It's All About the Benjamins

Pomona Mayor Norma Torres (right, in all her weedy splendor), has been awfully quiet since winning the June Democratic primary for the State Assembly's 61st District. Running in a safe Democratic district means that once Torres beat out the other Democrats in the race, she essentially won the November general election as well, so she probably doesn't need to spend much on her November campaign.

And it's a good thing Torres doesn't have to invest much money in beating out her Republican opponent, Wendy Maier. Torres raised $402,673.12 for her campaign between 1/1/2008 and 6/30/2008. But she also spent $393,602.10 winning her primary election. None of the other Democratic candidates who ran against Torres spent more than $20,000.

In contrast to Torres, Anthony Adams, the Republican incumbent in the 59th Assembly District (Claremont's district) raised and spent about $122,000 in the first six months of 2008. Adams, like Torres, is in seat that's safely gerrymandered in favor of Adams' party.

So why so much money for Torres, who hasn't done much other than to be anointed by the 61st District's soon-to-be-retired incumbent, Nell Soto? Well, Torres has worked her way up the local Democratic party chain and is a Democratic super-delegate pledged to Barack Obama. So, Torres' party ties must account for much of the money raised.

And where did that money come from? Well, as we noted previously, some came from the insurance industry, and some came from the waste management and recycling industries. The California Secretary of State's website also listed an interesting $1,000 contribution to the Torres campaign from the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA):

(Click to Enlarge)

CCA is a for-profit prison business based in Nashville, TN, and has come under a lot of criticism for the way it runs its prisons. CCA has been accused of cutting corners excessively to the possible detriment of its employees and prisoners alike. CCA disputes those accusations, but in 2004 a major riot at CCA's Crowley Correctional Facility in Colorado had to be quelled by outside law enforcement officers after CCA's guards were overwhelmed. The PBS show NOW ran a story about the business of private prisons and CCA, which you can see here.

The NOW piece noted that the for-profit prison industry lobbies state governments for harsher prison sentencing and parole guidelines in order to ensure a steady supply of bodies for its prisons. Not necessarily good public policy, that. And, irony of ironies, considering Torres' party affiliation and her (legal) immigrant background, the for-profit prison industry has apparently targeted illegal immigrants as its next great business opportunity.

But, really, $1,000 is probably chump change in the scheme of things in the California State Assembly. Where did the real money flowing into the Torres campaign come from? The largest group of donors were unions, which is hardly surprising since organized labor has long been a major force behind Democratic candidates. Here are the nearly $115,000 in union and union political action committee donations received by the Torres campaign from January through June this year:

• SERVICE EMPLOYEES INT'L UNION LOCAL 1000 CANDIDATE PAC - $7,200
• SERVICE EMPLOYEES INT'L UNION LOCAL 1000 CANDIDATE PAC - $7,200
• SEIU UHW PAC - $7,200
• SEIU UHW PAC - $7,200
• SEIU LONG TERM CARE WORKERS LOCAL 6434 STATE PAC - $3,600
• SEIU LOCAL 721, CTW, CLC STATE & LOCAL - $3,600
• SEIU LOCAL 721, CTW, CLC STATE & LOCAL - $3,600
• SEIU LOCAL 121 RN PAC - $3,600
• SEIU LOCAL 121 RN PAC - $3,600
• SAN BERNARDINO PUBLIC EMPLOYEES ASSN. PAC - $5,000
• SAN BERNARDINO PUBLIC EMPLOYEES ASSN. PAC - $5,000
• PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS IN CA GOVERNMENT - $1,000
• PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS IN CA GOVERNMENT - $2,000
• PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS IN CA GOVERNMENT - $1,000
• PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS IN CA GOVERNMENT - $2,000
• PACE OF CA SCHOOL EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION - $2,000
• PACE OF CA SCHOOL EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION - $2,000
• PACE OF CA SCHOOL EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION - $2,000
• LOS ANGELES POLICE PROTECTIVE LEAGUE PAC - $3,600
• LOS ANGELES POLICE PROTECTIVE LEAGUE PAC - $3,600
• LOCAL 770 UFCW PAC - $1,000
• CA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION/ ASSOCIATION FOR BETTER CITIZENSHIP - $7,200
• CA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION/ ASSOCIATION FOR BETTER CITIZENSHIP - $7,200
• CA STATEWIDE LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSN. (CSLEA) PAC - $3,600
• CA STATEWIDE LAW ENFORCEMENT ASSN. (CSLEA) PAC - $3,600
• CA STATE COUNCIL OF SERVICE EMPLOYEES - $7,200
• CA PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS PAC - $1,000
• CA PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS PAC - $1,000
• CA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS COPE - $3,600
• CA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS COPE - $3,600
• UNITED NURSES ASSOCIATIONS OF CA - $1,000.00
• UNITED NURSES ASSOCIATIONS OF CA MONETARY - $1,000.00
• UNITED NURSES ASSOCIATIONS OF CA - $1,000.00
• UNITED FIREFIGHTERS OF LOS ANGELES CITY LOCAL 112 - $500.00
• UNITED FIREFIGHTERS OF LOS ANGELES CITY LOCAL 112 - $500.00
• UFCW REGION 8 STATES COUNCIL PAC - $2,000.00
• UFCW REGION 8 STATES COUNCIL PAC -$2,000.00
  

Did you happen to catch that fifth one down, a $3,600 donation from the Service Employees International Union Local 6434? That SEIU local has been on the front page of the Los Angeles Times recently for some highly questionable activities involving money spent by the local and its president, Tyrone Freeman:

The head of California's largest union local has stepped aside in the wake of Times reports that the organization and a related charity paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned by his wife and mother-in-law.

Tyrone Freeman, president of a Service Employees International Union chapter in Los Angeles, said in a written statement late Wednesday that he was taking a leave of absence and that the local would be placed in a temporary trusteeship.

"In order to ensure that any investigation of the allegations is fair and free from any question of interference or influence, I am taking a leave of absence effective immediately for the duration of the investigation," the statement said. "I believe these steps will allow our union to continue to serve the best interests of our membership during this time."

