The Road Not Taken

Parking has been much on the Claremont City Council's mind recently. As we wrote Wednesday, the council had to deal with an appeal a Planning Commission decision on Claremont McKenna College's planned 162,000 square-foot Kravis Center building.

It turned out that the law requiring developers to submit a parking management plan for the project contained a major flaw when it was approved earlier this year and failed to include a provision for review of the document. Consequently, no appeal of the decision could be allowed. Apparently, no one realized this until Tuesday night's council meeting, so the matter went onto the agenda, and a number of people showed up to speak on the subject.

The appellants were disappointed, however, after City Attorney Sonia Carvalho ended the discussion by informing the council of the loophole in the ordinance.

The council later had a different sort of parking discussion regarding the parking situation for Johnson's Pasture. The council ended up approving a plan implement an overnight permit program for residents of Via Santa Catarina, the cul-de-sac at the pasture trailhead. Residents had complained about an increase in crime, parking problems and general nuisances since the city took possession of the pasture open space and more people began visiting there.

The city and open space proponents, unlike CMC, did not have to provide a parking management plan when it bought Johnson's Pasture, and was largely blindsided when these problems arose, even though Via Santa Catarina residents had raise questions about parking long before the purchase became final.

The city, in a rush to buy the pasture, simply swept the parking and crime concerns under the carpet, and even if a parking management plan were required, the city would have been the proponent, the judge, and the jury in the proceedings, so the result would have been the same.

So, as often happens in Claremont, only when the deal was done did the city begin to acknowledge the problems imposed on the residents near Johnson's Pasture. In this instance, though, the city, residents, and open space proponents were able to craft a compromise that, while not completely satisfactory to all parties, at least attempted to address the issue in a fair way.

The Daily Bulletin reported on the decision:

The plan, approved Tuesday, calls for a permit parking program to be established allowing night parking for residents only on Via Santa Catarina, the northernmost road in Claraboya, where the entrance to the open-space area is located.

A red-curbed area on the north end of the road will be removed, allowing public parking. Parking will be prohibited on the south side of the road, where there are houses.

The plan was praised by conservationists who wanted to ensure public access to the open-space area, and by residents concerned with the impact of the park on their neighborhood.

"Nothing is perfect, but it's a good Band-Aid," said David Jacks, a resident of Via Santa Catarina who has frequently complained about the behavior of visitors to Johnson's Pasture.

Visitors to the park have increased significantly since the open-space area was purchased by the city from private owners last year.

One would like to believe there's a lesson here. As with the 2006 bond measure that provided the money to purchase the property, in the parking compromise all the interested parties sat down and tried to work something out together.

The fact that the 2006 bond passed with 72 percent of the vote ought to show Claremonters that working together we can accomplish much more than when those in power try to ignore or marginalize dissenting voices.

The affordable housing mess, for instance, could have been avoided if, rather than condemning people opposed to the Base Line Rd. site as NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) and racists, the Claremont League of Women Voters, who had pushed the failed project, had been open to ideas other than their own and had tried to treat their opponents fairly and respectfully.

This lesson crops up again and again in Claremont, but those hold power never seem capable of accepting it. There is a model for cooperation and compromise that has worked on the few occasions we've used it. When we don't, we invariably go through long, drawn out legal and political fights that almost always end up right where we would have if we had worked together.

The decision is entirely in the hands of the people who run things. They hold all the power, and they can choose: work together quickly and efficiently, or start a long, nasty fight to get the same results.

The first way is the way to building a true community. The second, the road more often taken, is the way to division and contentiousness.

Choose.

Candlelight at Candlelight

Reporter Will Bigham posted an article on the Daily Bulletin's website that said Tuesday night's closed session discussion over possible future litigation had to do with the Candlelight Pavilion located next to the Old School House and the Claremont Doubletree Hotel.

According to the article, the theatre has lost revenue because of the construction at the Old School House complex and has fallen behind on its rent:

Harry Wu, owner of the property on which the theater sits, says the dispute stems from the inability of the Candlelight Pavilion to pay its rent.

General Manager Mick Bollinger "has some back rent that he needs to pay, and he was trying to seek" financial assistance from the city, Wu said.

Attendance at the Candlelight Pavilion has been affected by construction projects going on in its immediate vicinity at the Old School House, Wu said.

City staff is apparently concerned about the possibility of a lawsuit by the theatre to recoup the lost revenue. The Pavilion might look to the city because of its involvement in the rehabilitation of the site through the Claremont Redevelopment Agency.

You can read more about the history of the site in the Old Schoolhouse/Claremont Inn Specific Plan.

(Click to Enlarge)

Image taken from Old Schoolhouse/Claremont Inn Specific Plan, page 18

CPD Checkpoint

The Daily Bulletin advises that the Claremont Police Department will be conducting a sobriety checkpoint this weekend at an unknown location between 6pm Friday evening and 2am Saturday morning.

Drive safely and smartly out there.

City Identifies Prime Cause of Downtown Parking Problems

The Village parking problem was supposed to get some attention at last night's Claremont City Council meeting. Specifically, the council was supposed to consider an ordinance that was supposed to help prevent so-called "vehicle shuffling" that adds to the parking nightmares people trying to visit the Claremont Village face with cars stacked up hither and yon filling every possible available space.

A Claremont Courier article by Tony Krickl last week explained the ordinance and the reasons for needing it:

City staff hopes that the “No-Vehicle Shuffling” ordinance will deter business employees from constantly moving their cars to different parking spots within the Village every few hours to avoid being ticketed.

The ordinance would also open up more parking spots to paying customers, a move that some believe will boost business and make the Village a greater attraction.

