespersons. They and their Claremont 400 friends know that the public's memory is short, so given enough time and good works like the Youth Master Plan Update, people will forget how truly awful they were in the no-so-distant past.

It's up to you to remember. Thank them for their contributions to the community, but also hold them accountable for their other misdeeds as well.

Where Are They Now?

Claremont, being a just and righteous city, has no tolerance for people who get involved in smear campaigns. People who spread lies and misrepresentations during campaigns end up deservedly shunned. Or do they?

Homer "Butch" Henderson was a spokesperson for the Preserve Claremont campaign in 2005. That group was a political action committee with two goals: censor then-Councilmember Jackie McHenry, and defeat council candidate Corey Calaycay. They failed in both, but many of them were around again in this year's city election engaging in a below-the-radar campaign in support of Mayor Peter Yao and candidates Linda Elderkin and Sam Pedroza, both of whom won election. They also succeeded in their other goal of defeating Councilmember Jackie McHenry's bid for re-election.

Back in 2005, Henderson was still the head pastor at the Claremont United Church of Christ (UCC). He must not have believed in the separation of church and state because he seemed to use his position in the community to try to garner support for the Preserve Claremont effort. Also involved as spokespersons were Claremont Human Services Chair Valerie Martinez and Councilmember Paul Held, who similarly seemed to think they could parlay their official positions into support for their smear campaign.

Even when the backlash against Preserve Claremont began, Henderson never renounced the Preserve group or their tactics. Never once did he speak publicly about the false information his group published in a full-page Courier ad.

And, after the election, after then-City Manager Glenn Southard had resigned and left for a position with the city of Indio, Henderson gave a long sermon on Good Shepherd Sunday, 2005, on the subject of leaders who were good shepherds. In his sermon Henderson mentioned such good shepherds as Moses, David, Jesus, and...Glenn Southard! What select company!

Since that time, Henderson has retired from the pastorizing business. Now he's occupying himself by being the chair of Claremont's Youth Master Plan Steering Committee. In addition, the recently updated Youth Master Plan also had the input of such Claremont 400 luminaries as former Mayor Suzan Smith, current Councilmember Ellen Taylor, Claremont Board of Education President Joan Presecan, Board of Education member Steve Llanusa J. Michael Fay, Helaine Goldwater, and Teddie Warner.

The powers-that-be in town apparently have forgiven Butch for his non-transgression (in their eyes), at least enough to put him in charge of the Youth Master Plan Update.

Do they extend the same charity of spirit towards the victims of their Preserve Claremont campaign of 2005 and their whispering campaigns this year? How about it Butch? The quality of mercy is not strained....

_______________________


Ironically, page 6 of the Youth Master Plan Scorecard indicates that as far as decreasing "incidents of intolerance of differences," the community needs to improve. Ya think? Or as another Homer would say, "D'oh!"

How about we start by acknowledging the intolerance on the parts of our own community leaders? This group self-righteously lays claim to an almost saintly level of tolerance, but is itself guilty of the worst sort of clannish, small-town pettiness. We think we all can do better.

Home

Yesterday's post about Money magazine ranking Claremont #5 on the list of top 100 places to live in the U.S. got us thinking about what defines home and who exactly defines it.

As hard as it may be for some of the Claremont 400 (Helaine Goldwater, Paul Held, Valerie Martinez, Diann Ring, Ellen Taylor, Judy Wright, to name a few) to believe, this for us is home. One sets down roots, builds a home, raises a family, makes friendships, lives and loves, celebrates successes and overcomes failures, and without even realizing the place grabs hold.

All of us have a stake in the community, and it represents the sum of each and every one, not just a few or 400. We've each of us added our voices to the chorus (or cacophony) and what emerges is a music unique to the place. Measure by measure the place weaves it's way into something fundamental to our being.

With such an investment of time, energy and love, why would we ever want leave? Why would you? It's our home, and yours, too. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Thinking those thoughts reminded us of the Anna Ahkmatova poem "Lot's Wife," which is a kind of feminist poem to be sure, but which is also a poem about home and roots.

But a wild grief in his wife’s bosom cried,
Look back, it is not too late for a last sight

Of the red towers of your native Sodom, the square
Where once you sang, the gardens you shall mourn,
And the tall house with empty windows where
You loved your husband and your babes were born.