The statement was released by the Washington, D.C., office of SEIU President Andy Stern, who nurtured Freeman's career as the 160,000-member local grew dramatically in recent years, largely through consolidations.

"These allegations are of serious concern to all of us and we support Mr. Freeman's decision to put the best interests of the members first," Stern spokeswoman Michelle Ringuette said in an e-mail.

In addition to the payments to his relatives' firms, Freeman's local, the United Long-Term Care Workers, spent nearly $300,000 last year on a Four Seasons Resort golf tournament, restaurants such as a Morton's steakhouse, a Beverly Hills cigar club and the William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent firm, The Times reported earlier this month.

Altogether, the payments to Freeman and the home-based companies operated by his relatives, and to a former union employee totaled more than $1 million in 2006 and 2007, records and interviews show. That includes Freeman's salary and other union compensation. The workers whose dues fill the union's coffers make about $9 an hour caring for the infirm and disabled.

So, SEIU locals (not just Freeman's) representing janitors, healthcare workers, city-level employees, county and state employees, corrections employees, school employees, donated $43,800 to Norma Torres' campaign. Why? Could it have anything to do with maintaining the lifestyles of the rich and famous? A State Assembly vote, especially one from someone who is seen as controllable, might come in pretty handy. Someone's got to pay for those $10,000 bills at the Grand Havana Room in Beverly Hills. Those Cohibas don't come cheap, you know.

And, although we know this is an accepted practice, isn't there something wrong with public employee unions contributing to the campaigns of the very elected officials who appropriate money for those same employees? You can see how a state can get itself into a $15 billion hole pretty quickly that way.

Of course, the Republicans and their donors have the same thing going on. That's why the party of fiscal conservatism has overseen the largest federal budget deficits in our nation's history. That awful sound you hear is the machinery of governance grinding slowly to a halt through the accumulation of all that sand being thrown into the works by the patrons of both major parties.

We suspect that a lot of you might be reaching the same conclusion right about now: A pox on both their houses.

Separated at Birth

Apparently, when one gets elected mayor, one is allowed to use the ceremonial gavel to clobber pushy kids - it's all about the kids, you know.

A reader wrote in with a link to a bit of news about the mayor of Clayton, CA, in Contra Costa County. Clayton Mayor Gregg Manning ran into a couple young girls whom he thought were out of line. That public safety issue raised its ugly head again as Manning tried to straighten out the miscreants. Manning may want to call Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor for advice on public relations and crisis management.

Small-town Southern California meet small-town Northern Cal:

Saturday, August 23, 2008 7:55 PM
Subject: ellen taylor has a twin
To: Claremont Buzz

A family in Clayton, California grew more zucchini and tomatoes than they could use, so their two little girls -- ages 11 and 3 -- set up a stand on the sidewalk to sell the extras from their backyard vegetable garden. The mayor found out, and sent in the police to bust them for running a "commercial enterprise" in a neighborhood zoned for residential use. Best part: When the family called to talk to the mayor about it, he wouldn't take their call. As he said to the TV station that reported on the whole thing, there's no need to talk to the family, because they chose to "ignore the rules" and got what was coming to them.

Small town mayors are very protective of their sidewalks.

Link: < http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local&id=6339365 >

Public Works News

We received this bit of park and trolley news from one of our Insider spotters:

Friday, August 22, 2008 9:32 AM
Subject: Padua Sports Park Friday am
To: Claremont Buzz

Just practicing driving with my teen at 8:30 am on Padua and noticed a lot of contractors arriving and parking w/clipboards for what looked like a pre-construction mtg and "walkabout"... Wednesday on Monte Vista heading north we spotted an unmarked red trolley headed to the Public Works Yard.... Hmmmmmmm It must be nice to be rolling in $$$ like the City of Claremont... Full speed ahead!!!

Yes, you might recall that Claremont didn't have the $10-12 million it needed to build all of Padua Park (originally called Padua Ave. Sports Park), so they've broken it up into phases. Phase IA, which involves one unlit soccer field, some hardscape such as bathrooms, walkways, security and parking lot lights, and a small, 50-plus car parking lot (as opposed to the original 260 spots), has gone out for bid and is supposed to break ground in the fall. Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor wants the park to be a centerpiece for her reelection bid next March, so it's important that the city get started on it now.

The city has set aside something like $2.4 million to build Phase IB and is trying to secure a grant from the San Gabriel and Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy (RMC) for something like $1.6 million. Another of our readers whose been in contact with the RMC informs us that the city is telling the state conservancy that Padua Park is going to be a passive interpretative park (hence the dropping of "Sports" from the title).

Of course, they're also said publicly, most recently in Saturday's Claremont Courier piece with a quote from recently retired Human Services Director Jeff Porter that they city is looking to complete Phase 1A in order to attract other grant money to build the rest of the park.

From what we're hearing from our readers regarding that RMC grant, it sounds like the Human Services Department might be looking to secure some state money under false pretenses in order to get started on Phase IB of the park, which includes the lit soccer field. They've done this sort of thing at least once before in another state grant application, claiming that Padua Park was needed because the city's Wilderness Park might have had to close for three years because of damage from the 2003 Padua Fire (it was actually closed for just a couple weeks).

Is there a crime of grant writing fraud? If there is, the city's skating pretty close to that line. We'll let you know if they cross it.

Village News

Have we figured out what to call the Claremont "Village Expansion"? When it was still a concept, the city was calling it Village West since it's west of Indian Hill Blvd. and sort of balances out the old Claremont Village on the east side of Indian Hill.

At some point, the name suddenly changed to the Village Expansion. We kinda liked the old name. It sounded a little less bureaucratic, a little less developer-speaky.

The Courier has an online poll to see what readers think is the best name. The leader with 128 votes in is Village West by a landslide. Look for the poll towards the bottom of the Courier's website and vote for yourself. Also, check out the comments.


_________________________________


Meg at M-M-M-My Pomona has a post about a visit to a gastro-pub in Culver City called Father's Office. FO is known for its beer selection and its signature burger, the creation of chef/owner Sang Yoon, whose original FO is on Montana Ave. in Santa Monica.