Something happened, however, that caused the issue to be pulled from the council's agenda for last night. The city's official website carried this bit of news:

A public notice was published stating that the Village Parking Proposed Ordinance would be on the July 8, 2008 City Council meeting agenda. This ordinance has been pulled from that agenda, pending further review by the City Manager. For further information, call Craig Bradshaw, City Engineer, at (909) 399-5465.

Parking policy wonks weren't completely shut out last night, however. The city council spent some time having a discussion of an appeal of a Claremont Planning Commission decision to approve a 162,000 square-foot academic and administrative building on the Claremont McKenna Campus.

As a condition of approval, CMC was required to submit a document showing that they would provide adequate parking for the building. This requirement was part of a new ordinance the city council approved recently to help alleviate downtown parking problems and the adverse parking impacts created by new projects.

So, the Planning Commission in June approved the CMC project and its parking management plan. However, a number of Claremonters, including former Mayor Judy Wright and Ginger Elliot, both very active in Claremont Heritage, objected to the CMC parking plan because it counted parking spots that were nowhere near the new building. For instance, CMC counted parking spots at properties CMC owns in the Arbol Verde section of Claremont - spots that are far enough away from the new building that people going there would not use them.

Seems clear, right? Looks like CMC is playing a numbers game in its parking plan and should be required to rewrite it with more realistic parking projections and mitigations.

Wrong. During the discussion, City Attorney Sonia Carvalho stepped in to quash the discussion by pointing out that the new ordinance requiring a parking plan to be submitted contains no provision for review.

All a developer has to do is submit a plan, any plan, and it must be accepted by the city without review. All those people who showed up ready to argue for or against the CMC project had to sit down. There were no grounds for an appeal because the city's ordinance has no provision for appeals. The city forgot to include that.

Chalk another one up to that crackerjack city staff that wrote the policy, to City Attorney Carvalho, who was supposed to review the ordinance for any such defects before it was approved, and to the Claremont City Council for approving an ordinance with a very serious deficiency. City Planner Lisa Prasse said that was not the intent of the law, but there you have it.

All in all, it was an embarrassing night for everyone who reviewed and voted on the new ordinance, and all (with the exception of Carvalho, who hardly ever admits an error) seemed to acknowledge this was a big mistake.

Postcard from Lyon

You've got to credit the nine-member delegation from Foothill Transit to the "conference" [note scare quotes] in Lyon, France for their diligence and good communication. They wrap up their business today and travel back to the U.S. tomorrow. However, they did manage to get off a brief postcard:

click on either image for a slightly larger version

A Piece of His Mind

Reading the lengthy agenda item for tonight's City Council meeting on the subject of Claraboya/Johnson's Pasture parking, we were struck by this paragraph from the June 30, 2008, Traffic and Transportation Committee meeting (at page 34 of 36 of the aforesaid agenda report).

We wonder: Did he have much to spare?

The commissioner, Chaim Rinde, is the husband of local realtor Malka Rinde. Both were Ellen Taylor supporters in the 2005 election.

Tonight's Council Meeting

The Claremont City Council meets tonight at 6:30pm in the City Council chambers at 225 W. 2nd St. in the Claremont Village.

It's a busy agenda tonight as the council and Mayor Ellen Taylor scramble to get all their business done this month before the City Council and city commissions take their traditional August break. Hey, shouldn't we start thinking about reversing this? Let's have them meet in August and take the rest of the year off. You know, above all, do no harm.

Interested parties can also watch the proceedings here tonight beginning at 6:30pm.

In any case, the council tonight at 5:15pm starts with another in a never-ending series of closed sessions in which, the special meeting agenda says, they'll discuss "anticipated litigation" with an unidentified party as well as the possible water company takeover. The council will give a brief report of their closed session after they return for the public portion tonight.

The regular agenda includes the following items of interest:

• The second reading of the new marijuana dispensary ordinance that was approved at the last council meeting.
  
  
• An appeal of the Planning Commission's decision to approve a 162,000 square-foot academic and administrative building on the Claremont McKenna College campus. The appeal has been lodged by Peter Farquhar, Ray Fowler, Lydia Henry, and Ginger Elliot on behalf of Claremont Heritage.
  
  The appeal seems to center around the appellants concern about parking and the way the parking allowances for the new building were figured. City staff, naturally, argues that the appeal should be denied. We'll see who has more clout here, CMC or Claremont Heritage's Ginger Elliot.
  
  
• The renewal of the city's agreement with the Chamber of Commerce, a wholly-owned Claremont 400 subsidiary currently led by photographer Sonia Stump. The proposed new agreement will pay the Chamber $59,935 for the 2008-09 fiscal year and $61,756 for FY 2009-10.
  
  This is a sort of automatic renewal, and we've not seen much public discussion of whether or not the city's merchants are getting a good bang for your tax buck. Has anyone asked if the Chamber has done a good job of increasing foot traffic to the Village or the Village Expansion, not to mention the other areas of town?
  
  
• The proposed $50,000 grant to the Friends of the Claremont Library to fund a special collection of Claremont authors. A reader just commented on this one:
  
  
  I was up early this morning and read the post about the Friends of the Claremont Library asking the city for $50,000 to catalogue books by Claremont authors and several things came to mind. Don't we pay taxes to the county library already to have every book catalogued that is given to or purchased by the county system? Doesn't the county already have many of the books by Claremont authors in it's collection already and have already catalogued these books? Doesn't this city already have plenty of retired librarians that could volunteer to catalogue these books? And lastly, if the city is in such dire need of money with the anticipated shortfalls this year and next, why not put the money into reserves? I also wondered if these books are going to circulate to other libraries in the system or if they are going to circulate at all? If they are not, this is not the best use of taxpayer funds to enable the creation of what will essentially be a private collection, something that is better suited to a private library, not a public library whose beginnings were meant to provide the masses with free circulating books to educate and uplift themselves. I hope the council will reconsider this issue and not respond with a knee-jerk reaction to this request.
  
