This Month at the Athenaeum

For the politically-inclined and for the policy wonks among us, Claremont McKenna College's Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum has a slate of speakers this month that you might be interested in:

• Tuesday, November 11th, 6:45pm
  Andrew Bacevich
  Professor of International Relations and U.S. History, Boston University; author, The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War (2005) and editor, The Long War: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy since World War II (2007)
  
  
• Wednesday, November 12th, 6:45pm
  Michael Chertoff
  US Secretary of Homeland Security; co-author, USA Patriot Act (2001)
  
  
• Monday, November 17th, 6:45pm
  NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd
  Op-Ed columnist, New York Times; author, Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide (2005) and Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk (2005)
  

• Monday, November 24th, 6:45pm
  US Army lieutenant colonel John Nagl
  Former Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, Fellow, Center for a New American Security; author, Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife (2002) and co-author, The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (2007)
  
  

M.M.C. Athenaeum
385 E. 8th St.
Claremont, CA 91711-6420
(909) 621-8244

_________________________________

Medal of Honor Documentary Tonight

Speaking of Xavier Alvarez, KCET, LA's PBS station, is airing a documentary tonight on the history of the Medal of Honor. The documentary, "Medal of Honor," runs from 9 to 10:30pm.

The LA Times had a review:

With interviews and vintage images, producer-director Roger Sherman traces the history of the medal from its creation during the Civil War through the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The result renders honors where they are due without glossing over some dark spots in the medal's history: the profligate distribution in the Civil War and the refusal to acknowledge the bravery of black and Asian American troops during World War II -- a miscarriage corrected only decades later.

There are intriguing numbers: 3,473 Medals of Honor have been awarded; 102 recipients are still living. In World War II, 57% of the medals were awarded posthumously; of the five awarded for Iraq and Afghanistan, all were posthumous.

Down-ballot Election Results

A smattering of some of the down-ballot results of interest to Claremont. It's hard to get reliable links to the official elections websites, so take these with a grain of salt. (Results compiled between 6 and 7 a.m. on Wednesday, November 5)

David Dreier, incumbent congressman from the 26th district, which includes Claremont, appears to have withstood a challenge from Democrat Russ Warner. With 318 of 469 precincts reporting, Dreier had 53.5% of the vote to Warner's 40.2%. We commented here on one of the mail pieces opposing Dreier. The Federal Election Commission has now posted the campaign finance disclosure from the Blue America PAC for the hit piece. It cost $19,652.44 to prepare and mail.

click on image to enlarge

See here for latest results in Dreier's race.

In a district adjacent to Claremont, the north Pomona division of Three Valleys Municipal Water District, carpenter John Mendoza appears to have trounced incumbent Fred Lantz, 55% t0 45%. This has a lot of the look of the election two years ago when Xavier Alvarez took his seat from the then-incumbent: a relative unknown versus a long-time water wonk. We don't know much about Mendoza, he has no website and didn't fill out the League of Women Voters Smartvoter information. Mendoza didn't come off all that well in an article in last month's San Gabriel Valley Tribune, where he rapped the current board for "making a lot of decisions about water but they are just sitting there at the top, collecting pay and benefits." The article goes on to say that Mendoza, if elected, would still collect benefits, "but I won't take advantage of them." Huh?

Lantz is husband of Pomona councilmember Paula Lantz. Maybe some of our friends in Lincoln Park (Meg?) can elaborate on this race. [Update: John Clifford over on M-M-M-My Pomona points out that John Mendoza not only ran for and won the Three Valleys seat, but also ran unsuccessfully for a city council seat in this election, losing to Stephen Atcheley but edging out the Daily Bulletin-endorsed Querubin. Mendoza was busy; he also sponsored an increase in the Utility Tax in Pomona, Measure PC, which failed by nearly three to one.]