Meg noticed some strong similarities between the Culver City FO and Claremont's Back Abbey in the Village Whatever:

The CC outpost features three of the four: The beer selection is amazing; the burger was slammin'; the place was so crowded they had a rope and a line at the front door; but the employees were perfectly civil.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about.

No, I'm here to say this: Back Abbey is a complete Father's Office rip-off. Even the LIGHT BULBS are the same, ferchrissakes! From the menu to the beer-tap presentation to the server's shirts, everything is strikingly similar. As for the burger, they are almost identical; it's just that FO's is fresher and cleaner-tasting than BB's. Oh yeah -- it's cheaper, too.

I'd agree with Meg on the pricing over at The Back Abbey. It's one thing to serve great Belgian brews, but it's another to use Belgian Euro pricing. We found at another blogger who noticed a some parallels between FO and The Back Abbey. Steve at Summer of Beer wrote:

The food is what also makes this a destination for those that aren't even beer lovers. They have a simple menu- moules, frites, soups, brats, cheese plates, and probably the most popular item- the Back Abbey Burger (and a couple variations too). Many have said this rivals the famous Father's Office Burger, and I can say it does. They use the same sort of greens and caramelized onions as FO does. It tastes very similar, and is very good (for $13), though I think the cheeses (gruyere and maytag blue cheese) used in the FO burger make it a bit more interesting. The frites are very good, and my sister who went to lunch with me loved the corn chowder.

Steve is right about the corn chowder, which is creamy with all sorts of diced veggies and chunks of thick sliced bacon floating around to give it a rich, smoky flavor. A Leffe and a Back Abbey Burger isn't a bad meal either, even if it is a little pricey.

The Back Abbey may have borrowed or expropriated from FO, it may be more expensive, and and the food may not be that's not quite as good as FO, but to me it has one major advantage. It's here, not in Culver City or Santa Monica. And, it does have the sort of neighborly pub feel you might find in a Belgian town, and Claremont definitely needs more of these types of places.

If you're interested in seeing what FO's all about, I found a video of the original in Santa Monica. It's a foodie show called After Hours with Daniel and features chef Daniel Boulud chumming it up in the kitchen of with FO owner Sang Yoon. The video runs long but is kinda fun if you're into Food Network-type celebrity chef shows. Here it is (sorry about the commercial tag at the beginning):

The Local Sporting Scene

SUMMERTIME AND THE LIVING IS EASY

Our apologies for our recent sabbatical. It being August and all, we ended up taking a brief hiatus to recharge our blogging batteries and to enjoy the end of summer. So, we gave the Insider staff some time off to live it up. The weather's been so great, we just needed to pack up and get away to enjoy the ocean breezes and sip fruity drinks from frosty glasses with little umbrellas.

As we try to ease back into the swing of things, in the spirit of the Summer Olympics we thought we'd start off with a couple notes about local sports.


CHS NAMES NEW BASEBALL COACH

Claremont High School has named as Steve Jackson as the replacement for former head baseball coach Mike Lee, whose coaching contract was not renewed after a contentious last season when Coach Lee clashed with a number of parent of CHS baseball players.

The CHS baseball team's website has the announcement:

The Claremont Unified School District Board of Education, at its meeting on Monday, Aug. 18, voted to approve the recommendation to hire Steve Jackson as new varsity baseball coach at Claremont High School.

Jackson played baseball at Chaffey College and the University of Northern Alabama. He also served as a student-assistant coach at UNA and brings 13 years of experience coaching American Legion and travel ball. Comments received by the school district describe Jackson as someone who has a thorough knowledge of the game and the ability to impart that knowledge and skills to his players. A local varsity high school baseball coach wrote, “In being associated with Steve on and off the baseball diamond, I have found him to be a true professional who possesses a genuine concern and ability to motivate athletes.”

Jackson’s full-time job is working for the City of Montclair Fire Department as a division chief, responsible for the supervision of emergency medical systems and training.

CHS Principal Brett O’Connor commented, “Whenever people talk about Mr. Jackson they talk not only about his baseball knowledge, but also his integrity, leadership and passion. I know Steve has the depth of knowledge to not only mentor young men in the game of baseball but, more importantly, as individuals.”

We've received some emails from CHS baseball parents who indicate that some of them don't approve of Jackson's hiring. Among the issues cited were the fact that Jackson has a son on the team, the fact that Jackson's job with Montclair FD might make it hard to devote enough time to his coaching duties, and that Jackson, who lives in Upland, has ties to other Upland youth baseball players and might encourage them to transfer to CHS.

On the other hand, Sid over at Sid's Side thinks Jackson is a good hire and that CHS baseball parents just need to give him a chance. Sid writes:

I’m simply not going to host another debate that knocks and bashes someone who deserves a fair chance. As I said before, this is a guy who is incredibly talented, bright and fair. That may not be what some people want. I don’t think their complaints are even about him, but, unfortunately, he will be the target. That’s too bad, because those people don’t yet understand how lucky they are. He absolutely will make a positive difference. I know he still needs to prove himself. So let him.

CLAREMONT CRUSHERS

Congratulations are in order for the Claremont Crush under-12 team, which won the Cooperstown All-Star Village tournament in Cooperstown, NY, last week. The Claremont Courier had an article about the team's big win:

With the 24 teams consisting of squads from all across the country, Claremont was given the opportunity to play against unfamiliar competition. But it was just part of the fun for the Crush, who batted .545 for the tournament and mercied 5 of its 10 opponents.

The accomplishment of the 12U team led to the team receiving a 6-foot trophy and each player receiving a championship ring. The 6-foot trophy was an enigma to the players, who found the object to either be almost just as tall or even taller than they were.

The Crush are a travel ball team and practice at Claremont's College Park.


IS IT THE WATER?

What is it with Claremont and hurdlers? The August 16th edition of the Claremont Courier had a story about Claremonter Richard Holmes, who at 41 won the 110-meter hurdles USA Masters Track & Field Championships.