  Yep.
  
  
• Tree mitigation for homes on Shenandoah Dr. The staff report provides three alternatives (Plans A, B, and C) ranging in price from $251,000 to $511,000. The discussion provides an good window into the true costs of being a Tree City - costs which tend to be ignored until the sidewalk is cracked and lifted up all throughout a neighborhood.
  
  
• A parking permit plan for residents of Via Santa Catarina at the Johnson's Pasture trailhead in Claremont's Claraboya neighborhood.
  
  Another example of what happens when easily foreseeable consequences are ignored. Claremont bought Johnson's Pasture, but failed to deal with the fact that a small residential cul-de-sac with no extra parking sits at the beginning of the trail. As a result, the neighborhood feels overrun with hikers' vehicles taking up all the limited parking along with a perceived increase in crime-risk and general nuisances.
  
  The other way in to the pasture is from the Claremont Wilderness Park entrance over on Mills Ave. A long trek indeed.
  

Tuesday Mail

A ROYAL PROCESSION

One last 4th of July note, this time from a reader who seems to think Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor is more a divider than a uniter:

Re: Ellen Taylor in the 4th of July Parade or The Cheese Stands (or rides in this case) Alone.

This year I had, for a change, a great view of the participants in the 60th Claremont 4th of July Parade. So with my up close and personal view of the parade, I was able to see the whites of the eyes, so to speak , of the parade participants. I expected to see the Claremont City Council in the usual flatbed truck on bales of hay, all five of them perched on high waving to the great unwashed in the crowd (hey, it was a hot day!). Instead., what I saw was Mayor Ellen Taylor in an old car all by herself (maybe after spending all day in the hot weather nobody wanted to sit by her) followed by Mayor Pro-Tem Corey Calaycay and Councilmember Linda Elderkin in another car, followed by Councilmembers Peter Yao and Sam Pedroza in yet another car (hey, aren't we supposed to be a sustainable city--what about 1 car or 2 Priuses?)

It occurred to me that this line-up was a perfect example of the way the Claremont City Council seems to operate these days---Ellen Taylor out in front of the pack, the Queen, waving to her subjects below and followed , at a respectful distance of course , by her loyal court. Calaycay and Elderkin together as they get along best with each other on the council, and last, and maybe least, Yao and Pedroza (remember that Yao nominated Pedroza not Calaycay for Mayor Pro-Tem) bringing up the rear. I wondered what the real reason for this line-up was and if there was a message here that I was missing . Ironically, the Claremont School Board members were all riding together on the flatbed truck on bales of hay ( a hand-me-down from the Council?).

Queen Ellen riding alone in her royal palanquin is a fitting image. All she needs is a throne. Come to think of it, she may already have one.....


POLICE STATION FIX

And then there was this from a problem-solving reader who had an idea of what the city might do with their first choice for the new police station site. Recall that the land, currently owned by Corey Nursery, has the inconvenient problem of straddling the county line:

I was just thinking that development of the proposed CPD site could be accommodated if the city were to annex the portion of that site and the city yard site into the city and exchange that small portion of developed property south of the proposed station that is in Claremont and run the county line south on the east side of Monte Vista. Just a thought.

LIBRARY FRIENDS ASK CITY FRIENDS FOR $50,000

The Friends of the Claremont Library, a group that has done good works in the past (such as helping raise money for the local LA County library's magazine collection or working to get hours extended with the help of city money), is asking the Claremont City Council to give $50,000 to the library for works by Claremont authors (i.e., former Claremont Mayor and very amateur historian Judy Wright).

While such a city donation would certainly be useful in good times, a reader contacted us and wondered if such a collection shouldn't be created through a private fundraising effort. The money could then be used for more important things like library operations, or if they weren't needed, set aside in a city rainy day fund. The city is, after all, work hard to balance its budget as it is.

Our reader says:

Dear Insider,

On the July 8 City Council agenda, there is a request by Friends of Claremont Library for $50,000. They want the money so they can catalog books by Claremont authors. Should this money not be used for keeping the library open longer hours instead? And if they think the library is already open long enough, why can't the city council just put the money in the reserve account for a rainy day - especially with the looming State $15.2 billion deficit which could negatively affect city budgets? If this project is so important, why can't the Friends solicit donations from the community with the "convincing" argument that the community could not do without the very necessary and important project? Inquiring minds want to know.

The Friends used to be a really top-notch local group that didn't involve itself in the Claremont 400 social scene. In recent years, however, the Claremont 400 have taken over the group (can't they leave anything alone?). Consequently, we get harebrained ideas such as this latest bit, which is simply an extension of the Judy Wright-Claremont Heritage myth-making effort.

Get the city to spend $50,000 on this item, make a promise of $25,000 to the League of Women Voter's extremely flawed commemorative marsh proposal, $890,000 or so on the downtown trolley. You get the picture. Pretty soon you're talking about real money.

LWV Finds Police Station Site

Leave it to the Claremont 400 to always pick the hardest, most costly way to do things.

Saturday's Claremont Courier had an article by Tony Krickl reporting that the city's Police Commission has identified a site for a new $25-35 million police station. The site is located on Monte Vista Ave. just south of the Claremont City Yard and is currently owned and occupied by the Corey Nursery.

The Courier article gave the background for the decision:

In December 2007, an architectural firm was contracted to review the top 10 sites identified by the commission as viable locations for a new police station. The 7-acre site was the top pick by the firm and won unanimous support among police commissioners.

The location is ideal for several reasons, said Carol Painter, Chair of the Police Commission. It is not located in the middle of a residential neighborhood, which could hinder mobility for emergency vehicles. It would be adjacent to the city yard where city vehicles are fueled and repaired. It would also be located across the street from the Pomona Valley Hospital development.