In incomplete returns, 21 of 25 precincts reporting, Glenn Southard nemesis Michael Wilson is trailing by 900 votes in Indio's city council election. Try this link for updated results--no guarantees it will work. The margin against Wilson has widened as more returns have come in. According to the Desert Sun, Wilson was outspent by the two leaders by four or five to one. Leader Wilson raised more than $60,000; incumbent Watson raised some $45,000, and Wilson raised around $12,000.

Measure R, the new Los Angeles County half-cent sales tax increase, squeaked by 67.4% to 32.6%. It needed 2/3 to pass. It was opposed by Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor, the Claremont City Council, and many local politicos. It's a win for LA Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa and the MTA and the Westside. Whether we will see much out here in the San Gabriel Valley is doubtful, according to opponents.

Norma Torres, police dispatcher and Pomona mayor, and "Friend of Xavier", is on her way to the State Assembly. With about 2/3 of the votes counted, she leads by more than 15,000 votes, 60.6% to 32.8% for Wendy Maier.

Anthony Adams and Bob Huff both are leading comfortably in their races as Claremont's State Assemblyman and State Senator, respectively.

For you national political junkies, here is an interesting set of maps on the Obama-McCain race, with analysis.

Los Angeles County Election Results

Turnout in Los Angeles County yesterday was estimated to be an astounding 82%, according to the Los Angeles Times. Over 3.5 million voters cast ballots in LA County Tuesday, more than in several entire states. The Times gave a few details:

Of the county's 4.3 million registered voters, about 3.5 million had cast ballots Tuesday at 8 p.m. To find a higher turnout, officials had to go back to 1968 when 86% of county voters cast their ballots for president. The next highest turnout was in 1976, with 81.08%.

Smartvoter.org has the results:

President

President/Vice President of the United States

• Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Democratic
  6,125,805 votes 61.3%
• John McCain/Sarah Palin, Republican
  3,693,865 votes 37.0%
• Ralph Nader/Matt Gonzales, Peace and Freedom
  78,506 votes 0.8%
• Bob Barr/Wayne A. Root, Libertarian
  49,569 votes 0.5%
• Alan Keyes/Wiley S. Drake, Sr., American Independent
  29,473 votes 0.2%
• Cynthia McKinney/Rosa Clemente, Green
  27,675 votes 0.2%
• Ron Paul/Gail Lightfoot (Write-in)
  Frank Moore/Susan Block (Write-in)
• James Harris/Alyson Kennedy (Write-in)
• Chuck Baldwin/Darrell Castle (Write-in)

US Legislature

United States Representative; District 26

• David Dreier, Republican
  97,613 votes 53.0%
• Russell Warner, Democratic
  74,444 votes 40.4%
• Ted Brown, Libertarian
  12,206 votes 6.6%

State Senate

State Senator; District 29

• Robert Huff, Republican
  134,261 votes 54.4%
• Joseph Lyons, Democratic
  96,339 votes 39.0%
• Jill Stone, Libertarian
  16,538 votes 6.6%

State Assembly

Member of the State Assembly; District 59

• Anthony Adams, Republican
  64,040 votes 50.8%
• Donald Williamson, Democratic
  52,203 votes 41.3%
• Maureen Keedy, Libertarian
  10,028 votes 7.9%

State Propositions

• Proposition 1A Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train
  Pass: 4,919,279 / 52.2% Yes votes
  ...... 4,497,841 / 47.8% No votes
  
  
• Proposition 2 Standards for Confining Farm Animals
  Pass: 6,064,475 / 63.2% Yes votes
  ...... 3,524,188 / 36.8% No votes
  
  
• Proposition 3 Children's Hospital Bond Act. Grant Program
  Pass: 5,129,269 / 54.7% Yes votes
  ...... 4,245,412 / 45.3% No votes
  
  
• Proposition 4 Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor's Pregnancy
  Fail: 4,566,006 / 47.6% Yes votes
  ...... 5,020,847 / 52.4% No votes
  