Holmes, who is originally from Sacramento, competed for Fresno State University's track team as a collegian. The Courier article gave Holmes' backstory:

Relocating to southern California in 1991, Mr. Holmes tried his hand at writing and acting, even interning at Walt Disney Studios. He was featured in commercials and also played a track & field athlete in the movie Higher Learning. Meanwhile, Mr. Holmes still continued to train in hopes of qualifying for the 1992 Olympics.

The hurdler qualified for the B standard in the 110-meter high hurdles of the 1992 Olympics and was training to give the 1996 Olympics a shot when he fractured his hip at the Mt. SAC Relays that same year. Struggling to get his trail leg over the hurdle due to the pain, Mr. Holmes decided to move on from the sport, embracing married life with his wife Sabrina and taking on a sales career.

“I did not lift a weight for 4 years,” Mr. Holmes recalled.

But once his wife was pregnant with Arianna—the couple’s now 9-year-old daughter—the Claremonter decided to start training again in order for his daughter to have the chance to see him compete. He also went to see a sports orthopedist that showed him how to work through the pain and eventually found himself in better shape than he was in before he suffered his injury.

Holmes is Claremont's second hurdler to win honors this year. CHS sophomore Kori Carter won a state championship in the 300-meter hurdles and was fourth in the 110-meter race. Carter also placed second in 400-meter hurdles at the USA Junior Outdoor Track & Field Championships in June.

The Amethyst Initiative: David Oxtoby is On Board

The Amethyst Initiative. It sounds soothing and beautiful and soft and loving. A carelessly tossed necklace on a wooden nightstand in a honey pool of Sunday morning sunshine. Or, as in the screenshot above from amethystinitiative.org, it might be a pair of 30- or 40-something professors sharing a little après-lecture bubbly with a couple of coeds. (Oh. You say they aren't coeds? We say, "Card 'em.")

Actually, it's an effort by college presidents and chancellors to "rethink the drinking age". It began only last month, in July of 2008. If you somehow thought that this sounds like an initiative that Pomona College president David Oxtoby ought to get involved in, since his Alma Mater decision has now been ruled on by the New York Times, you would have thought right. He's already there:

"I support this initiative because it will allow our colleges to engage in real education of our students about responsible use of alcohol, as well as model moderate behavior. At present we are constrained only to talk about abstinence, since anything else is against the law. Treating college students as adults will help them to make more responsible decisions."

~David Oxtoby, Pomona College

He has signed on with some 113 (as of this writing) other college presidents. At this time, no other 5C president has signed on. Probably the news hasn't made it to the hinterlands.

What has President Oxtoby committed his campus to do, apart from beginning to "engage in real education"?

"...Signing the statement commits you [the college president] to describing, as clearly and fully and compellingly as you can, the place of alcohol in your own campus community [that should be a great convocation]. Signing the statement, finally, commits you to making sure the discussions in which you are engaged, or which you will lead, are civil, informed, and dispassionate [none of those shrieking parents of dead children, killed by a drunk driver], weighing all evidence, excluding no credible participants [always, always keeping control of the guest list], and considering all policy alternatives, no matter how controversial, assuming that, once the discussion has run its course, and all voices have been heard, either policy and reality will be seen to be in alignment or policy will be changed to reflect reality more clearly." [here is the page this paragraph quotes]

It sounds as if the college presidents won't be changing the world on this topic. If their students want to drink, if the reality is a dozen or more per semester carried off to hospital on a gurney, well then let's change policy to reflect reality. Let's define the problem away.

The signers of the Amethyst Initiative believe that amending a provision of federal law relating to highway funds, and lowering the drinking age to 18, will solve their own problems with their students. This is in line with the magical thinking of the fable of Dionysus, Amethyst, and Diana that led to the naming of the initiative:

The word Amethyst is derived from the Ancient Greek words meaning “not intoxicated” (amethustos). According to mythology, Amethyst was a young girl who incurred the wrath of the God Dionysus after he became intoxicated with red wine. Amethyst cried to Goddess Diana for help. Diana immediately turned the girl into a white stone. Upon discovering what had happened Dionysus wept, and, as his tears fell into his goblet, the wine spilled over the white rock, turning it purple.

The purple gemstone amethyst was widely believed to be an antidote to the negative effects of intoxication. In Ancient Greece, drinking vessels and jewelry were often made of amethyst and used during feasts and celebrations to ward off drunkenness and to promote moderation.

Maybe they ought to follow the classical tradition and the suggestion of this 1997 post and just give out amethyst drinking cups to all frosh.

Magical Thinking.

PFF Faces 2nd Lawsuit

Rancho Cucamonga-based PFF Bank settled its shareholder lawsuit last week, potentially easing the way for its planned merger with FBOC, Inc., an Illinois banking concern.

As an article by the Daily Bulletin's Matt Wrye reported, the suit had alleged that PFF executives got rid of their company stock at a time when they knew they faced big losses from problem loans to builders and developers.

Wrye also informs us that PFF workers and retires have filed their own class action suit against the company:

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh- based Stember, Feinstein, Doyle & Payne - in conjunction with an Agoura Hills firm - filed a class-action suit against PFF and executives on Tuesday seeking to recover $80 million for 900 employees and retirees.

It says executives invested workers' 401(k) and stock plans into PFF shares while knowing the company wasn't "accurately recording its financial condition on its books" and disclosing its true condition to the public.

"They knew the company was headed for trouble," said Steven Pincus, attorney at the Pittsburgh law firm.

More lawsuits could be on their way. If those plaintiffs win, it would deliver a devastating blow to a bank already being watched by federal regulators because of liquidity issues.

Wrye's piece also reminds us of how poorly PFF has performed. According to the article, the company has suffered over $240 million in combined losses in the past three quarters and customers have withdrawn $600 million in assets between March and June this year.

As we previously noted, some of the PFF board fared well with stock options before the bank's fall from grace, to the tune of many hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit from stock sales.

Claremont Laemmle Disappoints Art Film Crowd

Fans of foreign and art films have been disappointed by the Laemmle Claremont 5 theatres in the Claremont Village Expansion.

Prior to the Laemmle's opening last summer, cinemaphiles had thought that the new theatre would save them a trip into Los Angeles or Pasadena to see the latest indie film. Most people seemed to understand that a mix of mainstream Hollywood movies and art films would be needed for the Laemmle to attract enough crowds to be successful, and that's pretty much how things went at first.