The commission has been looking for a 4- to 5-acre site that would provide enough room for a single or two-story building and ground level parking. The 7-acre site along Monte Vista Avenue would offer plenty of space for current needs and allow for future expansion, according to the architectural firm’s report.

The article also noted that the Police Commission eliminated the former affordable housing site on Base Line Rd. as a consideration, as well as the Holliday Rock site to the north of the city yard.

We're betting the city will have to use its eminent domain powers to take the land, not necessarily because the Corey Nursery would be an unwilling seller. As we've seen in other Claremont land transactions, private parties selling and to Claremont want the threat of eminent domain because that confers a certain tax benefit. The Johnson's Pasture owners wanted this threat at one time, and it was also used to help Claremont Toyota acquire the former Chili's property (another great deal for the citizens of Claremont).

So, we rather than using the land at Base Line Rd. and Towne Ave. that Claremont already owns, the city is going to have to go buy land and then build the station. The Corey Nursery land also has the added problem of extending over the county line into Upland, adding the problem of having to negotiate the running of the police station with San Bernardino County.

Moreover, the Base Line Rd. site raised the possibility of a joint facility with the neighboring city of La Verne. Something that would allow for sharing the cost of building and running the station and jailing facility - a not-so-insignificant hurdle that La Verne's City Council has been grappling with.

Why not use the Base Line Rd. site? One reason that the Base Line Rd. site is smaller than what Claremont Police Chief Cooper is seeking. Of course, there's always the chance that he's been told, "Hands off the Base Line site," by the Claremont League of Women Voters (LWV), League president and Police Commissioner Barbara Musselman, and Mayor Ellen Taylor (herself a former LWV president).

Musselman and Taylor, you may recall, were two of the LWV forces behind the failed affordable housing project at the Base Line site. Musselman is also on the city's Affordable Housing Task Force, along with several other LWV members. We suspect they will try to resurrect the Base Line Rd. site for affordable housing sometime in the future. So, whether it would work for a police station or not, that land is spoken for.

Another problem with getting a larger property is that the city and the CPD will want to fill it. Give them more land and they'll just build a larger facility. Give them two acres, they might just find a way to make do for a lower cost.

With the city contemplating a $100 million or more water company take over, building an affordable housing project somewhere, and starting in the fall on the first stage of $12 million Padua Sports Park, they may have a hard time going to the citizens of Claremont for the bonds to pay for that $25-35 million police station, especially at a time when Claremonters and people everywhere are having to cut back on their own household budgets.

Proposed CPD Station Site
(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Speech-Making at Its Claremont Best

Yesterday's Daily Bulletin had an article by Will Bigham about the 4th of July Speakers' Corner in Memorial Park. The article said it was the 31st year the event has been in existence, but we here at the Insider think it might be even older than that.

The Bulletin also has a photo gallery of the goings on in Claremont along with a similar gallery showing the 4th of July parade in La Verne.

The Courier also has a video by publisher Peter Weinberger showing some of the day's events, including the Kiwanis Club's pancake breakfast and the annual parade. Judy Wright even has a cameo.

Claremont, as the video shows, can be a marvelous community to live in, though there is also something about the video and the event that reminds us of the William Inge play "Picnic," or more specifically the montage of the town's Labor Day celebration from the movie version with William Holden and Kim Novack.

Apropos of Inge and our not-so-humble little town, the late Claremonter John Murphy once gave a speech at the 15th Annual William Inge Festival in Independence, Kansas, back in 1996. In a speech titled "Anger and Violence in the Plays of William Inge and August Wilson," Murphy captured the essence of what we 're trying to write about in this and other posts:

As do most plays, the ones in question here offer us both individuals and communities. These two worlds are in some ways symbiotic—each causes and effects the actions of the other. As in all plays, things begin in the middle—the individuals and their communities have their origin in the past. How the characters respond to that past—how we all respond to the past—is what makes them (our characters) so interesting.

....

Picnic offers us Hal, a younger version of Doc [a character from Inge's play Come Back, Little Sheba], who finds it difficult to reach satisfaction either in wanderlust or in apparently settled, small-town Kansas. His anger comes from a desire for acceptance by a community that he knows instinctively will reject him. He even lays claim to Jefferson’s doctrine—he says he has rights just like everybody else. Flo and Rosemary are angry characters as well, torn between their own desires and the demands of the community—what the neighbors or the school board will say. There are many well-defined angry women in Inge’s plays, but two of the most intriguing can easily go unnoticed. The two women who rob Hal at gunpoint seem well ahead of their time. What would William Inge make of Thelma and Louise?

In Claremont, we often see that dramatic tension between the desire for acceptance by the groups that run things and having to deal truthfully with the past. And don't get us started on angry women. Claremont has a League led by several of them from Mayor Taylor on down.

* * *

Speaking of truthfulness...

The Bulletin article about the Speakers' Corner talked about what the event means to some of the participants:

But for participants and audience members, the Speakers' Corner seems to carry a higher level of significance.

"It is a fundamental right that everyone should have and unfortunately the majority of people in the world don't have," said Bil Seymour, an organizer of the event.

"It's important to celebrate it in America, because it's such a rarity in the world."

Mayor Ellen Taylor said the Speakers' Corner concept exists outside Claremont in only one other place - Boston.

Not to be sticklers for detail, but keeping in the spirit of responding well and truthfully to the past, Queen Ellen is wrong. There are Speakers' Corners in many places in America and abroad.

The most famous is the one in London's Hyde Park from which the founder of Claremont's Speakers' Corner, T. Willard Hunter, may have taken his inspiration. There are also speakers' corners in Australia, Canada, Malaysia (sort of), the Netherlands, Singapore (again, sort of), Trinidad and Tobago, and in various locations in the United States (besides Boston).