  
• Proposition 5 Nonviolent Drug Offenses, Sentencing, Parole and Rehabilitation
  Fail: 3,790,567 / 40.2% Yes votes
  ...... 5,637,021 / 59.8% No votes
  
  
• Proposition 6 Police and Law Enforcement Funding. Criminal Penalties and Laws
  Fail: 2,806,864 / 30.5% Yes votes
  ...... 6,382,200 / 69.5% No votes
  
  
• Proposition 7 Renewable Energy Generation
  Fail: 3,294,158 / 35.1% Yes votes
  ...... 6,102,907 / 64.9% No votes
  
  
• Proposition 8 Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry
  Pass: 5,163,908 / 52.0% Yes votes
  ...... 4,760,336 / 48.0% No votes
  
  
• Proposition 9 Criminal Justice System. Victims' Rights. Parole
  Pass: 4,901,562 / 53.2% Yes votes
  ...... 4,311,143 / 46.8% No votes
  
  
• Proposition 10 Alternative Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy. Bonds
  Fail: 3,742,997 / 40.1% Yes votes
  ...... 5,581,303 / 59.9% No votes
  
  
• Proposition 11 Redistricting
  Pass: 4,503,899 / 50.5% Yes votes
  ...... 4,414,018 / 49.5% No votes
  
  
• Proposition 12 Veteran's Bond Act of 2008
  Pass: 5,787,003 / 63.4% Yes votes
  ...... 3,343,552 / 36.6% No votes

Local Measures

• Measure R Traffic Relief - Rail Extensions - Reduce Foreign Oil Dependence -- Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Sales Tax Increase - Two-Thirds Majority Approval Required)
  Pass: 1,633,442 / 67.41% Yes votes
  ...... 789,601 / 32.59% No votes

Election Day - UPDATED

It's time to do your civic duty. Get up off the couch, take a little time from your lunch hour, go after dinner - whatever you have to do - and go to your polling place, whichever end of the political spectrum you occupy.

If you don't know where your polling place is, the League of Women Voters SmartVoter.org website can tell you. Just click here.

Act now and you can receive loads of free stuff (donuts, ice cream, coffee, $250 haircuts even). This is much better than the county fair for freebies. And don't forget your frequent voter card for even more gifts. USA Today describes some of today's election offers:

See below the quote for local Claremont offers

Due to possible conflict with election laws in various states, most are not requiring proof of voting. The free offers:

•Coffee. Starbucks expects to hand out "hundreds of thousands" of free 12-ounce drip coffees (valued at about $1.75 each), says spokeswoman Jenny McCabe. "If everyone who votes comes in for a free cup of coffee, we'll have some lines," she says.

•Doughnuts. Some 85 of Krispy Kreme's 231 locations in the U.S. will hand out star-shaped, red-white-and-blue sprinkled doughnuts "while supplies last," says spokesperson Dana Hughens. The chain will give out about 200,000 doughnuts valued at 99 cents each. "People are definitely talking about the brand as a result of this," she says.

•Ice cream. Between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. in each time zone, Ben & Jerry's ice cream shops will hand out single-scoop ice cream cones (a $3.40 value). "What better way to encourage people to be politically active than to give away free ice cream?" asks spokeswoman Liz Brenna.

•Sandwiches. In a local market promotion, several hundred of the nation's 1,400 Chick-fil-A stores will hand out $2.70 chicken sandwiches to adults who show proof that they voted, says spokesman Jerry Johnston.

•Phone calls. Credo Mobile, a wireless company that donates money to progressive causes for calls its customers make, will offer free outbound calls to current customers during polling hours in their states. The cost could be about $250,000, says spokeswoman Becky Bond.

•Discount haircuts. Then, there's Cristophe Schatteman, a top hair stylist known for giving former president Bill Clinton a $200 haircut on Air Force One. His salons in Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Beverly Hills and Orange County, Calif., will offer all services — including haircuts — at half price today. A $500 haircut from Cristophe will go for $250.