However, lately the Claremont 5's menu has been much more run-of-the-mill, as Claremont Courier reader Jeanne Audrey Powers complained in a letter last Wednesday:

What is this with the Laemmle Theatre Company these days? This week, as I read the names of each of the films being shown, I realized that every single one of them is ALSO being shown in the nearby megatheatres, and one doesn't even need to go to Pasadena to see them!

Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen wrote about the films the Claremont 5 has screened, and he also interviewed the theatre chain's president Greg Laemmle, who explained the market forces behind the lack of arty fare at the theatres:

Programming art films isn't as simple as people think, Laemmle said.

For one thing, without a breakout hit like "The Queen" or "Brokeback Mountain," the art-film market has been suffering of late. Low-budget movies come and go, not gaining much traction.

Without money or momentum, studios aren't releasing many prints.

That's hurting the Claremont 5 because distributors want their films at Laemmle's main Pasadena location, the Playhouse 7, an art-film hotspot, and aren't making prints available for the Claremont 5, Laemmle said.

To fill the gap, he's booking Hollywood product. He didn't sound thrilled to have played "Mamma Mia!" but defended the Batman sequel as one of the best-reviewed movies of the year. Ditto with "Tropic Thunder."

"We try to play the better Hollywood films. A lot of people want to see those films," Laemmle said.

Another problem with the Claremont 5 is that demand for art films is not as high as in other venues. For example, Laemmle noted that the French movie "Tell No One," which has been one of the best-reviewed films of 2008, only lasted three weeks in Claremont but in other locations drew enough to last more then twice as long.

If you've been to the Claremont 5, you may have noticed the same thing as the moviegoers David Allen interviewed for his column: Unless you go on opening day for some of these films, the theatres aren't very crowded at all. Without an audience to support the art films, you're likely to end up with more mundane choices.

Driven

Rev up that '56 Chevy and come on out for an evening of classic rock and classic cars. The hard-working local band The Ravelers will be at it again tonight in La Verne's Heritage Park at 6:30pm.

We got this bit of Raveler spam with the details:

Hey Now...

The Ravelers love performing for city sponsored concerts and vintage car shows!

This Sunday, the two are combined into one fun summer evening in La Verne...

Sunday, August 17- La Verne Concert and 6th Annual Vintage Car Display in the Park!
---Heritage Park
---5001 Via De Mansion (at Wheeler)
---La Verne, CA 91750
The Ravelers play at 6:30 pm

Our pals Trinity Sound Company will be providing a killer sound system as usual.

A beautiful summer evening, a vintage car display, musical fun with The Ravelers...if you bring some friends & family, a blanket and a picnic dinner...we can't think of a better way to spend a few hours of relaxing enjoyment!

See you Sunday in La Verne!

Hai, Pat, Martie, Rob
The Ravelers

Heritage Park is located a block a north of Base Line Rd. on the east side of Wheeler Ave.

LA County Fair Opens September 5th

Hankering for your favorite fried food on a stick? Your chance to get a year's supply of trans fat in one sitting is coming soon!

The 2008 LA County Fair opens 11am Friday, September 5th, at the Pomona Fairplex. Here's a rundown of general info from the Fair's website:

General Information

September 5-28, 2008 – Closed Mondays and Tuesdays (18 days and nights)
September 5-22, 2008 – Live thoroughbred horse racing-closed Tuesdays only (16 days)

FAIR HOURS

Wednesday: 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Thursday: 11 a.m. - 11 p.m.
Friday: 11 a.m. - midnight
Saturday: 10 a.m. - midnight
Sunday: 10 a.m. - 10 p.m.


Opening Week thru Sept. 28, 2008

Wed. - Sun. (Sept. 3 thru 28)
Closed Mon. and Tues. (Open Tues. Sept. 2)
8a.m.-8p.m.

ADMISSION PRICES

Ages 13+ (Weekends) $17
Ages 13+ (Weekdays) $12
Ages 6 -12 (Weekends) $12
Ages 6 -12 (Weekdays) $7
Ages 5 and younger (every day)Free

Seniors
Ages 60+ (weekends) $14
Ages 60+ (weekdays) $9
Ages 60+ Senior Wednesdays $6

Groups
Group Sales, ages 13+ (20 or more adults) $10
Group Sales, ages 6-12 (20 or more) $6
Group Sales, ages 60+ (20 or more) $5

Season Pass
Ages 13+ (Season Pass) $50
Ages 6-12 (Season Pass)$24

Opening Day admission, Fri., Sept. 5 $1
($1 admission 11 a.m.-5 p.m.)

Opening Day admission 5 p.m.-midnight

Ages 13+ $12

Opening Day admission 5 p.m.-midnight
Ages 6-12 $7

$5 after 5 p.m. (Wednesdays & Thursdays)$5

College Thursdays (students w/valid ID) $5

RaceFan ClubCard (each, 2 admission tickets per day)$8

Parking

General $10
Preferred $15
Red Lot $20
Hotel Valet $25

The Fair also hosts Community Days for different area cities. Here's a sampling:

• Friday, September 5 - Pomona Day
• Wednesday, September 10 - Chino Day, Montclair Day, Ontario Day, Upland Day
• Friday, September 12 - San Dimas Day
• Wednesday, September 17 - Glendora Day
• Thursday, September 18 - Claremont Day
• Wednesday, September 24 - La Verne Day
  
  The Fair is offering discount tickets for your city’s Day at the Fair, which will be available at City Hall or your local Chamber of Commerce. For more information, contact Community & Government Relations Coordinator Brandy Williams at (909) 865-4648 or via email at bwilliams@fairplex.com. We’ll see you at the Fair!

Be Careful Whom You Honor

Last week we touched briefly on the Courier letter from Janis Weinberger, Muriel Farritor, and Kay Moore, questioning the city staff planning for removal of senior programs from Joslyn Center, at the corner of Harrison and Mountain, to Hughes Center, in the nethermost reaches of northwest Claremont.