Some of the U.S locations that have speakers' corners are the Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, Virginia, the city of Denver, Bughouse Square in Chicago's Washington Square Park, the Muir Woods National Monument in Northern California, and Murray State University in Kentucky,

And, there was once a Speakers' Corner in New York's Harlem at which people from Marcus Garvey to Malcolm X once spoke.

The city of Toronto even had a Speakers' Corner television show where people could, for a nominal fee that was donated to charity, record a video of a speech at a public kiosk. (Alberta's version of the show was free.) Some of the speeches were then aired.

Long story short: Many Speakers' Corners, not just two. As usual, with the voice of supreme authority, Ellen tosses off a remark that is utterly false, and it's just absorbed by the public as gospel. It's great that Claremont has a Speakers' Corner, but do we have to falsely inflate it into something it's not?

And there's a lesson there: When Ellen opens her mouth, not everything that drops out is a pearl of wisdom. Take everything with a grain of salt.

Rouen Journal from the 9-person Foothill Transit Party

We have received a brief communication from the 9-member Foothill Transit Delegation to Paris and other points in France. They spent the Fourth of July in Rouen, the capital city of Normandie province. The Executive Director of Foothill Transit, Doran Barnes, says that Rouen is very like the Foothill Transit service area.

Now, since we haven't had the advantages of foreign travel that Director Barnes is having, we'll leave it to him to elaborate on the similarities at the next Foothill Transit meeting after his return. So far as we can tell--and we're no experts--the chief similarities are that they both use buses and have a system map, though not the same buses nor the same map. Oh. And they are both managed by French companies.

We have covered the French adventure here, and here. The Foothill Cities Blog contributes an explanation by Foothill Transit in comment 2 of this post.

Darold Pieper, agency general counsel, who valiantly is on the clock every business day, contributed this note on Friday's activities:

Hi Everybody: We are really busy, so I will just send two transit-related pictures from Rouen.

We saw this bus of the TEOR system. It takes a country mile to turn around, which in French they say hectare du pays. Doran is figuring it will be perfect for the Claremont Trolley Route.

Dave Reyno tried this form of public transit in Rouen. Ha Ha.

All for now; free day tomorrow. DP

City Manager Clarifies Solicitation Ordinance

Today's Courier has a letter from Claremont City Manager Jeff Parker explaining the city's solicitation ordinance. Both the Courier and the Insider had received comments from readers who asked about the ordinance and if it had anything to do with Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor's cookie tantrum.

(Our reader's email and a link to the Courier letter Parker seemed to be responding to are here.)

Parker's letter explains that Claremont's prior solicitation ordinance was "overbroad" and that similar laws had been deemed unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. After the rapes of two Claremont women by door-to-door magazine salesmen, the city figured they needed the new ordinance, which Parker says is more concerned with commercial solicitors rather than non-profit groups like the Girl Scouts:

Stringent regulations were developed for those applying to engage in commercial solicitation within the city. Each applicant is required to pay an application fee. Applicants and their employers are subjected to thorough background checks by the police department. Solicitation identification cards, valid for only 90 days at a time, will be issued to those applicants who meet the demanding permit criteria. Any indication of involvement in crimes of theft, sexual assault or a number of other crimes will result in rejection of a commercial solicitation permit.

Less stringent regulations were developed for nonprofit organizations, including school clubs. Nonprofit organizations must only provide documentation to the City of their nonprofit status on an annual base. Those soliciting for nonprofit organizations are not required to obtain an individual permit and need only verify their affiliation with the organization. No fee is charged to nonprofit organizations for a solicitation permit. This will have little impact on legitimate, nonprofit organizations, but will prohibit solicitation by groups that are not legitimate nonprofits.

The Claremont solicitation ordinance also created a "Do Not Knock Registry" that appears to apply to all door-to-door sales, commercial and non-profit alike. So, that part of the new city law may affect how the Girl Scouts and other non-profits have been doing some of their community contacts.

Fine Speechifying for the 4th

Claremont's annual Speakers' Corner, a 4th of July celebration of free speech, carries its tradition on today from 10:30am to 3:30pm in Memorial Park.

According to the map in the Claremont Courier's 4th of July insert, the Speakers' Corner podium will be set up along Indian Hill Blvd. just south of 10th St.

The Courier insert listed the speakers' schedule. Speakers are limited to 10 minutes, and some of the speakers had not listed their topics as of the Courier's press time. There are also some unprogrammed blocks.

Girl Scouts beware! Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor speaks at 10:50am. And Councilmember Sam Pedroza follows with a speech titled "The Government You Can Touch" (and which touches you back, we might add - IN THE POCKETBOOK!).

Citzen Michael John Keenan, Democratic congressional candidate Russ Warner, former Preserve Claremonster and retired United Church of Christ pastor Butch Henderson, and League of Women Voters leaders Marilee Scaff and C. Freeman Allen are also scheduled:

SPEAKERS' CORNER - 10:30AM TO 3:30PM

10:50am - Ellen Taylor
Welcome to Claremont's Independence Day Celebration

11:00am - Sam Pedroza
The Government You Can Touch

11:10am - Michael Keenan
Not Determined

11:20am - Marilee Scaff
Save Water and Welcome a Park [and spend $32 million]

11:30am - Freeman Allen
Sustainabiliy: Something New or Business As Usual

11:40am - Butch Henderson
Not determined

11:50am - Charles Doskow
Not Determined

Noon - Dave Laybourn
Not Determined

12:10pm - Dave Never
Why Obama Will Improve Our Politics and Our Government

[NOTE: This may actually be Dave Nemer. The Courier had him listed as "Never," so we faithfully reproduced it. Of course, a copy editor might have left out a punctuation mark or two: "Dave? Never!" ]

12:20

12:30pm - Russ Warner
My Candidacy for the 26th Congressional District

We've got a more complete list of today's festivities here.