From Lot's Wife
by Anna Akhmatova
Translated by Richard Wilbur

Claremonsters Grow by One

The Claremonsters expand their net.

The Foothill Cities blog noted former Pasadena Councilmember Paul Little's stepping down from that city's council.

A reader alerted us to the fact that Little works for Claremont 400 wannabee and two-term Human Services Commissioner Valerie Martinez at VMA Communications, Inc., a political consulting firm in Claremont. Little also had a Wikipedia entry that was deleted just yesterday, partly because it was self-authored. We liked the last line: "He's also very awesome."

You might remember that Valerie Martinez, along with former Claremont Councilmember Paul Held, spearheaded the failed 2005 Preserve Claremont campaign that attacked current Councilmember Corey Calaycay and tried to prevent his election. That same group began by attacking sitting Councilmember Jackie McHenry and worked with then-City Manager Glenn Southard to try to get McHenry censured for, among other things, wanting Southard to submit receipts for his work expenses.

We trust Little's Wikipedia entry is meant as a joke. But, if it's not, he's in good company now.

Today's Courier

The Courier decided against endorsing candidates this election, although we hear that the editorial board may have been ready to endorse three people (none of them Pedroza or Elderkin). The family that owns the Courier intervened and decided they would simply not endorse, using Martin Weinberger's recovery from surgery as an excuse.

Today, the Courier ran responses from the seven council candidates to two different questions:

1. What has been the most difficult or challenging aspect of running your campaign?
   
2. What do you feel is one of the most pressing issues affecting Claremont and how would you solve this?
   

The Courier website didn't post the story, so we can't provide a link to it.

The answers were for the most part what you'd expect: safe, motherhood-and-apple pie responses. Peter Yao did have an interesting comment regarding CASM when he talked of "running a clean and positive campaign while enduring the below-the-belt hits from a misguided, well-financed group with its own lawn signs and massive mailers."

Sam Pedroza's response to the first question was curious: "There were some learned lessons from my campaign two years ago, where I came in at 168 votes shy of winning. Claremont experienced some of the worst electioneering in our history. Although I and my campaign had nothing to do with negative campaigning that took place, we did vow to run a very positive campaign focused on the positive and my qualifications."

One thing Pedroza ignored was the fact that he came in 168 votes short of Corey Calaycay primarily because Calaycay was the sole target of what Pedroza called "some of the worst electioneering in the history of Claremont" by Pedroza's friends at Preserve Claremont. Further, in that election in 2005, Pedroza, while running a "clean campaign," also refused to denounce the smear campaign Preserve Claremont ran. Why? Because Pedroza benefited from having others do his dirty work.

This time around, Pedroza is not being so coy. He has taken to bad-mouthing McHenry and Calaycay (who is not up for re-election) off the record. Pedroza has repeated several untrue rumors to voters in an effort to undermine his opponents. And then he has denied doing that when confronted with his statements. Further, Pedroza has taken direct support from Preserve Claremont. His supporter list includes the following people who were listed in Preserve Claremont's smear ads:

• Bo and Laura Bollinger--donated $500 to the Preserve Claremont campaign
• Suzanne Hall and Ken Corhan--$200 to Preserve Claremont
• J. Michael Fay--donated $100 to "Claremont Business PAC", now Honorary Co-Chair of Pedroza's campaign
• Paul and Kay Held--Paul Held was spokesperson for Preserve Claremont, donated $100 to "Claremont Business PAC"
• Frank Hungerford--$200 to Preserve Claremont
• Valerie Martinez--$250 to Preserve Claremont, $100 to "Claremont Business PAC"; spokesperson for Preserve, treasurer for Claremont Business PAC
• Lissa Petersen
• Randy and Rhonda Prout--$200 to Preserve Claremont
• Nick Quackenbos--$150 to "Claremont Business PAC
• Jil Stark--$200 to Preserve Claremont
• Roger Hogan--his business gave $2,000 to the "Claremont Business PAC" in 2005; his family gave $1,000 to Pedroza in 2007
• Patrick Sullivan--$250 to Preserve Claremont
  

(The dollar figures listed above come from the 2005 city election campaign filing documents on record with the Claremont City Clerk.)