Most readers will recognize Ms. Weinberger as a co-owner of the Courier, wife of long-time Courier editor Martin Weinberger, and local advocate for seniors. In fact, in 2003, the City named a newly completed wing on the Joslyn Center after Ms. Weinberger: the Janis McMaken Weinberger Wing.

So it's more than a little curious to see her as lead author on an August 6th Courier letter questioning the City decision-making on the senior center. Seems the City got a little ahead of itself and had workmen removing the sign, Joslyn Senior Center, even while the Committee on Aging was holding a meeting nearby, not having been informed of this decision.

Welcome to our Claremont, Ms. Weinberger, the Town of the Fait Accompli.

The City hurriedly posted a "fact" sheet on August 7th. [the scare quotes are on purpose; City "facts" are not at all like real facts] For your convenience, we provide a translated version below. Our translations are in red.

We guess the lesson here is that the City ought to honor people only after they are safely deceased, and can no longer readily rally public sentiment.

click on pages to enlarge

IE Weekly Writer Reacts

Boy, that David Silva over at the Inland Empire Weekly really doesn't like us, does he?

The Inland Empire Weekly writer has a response to our comments about his cover story in his paper's August 7-13 issue titled, "Anonymity Sucks: What Really Happened With The Claremont Cookie Monster."

In this week's IE Weekly, Silva has a lengthy clarification on page 5 entitled, "Claremont Blog Still Howling Like a Wounded Dog." The web version is accompanied by a graphic we really like showing a keyboard and a monitor dressed up with a Groucho Marx nose, eyebrows, moustache, and funny glasses. In the piece, Silva brings it right to us:

....My article wasn’t really about “the fight” between Taylor and the Scouts—wouldn’t you agree, Buzz? The notion of Taylor being engaged in a fight with Girl Scouts is your construct, not mine. No, my article was about how the L.A. Times missed the real story behind the Scout issue. And that the real story was how you, Claremont Buzz of the Claremont Insider, seized upon a brief, minor dispute between your arch-nemesis and a group of young girls and shamelessly exploited it to serve your own ends. Isn’t that closer to the truth, Buzz?

Well, we suppose. We must be really dense. We're certainly not professionals, as Silva happily points out. We really don't know how we could have been so stupid as to get the idea that the article was about Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor and a local Girl Scout troop - unless it was from Silva's original email to us:

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 11:11 AM
Subject: Request for interview
From:"David Silva"
To: Claremont Buzz

Dear Claremont Buzz:

I'm a writer with the Inland Empire Weekly newspaper, working on an article on the recent controversy over then-Claremont Deputy Mayor Ellen Taylor's encounter in March with a troop of local Girl Scouts. Would you be available for an interview, via email exchange, on this subject?

The Inland Empire Weekly, a subsidiary of Southland Publishing Co., is an alternative newspaper based in Corona. This article is scheduled to run as a cover news story in the Weekly.

I look forward to hearing from you,


David Silva
Editorial Contributor
Inland Empire Weekly

So, being the dense amateurs we are, we took Silva's email at face value and assumed he really wanted to know about what he said was the subject of his article. We wrote back, telling him to fire away.

Silva sent back six compound questions, one on Ellen Taylor, two generally on the solicitation ordinance, one on the the issue of our anonymity, one on our handling of the girl scout incident, and another on the general subject of our opinion of restrictions on cookie sales. We answered by focusing on what he had told us was his interest.

At no point in either of the emails from Silva did he refer to the Los Angeles Times, the article, its accuracy, or its author David Pierson.

Ever helpful, and because we believe context is important, we also suggested he contextualize the girl scout encounter--his stated topic--by examining some past incidents in town, including the very public, divisive, and well-documented Claremont municipal election of 2005, which involved a number of Taylor supporters, as well as a couple incidents involving Taylor and her neighbors.

But, since Silva's story wasn't really what he told us, there was no need for him to try to understand the Girl Scout incident, to place it in context, or to be objective about it. So, he just discarded most of our responses to his questions. Silva instead focused on the reporting mistakes LA Times writer Pierson made (already covered by us on July 19) and railed more than a bit against against the Insider.

He concludes his clarification by berating us for taking the long way--in two separate posts--to make what he conceded to be a valid point. We'll take a lesson from a pro and conclude the same way.

Silva seems to have started out with an a priori opinion about anonymity and certain bloggers, and he stuck closely to it. Our only question is, why not save the 2,541 words in the first article and the 960 words in follow-up and just run the very last sentence of his latest piece? That seems to be have been Silva's point in the first place: "Your blog is still crap, though."

Catch the Fever!

Below:
Atascadero City Manager Wade McKinney and Indio City Manager Glenn Southard pose for the April, 2008, edition of the City Manager Newsletter, a publication of Trackdown Management and Jack Simpson. All three, McKinney, Southard, and Simpson, are on the board of the California City Management Foundation, which Southard helped found.

We've been writing this past week about the situation in Indio where a portion of the city's utility tax has reportedly gone uncollected from nearly 8,000 homes and 650 businesses. Our fascination with the story has less to do with the fact that former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard in now ensconced in that desert down and much more to do with the opportunity to view the story as a case study in crisis management by Southard.

Southard would like to have the public believe the under collection of the 23-year-old Indio utility tax preceded his administration by decades. But has anyone bothered to look at how many of those 8,000 homes and 650 businesses were constructed in the past three years during Indio's great real estate boom? Indio's population, according to U.S. Census estimates, went from 49,116 in 2000 to 76,896 - a better-than-50% increase.

So if the taxes that weren't collected came as newly constructed properties, and if many or most of those new properties were built during the Southard years in Indio, then he would have to bear a much greater share of the blame than he's been willing to up to this point.

We also suspect that Southard will do his best to slip any blame at all for the mess, which likely runs into the millions of uncollected tax dollars. As we've noted, Southard survived a number of crises in Claremont by effectively controlling the public message - defining the story himself; by using his ability to charm councilmembers into supporting his actions even at the cost of their council seats; and by marshaling the power of city employee unions to get involved politically to exert pressure on councils (see the Preserve Claremont campaign of 2005).