Left: William Jennings Bryan speaking at Claremont's 4th of July Speakers' Corner in 1908 during Mayor Ellen Taylor's forgotten first term.

(Click image to enlarge.)

Paris Postcard

Today, for you Stay-at-Homes, our delegation of nine (9) Foothill Transit employees, board members, general counsel, and alternate reports on a visit to the Veolia Environnement Campus outside Paris, France. Veolia is the French company hired by the Foothill Transit Board to manage its operations here in the Foothill area. For example, Doran Barnes, Executive Director of Foothill Transit, is a Vice-President of Veolia Transportation, the contractor. Similarly, all the other "employees" of Foothill Transit--at least on the management side--are really employees of Veolia. The operations (of the actual buses) are similarly contracted out to other vendors. For simplicity (at the expense of absolute accuracy) we have and will refer to such workers as "employees".

Since our post of yesterday, the Foothill Cities Blog posted a comment from Felicia Friesema, a representative of Foothill Transit, which includes the information that our post of yesterday was in error: There are nine (9) representatives from Foothill Transit in France, not eight. Darold Pieper, General Counsel to the agency, is also in Europe with the group. He will be helpful in resolving any legal issues on the application of the Napoleonic Code.

Today, after a good night's rest from the long flight, our plucky group jumped into a cab, or two cabs, or a small bus, and headed for the outskirts of Paris to visit the "Mother Church" of Veolia. This visit was followed by dinner back in Paris at a fine Parisan restaurant.

This is our information on the day's events, which we deem reliable but which cannot be guaranteed:

Just a quick note and a few pictures to let "The Folks Back Home" know a little bit about our fabulous Parisan tour. After a very interesting night, about which the less said the better, Thursday was working day with a visit to the Veolia Campus. There we saw some buses so that qualified this trip as "business". Doran got his instructions for the year from the senior Veolia management; what with the dollar down against the euro, we will be needing to report more profit back up to headquarters. We think Peggy and Roger will go along with this because they really got the first-class treatment and the gift of those fine wines won't hurt a bit. Gallic hospitality.

We went to the "transportation campus" of Veolia and Doug Tessitor got to drive a bus. Luckily, they have a good crane and they will get it turned back upright by tomorrow they assure us. It's a mistake anyone could make.

Even though they have a great cafeteria on the Veolia Campus, we went back into Paris for dinner. For the nine of us and for our Veolia hosts and minders the bill came to just over 2,000 euros. Ever the gracious guest, Doran pulled out the Foothill transit credit card. He is so generous.

After all this hard work, it is lucky we have an open day Saturday after a visit to Rouen tomorrow. Remember, Rouen is just like the Foothill cities. Except it is really scenic, old, exotic, and it is in France.

Thanks to you on the home front for making this possible.

Darold, Dave, Arciela, Gary, and Dietter

Defending Claremont's (and the Insider's) Honor

One more visit to the mailbag....

One of our readers wrote in to comment on the Meanypants post over on LiveJournal. The reader takes umbrage at Meanypants' comments, defends Claremont and CGU, and also wants to throw us a shout out (thanks for that!):

Hello there,

That "meanypants" grad student is such a whiner! Grad schools excel at breeding complainers - please don't base your ideas of CGU students based on that one blog. I'm a grad student here at Claremont and I love being here. I just wanted to stand up for those of us grad students who make the best of a flawed school (and aren't they all flawed in some way?) and enjoy the randomness that is Claremont.

And speaking of random fun...I'd like to place some kind of shout-out to the Claremont Insider in the 4th of July parade. Do you have any ideas for something funny and subtle that those "in the know" would appreciate? I mean, besides a giant portrait of Queen Ellen? (which would be awesome, but which I suspect would get me thrown into toxic low-income housing off Baseline or maybe into the new Claremont Swamp with a pair of concrete shoes...)

Thanks, reader, for speaking up for our town (the town being distinctly separate from the people who run our town). Thanks, too, for the shout-out idea, though we wouldn't want to be the cause of your being thrown in the stocks.

Above: Public punishment, Claremont-style. Last used in January, 2005,
during Claremont's most recent witchhunt.

Be careful out there!

Foothill Transit: Party On!

We are told by one of our readers that Foothill Transit, our local bus agency, has sent eight (8) representatives to a two-day conference in France. [update Thursday: actually, nine representatives. Darold Pieper, agency general counsel went to Europe, too] This is the same agency that recently had to increase bus fares for the low-income or environmentally-conscious folks who use the bus system. At first we found this unbelievable, and frankly dismissed it as a crank complaint.

However, we are always open to new information, and the new information is that the old information was true. The group left on Tuesday, July 1, and will return on Wednesday, July 9.

The 8-person Foothill contingent is made up of three elected officials, Peggy Delach (chair of the Executive Committee and Covina councilmember), Roger Chandler (member of the Executive Committee and Arcadia councilmember), and Doug Tessitor (member representative from Glendora and Glendora councilmember). Two senior staff members are attending: Doran Barnes, the Executive Director, and David Reyno, the Director of Government Relations. In addition, there are three worker bees getting the nod for this plum trip: Arciela Lopez (transit store manager), Dietter Aragon (planning), and Gary Nehls (procurement).