Among local retailers, we've heard of a couple election day offers:

• At The Forks Chop House in the College Heights Packing House, if you wear your "I Voted" decal, you can get 50% off lunch or dinner today. The Forks is located at 580 W. 1st St. at the west end of the building. The phone number there is (888) 933-6757.
  
  
• Winestyles, the wine bar at 201 N. Indian Hill Blvd. Suite A100 in the Village Expansion, is offering a free gift and 10% off your purchase (15% for wine club members) if you have an "I Voted" sticker. Call (909) 447-4400 for information.

ELECTION UPDATE, 11:05AM

The Onion scoops the mainstream media with surprise election results:


Voting Machines Elect One Of Their Own As President

Democracy Takes a Hit

The end of the latest political season is nigh, which means campaign hi-jinx on all sides are running rampant. File these latest events under the heading HYPOCRISY:

Saturday's Claremont Courier had an article by Tony Krickl with the headline "It's the Season for Dirty Campaign Tricks and Literature." (The Krickl piece is not posted on the Courier website.) The article talked about some of the usual stuff like campaign lawn signs going missing, and it also mentioned complaints about an anti-Obama mailing with racist overtones.

Krickl wrote that local Republicans, too, had complaints about an unidentified man who left a leaflet that had a list of "The Early Signs of Fascism" outside the local Republican headquarters.

And the Daily Bulletin reported last week that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office is investigating a complaint from a Pomona resident:

POMONA - Roberta Perlman-Hensen has been a resident of Los Angeles County for nearly three decades, so she was surprised when she recently received an unsolicited absentee ballot - from San Bernardino County.

Perlman-Hensen lives in Pomona but has a business address in Chino.

"It was really odd. Apparently someone filled out a card with my name," she said.

The matter was odd enough that the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office is having the county District Attorney's Office investigate.

What a lot of these complaints have in common is that the incidents are pushed by independent groups who support their candidates of choice not by offering up reasons to vote for those persons but by giving negative messages about their candidates' opponents.

These sorts of occurrences are by no means limited to state and federal elections. In the last three Claremont municipal elections, for instance, city-wide mailers went out to voters on the last Friday before the respective elections. That particular day is chosen because the targeted candidates cannot respond in time before election day to rebut the charges raised in the mailers. We saw an unsubtle and ineffectual dig at Elderkin, Yao, and Pedroza in the last election. Before that, it was Valerie Martinez's and Roger Hogan's Claremont Business PAC. And who can forget, six years ago, Residents United for Claremont, the forerunner of the 2005 Preserve Claremont.

So it came as no surprise late last week that a hit piece mailer went out attacking incumbent Congressman David Dreier (R-26). The piece was a large, four-color, glossy mailer that had the photo of two men in swim trunks lying on beach towels together with the headline: "Why are taxpayers paying for David Dreier's Homosexual lifestyle?" The headline was in white letters, except for the word "Homosexual", which was in red.

The mailer claimed that "...Dreier took 92 trips overseas with his male partner on our tax dollars." The mailer also indicated that it was paid for by Blue America PAC, which is an organization headed by DJ, record producer and political blogger Howie Klein. Here is the mailer itself:

Click to Enlarge

What was disturbing about the Blue America mailer is that it so clearly seeks to stir up homophobia to help Dreier's Democratic opponent, Russ Warner, win tomorrow's election. Isn't a Blue America supposed to be a tolerant America? We are finding it a little tough to square that circle.

Update, November 5, 10 a.m. The Federal Election Commission has posted the campaign finance document for the mailer. It is available at the FEC website, and also reproduced here. Click on the image at the right to enlarge so that the disclosure is readable.

Warner, who has not disavowed the Blue America mailer--that we have heard*, stands to benefit here. Silence seems to be the rule on this one: silence from the Daily Bulletin and the Courier; silence from the Claremont Colleges, where quelling hate speech is a daily event; and silence from Warner and his supporters.