Spinning the public and the press is certainly not a new phenomena. It's really not much different than a medieval king having his favorite scribe write a chronicle of the monarch's most recent war of conquest.

We've seen it go on here in Claremont as well. The recent Cookie Monster flap with Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor is a good example with Taylor trying to counter the negative attention she received by portraying herself as being concerned about the safety of the girls involved.

These things are scalable, from the local level to the highest international circles. In a lot of ways, the current Beijing Olympics is a massive PR campaign by China, complete with lip-syncing and digitally-enhanced fireworks.

And that's not all:


Chinese Officials: Deadly Virus Sweeping China Is Just Olympic Fever

DUI Checkpoint This Weekend

There must be a lot of drunks driving around Claremont. Either that or a lot of drunk state or federal grant agency bureaucrats doling out money for DUI checkpoints.

The city is conducting yet another of these things this weekend, beginning Friday, August 15th, at 6pm and ending at 2am Saturday morning. The checkpoint will be set up by the Claremont Police Department at an undisclosed location.

You fugitive felons should also think twice about driving through town, too. The city will probably have its digital fingerprint gadget handy to ID you if happen through the checkpoint.

Tri-City Recovery

Tri-City Mental Health, the cooperative mental health agency funded by the cities of Claremont, La Verne, and Pomona, apparently has recovered nicely from its bankruptcy and recently received a $10 million contract from LA County to service Medi-Cal patients it the three cities.

According to a blurb in the San Bernardino Sun, Tri-City hosted a reception at the Pomona Fairplex Sheraton to celebrate its recovery. The Sun quoted a couple Tri-City boardmembers:

Pomona Councilwoman and Tri-City board chairwoman Paula Lantz praised a recent reorganization of the governing board in which three members have been added as part of a restructuring process intended to help create a future vision for and re-establish the mission and core values of the 48-year-old organization.

La Verne Mayor Jon Blickenstaff, also a board member, said, "When you think about the hundreds and even thousands of people in this Pomona Valley that are served by Tri-City and the enrichment to their lives that we have provided, (it) makes you realize why everyone in this room and so many others have worked so hard to guarantee that this organization continues to serve in the exemplary manner that it has...."

Jesse Duff, who had served as Claremont's interim City Manager right after Glenn Southard left for Indio in 2005, was hired as Tri-City's interim director in August, 2007, and has overseen the agency as it has been regrouping following the bankruptcy. Duff was hired on a permanent basis in late-June.

Indio Spin Class

Well, it didn't take very long for our prediction from last Thursday to come true.

You might recall that in commenting on the situation in Indio where former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard is getting some extra summer heat for a screw up in the tax collection department, we said that we wouldn't be surprised to see Southard's staff trotting out stats and charts to show how none of this was really Glenn's fault at all.

The problems in Indio stem from the failure of the city's electrical utility, the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) to collect the city's five-percent Utility User Tax (UUT) from about 8,000 households and 650 businesses. The missed tax money for the Indio UUT, collected over $4.5 million last year, could easily run into the millions of dollars.

Southard wasted no time dropping the possible litigation threat and hiring MuniFinancial (the same company that handled Claremont's failed Parks and Pasture Assessment District vote) to audit IID and determine how long the money has gone uncollected.

Southard's team also took the Desert Sun newspaper for a quick spin, as a Desert Sun article on the subject indicated. The article, titled "Indio: There Were No Signs Tax Wasn't Collected," noted that some residents were questioning how the city could overlook the missing revenue. Southard's assistant Mark Wasserman, however, argued that there appeared to be no drop off in revenues:

Wasserman said the city has annual revenue audits, and problems with the utility tax did not surface.

“When you look at the population and the UUT revenue they do grow at consistent rates with one another,” he said.

For example, from 1995 to 2000, Indio's population grew by 14 percent, and the utility tax revenue by 14.5 percent, Wasserman said.

From 2000 to 2005 — the height of the city's development boom — population grew 35 percent; the utility tax revenue increased even by 54 percent, Wasserman said.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary during budget preparations. Projections for utility tax revenues are based on prior years, he said.

“There were no huge increases, no decreases. Revenues that we received from IID were in line with the growth from the city,” said Susan Mahoney, management services director who oversees finance.

The Desert Sun's article also carried a helpful graphic that showed that UUT revenues since 1994 tracked population growth in the city fairly consistently, just as Indio officials had said:

Chart from The Desert Sun, 8/7/08
(Click to Enlarge)

But should the tax be tracking the population or should it be rising much faster than population growth because of rising energy prices? You can see from the graph that in the last five years the UUT revenues did outpace population growth, but how do we know that curve is what we should really be seeing? Maybe the difference should be much more dramatic.

It seems to us there's a pretty simple way of figuring the correct amount. The Desert Sun reported that Indio has 27,704 households, according to the California Dept. of Finance. Let's say we know that the average household's yearly utility tax payment for 2007 was $100 and 30% of that cames from electrical bills. Then, $30 times 27,704 households would equal the annual UUT revenue the city would have expected to collect from electric bills. In our example, the city should have collected $831,120 from IID electric bills.

But if the Desert Sun is right about 8,000 households not being billed, then the total electric bill portion of the UUT revenue from households would be closer to $591,120 - $30 times 19,704 households. It's a difference of $240,000, and you would think that would jump out at people. An analysis for business UUT revenue would be similar.

And it's not as if Indio doesn't consider these sorts of projections. Below is an image of a fiscal analysis for the 2/19/03 Indio City Council meeting. The analysis shows estimated utility tax revenue for a then-new housing development called Generations at Shadow Hills:

(Click to Enlarge)

Click here to see the actual report. (Sorry, the city of Indio doesn't make this easy. You have to click on the archive link, then click on the "City Clerk" folder and find the agenda packets. Look for February, 2003.)

The table shows what the estimated UUT revenues should be for the project as the homes become occupied. These are the figures, based on an average annual $166 utility tax collection per household:

2003 - 0 homes occupied, $0
2004 - 0 homes occupied, $0
2005 - 11 homes occupied, $1,824 (Uh-oh, the analyst's math may be wrong here; 11 times $166 should equal $1,826)
2006 - 22 homes occupied, $3,648 (Wrong here, too; should be $3,652)
2007 - 32 homes occupied, $5,306 (Wrong; should be $5,312)

So, did Indio really collect the amounts estimated for the housing units studied or did they instead collect some fraction of those numbers - $166 per household per year, minus whatever the electric bill portion of the utility tax was since the IID wasn't billing for that?