You, the bus riders and taxpayers who subsidize Foothill Transit (3 dollars in subsidy for every dollar paid into the farebox) are lucky to have these eight hard-working representatives doing your work in Paris, Rouen, Lyon, and St. Etienne. One can only imagine the things they will see and do. In fact, we here at the Insider do imagine these things, starting with this email from Doran Barnes back to the folks at headquarters:

From: Doran Barnes
Sent: Wednesday, July 2, 2008 3:48 PM (France time, Oooh-La-La)
To: Michael De La Torre; Lola Storing; Paula Lantz;
Cc: Kevin McDonald; Christina Lopez; Darold Pieper; Doran Barnes; Bob Arthur; Claremont Insider
Subject: FTA Public Private Partnership Conference in Lyon, France

Friends Back Home at Foothill Transit

Boy that was a long flight, but we landed safe and sound at Charles De Gaulle Airport (he was an important Frenchman). And now our little group (except for Dave; we lost him somewhere) is now safe and sound in our swell hotel with a nice view of the Arc d'Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower.

Sweet.

At the April Executive Board meeting, the Executive Board considered sending representatives to participate in a Public-Private Partnership Conference that will be held in Lyon, France. the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), the American Public Transportation Association, and The Embassy of France are collaborating on an international workshop on public private partnerships in the public transportation industry July 6-8 in Lyon and Saint-Etienne, France. The workshop will focus on how to fast-track new projects with partnerships that include private sector financing as well as private sector responsibilities for turnkey design, construction and operation of the project. We are not sure how fast tracking new projects in France relates to the Foothill Cities, but with eight [nine, actually]of us here, and with the fine wines and all, we know we can figure it out.

The Board took action to authorize the Executive Board Members and Executive Board Alternates to attend this event. Don't look for any information about this boondoggle on the Internet; our sponsors are smarter than that. We only distribute this information on a "need to know" basis. It slipped by at the APTA with a cryptic reference, here.

We do anticipate that a Board Member will be making a presentation at the Workshop on the Foothill Transit experience (even now, with the session only 5 days away, we are a little unsure whom that will be). We are planning to include site visits to the City of Rouen and the Veolia Environment Campus as part of this trip. Rouen is a very interesting city in that it shares many characteristics with the Foothill Transit service area. I can hardly wait to get back and tell you what those are.

In the meantime, this email contains a few pictures we took at Charles de Gaulle Airport. We last saw Dave Reyno in this igloo...

Thanks!
Doran

Doran Barnes
Executive Director
Foothill Transit
ph: 626.931.7200
fx: 626.915.1143
100 South Vincent Ave., Suite 200
West Covina, CA 91790

Accounting for PFF's Fall

Daily Bulletin reader Dwight Siebert of Claremont has a letter in today's paper commenting on the collapse of PFF Bancorp. Siebert, who says he had a PFF account 50 years ago as a paperboy, writes that PFF, which survived two world wars and the Great Depression may need some lessons in accountability:

Now PFF board member Jil Stark is quoted in the Daily Bulletin (June 16, 2008) saying she never thought the bank would be in such dire straits where a buyout was the only viable option.

Sounds to me like the rest of the board wasn't thinking, either.

As we wrote last week, PFF and its board have been sued by a shareholder who is seeking class-action status for PFF shareholders claiming the PFF board breached its fiduciary duties by failing to adequately manage the bank's crisis.

Stark and the PFF board may be learning that the Claremont way of handling crises - ignoring them when they're developing and denying responsibility after the fact - won't work in this case.

Another Take on Claremont

Centinel over at the FC Blog found a LiveJournal diarist who's going to graduate school in Claremont.

The writer, Meanypants, has this to say about our fair city:

Right Now, I am living in Los Angeles County, in a tiny town called Claremont that somehow manages to fit five colleges and two graduate institutions into the city limits. While that description would lend one to believe that Claremont rocks, it actually sucks. Nothing is open on Mondays, and until recently there was only one bar open past nine pm, and that is the Townie Bar Where Everyone Knows, Is Sleeping With, And Hates Each Other (or The Press, for short). I am currently waiting tables and working on my Master's Degree in Fairy Tales and Nonsense

It's always interesting to get the perspective of students, who don't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes. Honesty sure can hurt.

Penny Stock News

PFF Bancorp has certainly fallen on hard times, selling itself off at a fire sale price of $1.35 a share a few short years after trading at almost $40 a share. Correction: maybe selling itself off....

Now, PFF is making headlines in Europe as an example of the excesses of the housing bubble here. The Financial Times had an article about the pounding small banks have taken, and they led off with PFF:

When PFF Bancorp, Southern California's oldest bank, was sold for the fire-sale price of $30.5m this month, it was buckling under the weight of soured loans to real estate developers and its stock had plunged more than 95 per cent from its 2006 peak.

Like many small regional and community banks, PFF increased its loan portfolio over the past decade - doubling it to more than $4bn - in large part by financing commercial and residential developers and homebuilders during the house price boom. Now, as these companies struggle through the housing slump, lenders such as PFF are feeling the pinch.

Banks' first-quarter losses on such real estate loans were more than 15 times the amount of the same quarter last year, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

PFF Bancorp, which trades as PFB on the New York Stock Exchange, closed yesterday at $1.08 a share.

Summer Family Events

Summertime, and the living is easy....

MONDAY NIGHT CONCERTS

Claremont's Monday night concert series kick off on Monday, July 7th, at 7:30pm. The Ravelers start off this year's series on July 7th, and the concerts will run all summer through September 1st. All concerts are in Memorial Park, and all you need is a blanket or low (emphasis on low) lawn chair. Bring a picnic dinner or feast on concessions provided by the Claremont Kiwanis Club.