Where, one must ask, is the outrage? It's more than a little hypocritical to rightly complain about racist hit pieces on the one hand and to support with silence homophobic pieces on the other. And, whether from the left or the right, what do exactly you win when you abandon all first principles to win an election?

Update, election morning, 7 a.m. We received a note from a member of the Claremont community on this issue pointing out hypocrisy on the Dreier side: "The fact that Dreier is gay, closeted, and enjoyed a multi-decade relationship with his chief-of-staff has been well-known since the story broke in 2004. Many GLBT Americans are offended by Dreier's hypocrisy, and your post would have been better for mentioning that fact."

We are agnostic on Dreier's re-election. Or not. And were a bit tentative in even exposing this whole affair. Our reader implies that the piece in question was along the lines of an Act Up! action--queer, here, and in your face.

*We checked the Warner for Congress website about 11:15 a.m. Monday and couldn't find anything authoritative or otherwise. We'll check as we can throughout the day and tomorrow.

7:00 a.m. Tuesday. Still no statement one way or the other from the Warner camp. Our purpose here is not to put pressure on Warner--God knows he's probably busy enough today--but this note was the easiest way we could come up with to allow for an anticipated change in the fact situation underlying statements in this post. We checked several times yesterday afternoon and evening, but have removed the times in this footnote because they had too much of a "countdown" look to them. Probably Warner doesn't even read the Insider, and has the intelligence not to respond if he did. This is getting way too complicated for us--"lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta threads,"

10:00 a.m. Wednesday. We will stop posting on this subject now. Dreier apparently has won re-election.

East vs. West on Measure R

The Los Angeles Times had an article last Saturday that discussed the LA County Measure R sales tax ballot measure. The article focused on the differences between LA's Westside residents and those in the eastern LA County. (Politicians in outlying county areas like Lancaster or the San Gabriel Valley have argued against Measure R, saying that the money generated would go disproportionately to Los Angeles, particularly the Westside "Subway-to-the-Sea".)

The article, by Times writer Steven Hymon, also made use of Hymon's interview with Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor, who, along with the rest of the Claremont City Council, has opposed the measure. The article also noted that although it is true that West LA does suffer epic traffic congestion, so does the San Gabriel Valley:

Despite the widely held view that the Westside has the county's worst gridlock, traffic statistics from the California Department of Transportation and the Freeway Performance Measurement System at UC Berkeley suggest that drivers on the east side of town aren't doing much better.

Although parts of the 10 and 405 freeways carry more than 300,000 vehicles daily -- a very high load -- so does the 210 Freeway in Pasadena. And in the last two months, the two freeway bottlenecks where motorists experienced the worst delays during the morning commute were in the San Gabriel Valley, on the 10 and 210.

Ranked four and five on the list: the westbound 10 at Robertson and La Cienega boulevards, respectively.

Measure R has generated much excitement on the Westside because it is considered the first concrete funding step for a Wilshire Boulevard subway, which for decades has been the Holy Grail for those trying to reduce congestion.

The subway could get $4.1 billion from the ballot item. That makes the proposal the largest Measure R project, with the subway possibly accounting for 10% or more of the funds that the sales tax is expected to raise over its 30-year life span.

That has led critics to say that Measure R is a thinly disguised plan by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to secure subway funding at the expense of everyone else.

Some San Gabriel Valley officials are upset that an extension of the Gold Line from Pasadena was denied $80 million in seed money this summer by the Villaraigosa-led board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Measure R provides $735 million for the project, but backers say it is not enough for the line to reach Montclair -- their goal -- and they don't believe they will get the money anyway.

Botanic Gardens Sale Continues Today

The Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Gardens' Annual Plant Sale continues today from 9am to 2pm at the RSABG grounds, located at 1500 N. College Ave. next to the Bernard Field Station and north of Foothill Blvd. There is no charge, and RSABG members get 10% off their purchases.