So, all of the above were unabashed Claremonsters, and none ever disavowed their involvement or condemned it. And Pedroza now takes their support. This would seem to make his concerns about running clean campaigns seem to ring hollow. Pedroza benefited from their interference in the 2005 election, and he is dependent upon their support this time around. Nothing has changed, not Pedroza's dependence on the Preserve Claremonsters, nor his dishonesty about it. Pedroza's simply trying to play a game of "Good Cop/Bad Cop."

____________________________

Speaking of supporter lists, today's Courier featured an ad for Linda Elderkin that listed her campaign committee. Among those listed were:

• All of the Preserve Claremonsters listed above for Pedroza.
• Michael Fay, a non-Claremont resident who is also an Honorary Co-Chair for Pedroza.
• Bridget "The Hammer" Healy, former assistant city manager under Glenn Southard.

If you were appalled by the Preserve Claremont campaign of 2005, if you were opposed to the the witch-hunt they conducted against McHenry and the lies and rumors they spread and published against Calaycay, then you cannot possibly support Elderkin or Pedroza, who are so clearly the children of Preserve Claremont today.

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.

Reader Mail - The Unexamined Life

Our friend Lynn Forester recently wrote us to endorse three candidates for city council. Forester serves on the city's Community Services Commission. She's a nice person, but like a lot of the 400, she also cannot stand people who disagree with her. She puts a nice face on it, but her letter, which runs two pages and is far to long to quote at length here, contains many inaccuracies and out-of-context information.

Forester endorses Elderkin, Pedroza, and Yao, the three the Claremont 400 and Preserve Claremonters have pushed. Forester claimed to be at a meeting in December 2007 where two unnamed councilmembers (McHenry and Calaycay) condoned behavior which she considered "embarrassing at the least and unconscionable at the best."

We were not at that December meeting, so we contacted several people who were. Their take on the matter was that Forester dished out as much rude behavior as anyone there, interrupting speakers and assuming her position as a city commissioner gave her more authority, even though she was just another member of the public in attendance.

Forester's claims of condoning by the unnamed councilmembers are flat out lies, the other attendees say, unless silence mandated by the Brown Act constitutes "condoning." As one of the three councilmembers in attendance pointed out at the meeting (Taylor was also present), the Brown Act prevented them from speaking because having three councilmembers together would constitute a quorum, and it would be considered an official meeting of the council if they participated. So all three, Calaycay, McHenry and Taylor all remained silent. They had to by law. All three behaved the same way. Yet, to Forester, two of the three condoned the behavior she disapproved of.

Forester writes that she wants "Councilmembers who make decisions based on the good of the community and not on the interests of citizens with the money to bully the city for their own interests." Yet, she endorses Pedroza, who this election has taken $1,000 from the Roger Hogan family ($250 each from husband, wife, and two other family members). Roger Hogan owns Claremont Toyota, which generates over 50% of the city's sales tax revenue. In other words, when Roger Hogan sneezes, the city of Claremont catches cold.

You may remember in the 2005 election, after Preserve Claremont ran their smear campaign against then-candidate Calaycay, Roger Hogan spent $2,000 to fund two last-minute, city-wide mailers in support of a group called "Claremont Business PAC," which was organized by Valerie Martinez, another city commissioner and a spokesperson for Preserve Claremont. The mailers Hogan funded supported one person, incumbent Llewellyn Miller. Around the same time, Hogan was about to negotiate a 10-year loan from the city of Claremont to help with the purchase of property near his Toyota lot--a property that had been appraised for much less than the $3 million Hogan was paying for it. And Pedroza later co-wrote a letter to the Claremont Courier in praise of Hogan and his millions in sales tax dollars that feed the city coffers.

So, Forester really should be pointing the finger at her own candidate, Pedroza, when she writes about councilmembers basing decisions on the interests of "citizens with the money to bully people." We also saw that Roger Hogan is on the Linda Elderkin supporter list as well. Elderkin is also a Forester choice.

Forester also writes, "My intention is to not tell you how to vote...." Yet, she ends by enjoining people to vote with her.

Again with hypocrisy Lynn?

We'll be back with more mail later this evening.