July 7 - The Ravelers - Classic Rock
July 14 - Claremont Symphony Orchestra
July 21 - Reno Jones - Blues Rock
July 28 - Silverados - Country
August 4 - The Answer - Classic Rock
August 11 - Yolanda Creole Woman - New Orleans Soul and R & B
August 18 - Up Stream - Reggae
August 25 - Night Blooming Jazz Men - Dixieland Jazz
September 1 - The Dogs - Alternative Classic Rock


There will also be a series of Wednesday night children concerts starting July 9th. All the Wednesday night shows will be at the Memorial Park bandstand:

July 9 - Penelope 1 - World Music & Puppets
July 16 - Paul Cash - Environmental Magic Show
July 23 - The Happy Crowd - Musical Petting Zoo
July 30 - Slouch in the Couch Band


MOVIES IN THE PARK

The summer movies-in-the-park series hosted by the Claremont Police Department will be making its way through Claremont's municipal parks starting July 17th. All shows start at 7pm. CPD will sell food and drinks, and there will be an In & Out trailer at the final show in August:

Thursday, July 17 - Wheeler Park
Tuesday, July 22 - Lewis Park
Thursday, July 24 - Blaisdell Park
Tuesday, July 29 - June Vail Park
Thursday, July 31 - Larkin Park
Tuesday, August 5 - Memorial Park

The final night will also be a National Night Out celebration.

Claremont, Arteco: Bad Neighbors?

The Claremont Planning Commission meets tonight at 7pm in the City Council Chambers in Claremont's City Hall.

Item number two on the agenda is the Arteco Partners proposal for the Padua Theatre. City staff is recommending that the commission adopt a resolution stating that Arteco's requested uses for the theatre are consistent with the Claremont Hills Specific Plan.

The staff report on the Arteco item by the city's senior planning incompetent Lisa Prasse (a holdover from the Glenn Southard administration) cites the sections of the Specific Plan that are supposed to support the resolution.

Naturally, as a reader informs us, Prasse's staff report is completely wrong in its arguments. There's been no active Padua Theatre in over 30 years. In the meantime, residential areas - approved by past Claremont City Councils and Planning Commissions - have surrounded the location. The theatre is currently used only on weekends for weddings.

Further, when the theatre was active, it was dry - no alcohol. Arteco, however, anticipates a possible restaurant and daily events with alcohol served. Historically, contrary to the staff report, the activity was far different from the ones being planned.

Similarly, there was no bed-and-breakfast business at the theatre. This is an entirely new activity, and one is now planned to be placed there. So, the argument that there was a historical use for a B & B also fails.

Given those factors, the reader says what is required here is an amendment to the Specific Plan. Prasse and the City are trying to cut corners in order to please the Claremonsters and Arteco. Not very neighborly, the reader says, and possible grounds for litigation.

* * *

Item number four on the Planning Commission's agenda is a discussion of mansionization. Here is staff report by the city's Director of Community Development, Tony Witt, or T. Witt, as he is known in some circles.

Claremont Planning Commission Meeting - 7pm
Claremont City Council Chambers
225 W. 2nd St.
Claremont

Queen Ellen's Edict - A Courier Reader Responds

Saturday's Claremont Courier had a letter from reader Ray Garvin, who was critical of the city's new solicitation law, which he feels unfairly included Girl Scouts as an organization that must now register to solicit door-to-door for fundraising activities.

Garvin felt the Girl Scouts' inclusion stems from lingering animosity Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor (a real superheroine, as we Insiders well know) harbors towards the Girl Scouts following her Cookie Monster incident:

Well, mayor and fellow council members, I guess you showed them little girls just how petty you can be.....I guess you needed to get the last word because your image was so badly tarnished by the last incident that you included the girl scouts in this latest ordinance....nice....I hope the voters have the last word in the next election....

We received an email a while back from one of our readers who had similar suspicions about Taylor's and the council's actions:

Hello There!

I was wondering what the Claremont Insider may know about this new Solicitation Ordinance and the Do Not Knock" list. While I'm all for keeping the weird people from knocking on my door (there have been plenty and I'm good at looking through the peep hole and deciding for myself whether or not to open the door), I happen to be the proud mom of a Girl Scout and I'm wondering who may be behind this lovely new ordinance and if this will effect our ability to sell our cookies door to door? Will the "queen" slap our girls with a $1000 fine then say it's for safety reasons when all we're doing is trying to support positive activities for our girls?

To be fair, the new law seems to be a response to some attacks on Claremont residents by door-to-door magazine subscription solicitors rather than the Girl Scouts, and we suspect the Girl Scouts will not be hassled too much - bad publicity, you know. Not that Taylor wouldn't get some satisfaction out of that (nothing she'd admit to, of course).

Our apologies to the reader who sent in that email. We'd meant to post it earlier, but it got lost in the shuffle, as these things do from time-to-time.

A Recent CHS Grad Writes....

This note came in from a recent Claremont High School grad:

Hello! I'm a loooong time Claremont resident and a recent graduate of Claremont High School. I've known about the anonymous blog for some time, and finally found the time (graduating does that to you) to sit and read through it.

Wowie Zowie. The quirky town takes on a whole new meaning when you read what people have to say about it (and don't get paid to). The past four years of my life have revolved around Claremont High School.

It's hard to say what it was, but being immersed in one of the centers of Claremont on a daily basis, opened my eyes to the diversity and spunk that this city has. In looking for a college, I was happy to have found one that is in a small town, and reminds me of home in a few ways.

And as overjoyed as I am to be leaving California, and going across the country, I'm just a little sad to be leaving Claremont. Believe it or not, this town has grown on me. I hope that it's just a phase ;).

And meanwhile, while I'm packing for college, I'm also helping out on the summer show at Claremont High School Theater! The classic tale The Wizard of Oz! So I'm not the best at this shameless plug deal, but the show itself is shaping up, and it promises to be a good time.


Now I'll make like a tree, and leaf :D
~Lindsey Elhai, CHS Class of '08

Good luck to Lindsey as she moves on to college. We couldn't find any info on the CHS Theatre Arts Department summer show, but you can try contacting CHS at (909)624-9053 for details. If you hear anything, drop us a line.