Indio was clearly used to figuring what the projected incomes should have been, so what was so hard about checking to see if the real numbers actually measured up to the projections? Southard and his staff were supposed to be auditing the numbers. Now, this was a problem that Southard inherited, but shouldn't a new administrator coming in with fresh eyes and getting paid barrelfuls of money be expected to do a proper audit? We know for sure that almost 8,000 households and 650 businesses weren't being billed. How did Southard overlook that?

More importantly, can whatever spin Indio's city management puts on the story trump the facts, as so often happened in Claremont over the various crises of the Southard administration here?

We can probably be sure that whatever audit is done, if the auditor isn't truly independent - loyal to the people of Indio rather than Southard or the Indio Council, then we might never know what happened. A citizen's group might be better off hiring their own auditor to go over the figures.

If that doesn't work, they can always start a blog.

City Pays at the Pump, Just Like You

Gas prices are hitting the City of Claremont just like anyone else, according to the Claremont Courier. Tony Krickl's article in Saturday's Courier reported:

With a fleet of 109 vehicles to maintain, rising gas prices can significantly affect the city’s bottom line.

From July 2007 to the end of June 2008, the city purchased 83,869 gallons of unleaded fuel at an average cost of $3.05 per gallon, said Community Services Department Director Scott Carroll. It also consumed 42,430 gallons of diesel fuel at an average of $3.23.

The total cost of fuel last fiscal year for the city amounted to $393,000.

On July 24, the city made another bulk fuel purchase of unleaded costing $3.68 per gallon and diesel up to $4.34 per gallon. Assuming gas prices do not increase over the next year, the city will be spending $493,000 for fuel in 2008/2009 – a jump of $100,000 or 26 percent.

One advantage the city has over you, though, is that the city can always raise the price of services like trash collection to help defray higher gas bills. Most of you can't automatically raise the money you bring home to pay your bills.

This is Pomona College the New York Times Magazine is Talking About

(click on image to enlarge)

Sunday's New York Times Magazine contained a column by Randy Cohen (The Ethicist) on the subject of the Pomona College Alma Mater, though Pomona was not named in the column:

Julia DeIuliis, of Philadelphia, writes: "A college with which I am affiliated discovered that its alma mater was written for a blackface minstrel show in the 1900s. Although the lyrics are innocuous, the school banned the song from this year's graduation and formed a group to discuss its future use, part of a campaign to make students aware of things they take for granted. Is this a good response, or should the school focus on more important issues? Is it unethical to sing the song?"

Cohen replies: "Sing out--full-throated, clear-conscienced..." He then goes on to give cover to Pomona College President David Oxtoby, who made the decision to ban the singing of the song: "The school's response is not only ethical but also admirable. It did what a college should... This particular project may be evaluated for its efficacy...but should still be praised for its intent. "

He does not address the very real collateral damage inflicted on alumni and the wider college community by the somewhat draconian measure of banning the song, perhaps because this was not raised in the question. As we are learning from the Los Angeles Times and the Inland Empire Weekly, you can't count on the print media for the full story.

Traffic Solutions: Walking on the Wild Side

We received this in from a reader concerned about students trying to get from the Claremont Graduate University's new student apartment complex on the north side of Foothill Blvd. to the CGU campus on the south side of the often busy highway:

Subject: Claremont Planning: Nobody Walks in L.A., So They Shouldn't Walk Here Either

Hi There,

So sheer planning genius along the lines of Porkchop Park...

CGU finally built new housing for its students to replace the criminal slum lord housing it currently has. The new housing is up against the parking lot of the Rancho Santa Ana Botantic Gardens.

We all assumed that the city would put in a light on Foothill and College, since CGU is on College and a couple hundred students are moving into the apartments on the other side of Foothill, directly across from College. I mean, that would make sense....for the several years I've lived here, I've become accustomed to watching students play Frogger as they dashed for their lives across Foothill to get to the apartments at CST. The only other option was to walk all the way down to Dartmouth and back - which, on a hot day with no shade, is kind of brutal.

I mean...a light, a pedestrian bridge, something...

And then Claremont built an island median thing to prevent people from turning left on Foothill coming out of College. And put rocks all over it so you can't stand on it. And then added No Pedestrian signs. I think they wanted to add a moat and fire breathing dragons, but because of the budget, decided not to.

The city actually thinks that students should walk all the way down to Dartmouth, wait for the light there, take their chances crossing against turning traffic, and walk all the way back? Only in Claremont is the shortest distance between two points....a weird rectangle.

The weird access road that you have to take now is narrow - looks like its a one-way, but will have to have to accommodate two way traffic (even though there's no center divider line).

But hey, at least they put in a bike lane going up to the gardens, right? Except...its on the right side of the road, where there is no lighting.

Seriously, does the city want to kill off students?

here's the link to the housing info:

http://www.cgu.edu/pages/1156.asp

My favorite bit of ridiculous advertising on there is that the Metrolink is supposedly "within walking distance." Uh-huh. It's over a mile away, including crossing a major road with heavy traffic that doesn't have a freaking crosswalk, light, or pedestrian bridge.


Sigh.

Actually, dear reader, as typically happens with these things, a lot of thought and careful planning went into what you see. The City of Claremont and CGU threw tons of money at a traffic study from Acme Traffic Consultants, the finest traffic minds in the U.S.

The image below is taken from the computerized traffic model tested by Acme. Acme is a division of Acme Products, Inc., the same company the city hired to come up with coyote mitigations for the Claremont Wilderness Park. You might recall their plan to deal with our four-legged friends: Catapulting a large boulder from the highest point in the park until it falls on the unsuspecting coyote, who at the last minute notices the ever-larger shadow growing around him and, realizing his plight, holds up a sign saying, "Bye!"

Click to Enlarge