The RSABG website give the event details:

Saturday & Sunday, November 1 & 2

Saturday Members Preview: 8 am–11 am
General Public: 11 am–4 pm
Sunday: 9 am–2 pm

Free admission for all
10% discount on purchases for members

For further information, call 909-625-8767

Pomona College News

The Student Life, the newspaper published by Associated Students of Pomona College, reports that Pomona College senior have received 16 Fulbright fellowships, tops among US liberal arts colleges. The article by news associate Sarah Higley says:

For the second year in a row, Pomona has topped the list of liberal arts colleges receiving the most Fulbright fellowships awarded to its seniors. The graduating Class of 2008 received 16 of the fellowships, not including a student who received an award but turned it down and [an] alumni who come [sic] back to use college resources in their application process.

Following Pomona [among liberal arts schools] were Smith College with 15 fellowships awarded, Swarthmore with 12, and Pitzer with 11. Scripps received five, and CMC, three.

According to Paula Goldsmid, Director of the Graduate Fellowships Office, the Pomona Fulbright program has used increased publicity to greatly expand the program over the past four or so years.

"More people succeed, and that encourages other people," she said.

Goldsmid added that she thought that many Pomona students are attracted to Fulbrights because of shared values of community service and the flexibility they offer.

TSL's Higley also has an article about the final Pomona Alma Mater forum. The Alma Mater has become controversial because it was allegedly written for a minstrel show in 1910. Higley's article says:

On Sunday, the Colleges Songs Committee hosted a student meeting, the last of three forums to gather community input before forming a recommendation on the future of the Alma Mater "Hail, Pomona! Hail" and "Torchbearers." The faculty and staff forum was held last Friday, Oct. 24, and alumni had a chance to give their opinions last spring. The student forum that took place on Sunday, Oct. 26, on the other hand, was closed to the public.

In a separate article, TSL reports that Pomona alumna Rosemary Choate has submitted a report to the college that says that there is a lack of documentation to show that the Alma Mater was written specifically for the minstrel show. You can read Choate's report here.

Transportation Friday

We've got more transportation news today, beginning with the Claremont Trolley, which began service yesterday. The free, trackless trolley will run three days per week, Thursdays through Saturdays, from 11am to 11pm and will now cost an estimated $1,290,596 for the three-year trial, up from the original estimate of $887,000. The city is estimating the trolley will average 15 riders per hour.

The trolley is being paid for with money Claremont receives from state transportation bond money, even though it has been described by city officials as an economic development project rather than as a transportation project (it supposedly encourages shoppers in different areas of the Claremont Village and Village Expansion).

The Daily Bulletin's Wes Woods II covered the trolley unveiling:

CLAREMONT - City officials and residents on Thursday celebrated the Claremont Village Trolley with a barbershop quartet, christening and free cake and punch.

"I think having a trolley will make the downtown attractive" to those who live outside Claremont, said resident Ping Chang, 42, who rode the trolley for the first time with her 4-year-old daughter, Tiffany.

For Community Services Director Scott Carrol, this is exactly what he believes will happen, as the trolley "promotes economic development in the Village," he said.

To welcome the start of the free trolley service on Thursday morning, Mayor Ellen Taylor spoke to city officials and residents at the Claremont Depot on First Street.

The event was the culmination of events that started with the City Council's approval in January of using transportation money to fund the new service for three years.

The Bulletin's David Allen also had a column on the trolley. Allen seemed skeptical of the project's success, and the column's headline is "Not All Aboard 'Trolley.'" Allen also managed to fit quotes from a current and a former Claremont mayor into the piece:

....Mayor Taylor is already a fan.

"It's very cute," Taylor said. "Very Claremont."

And also very Victoria Gardens, I told her.[SNOB ALERT - CI ed.]

"Do they have one?" Taylor asked. "I never go there."

The "trolley" was about to depart for its third trip. I climbed aboard. It has arched windows, wooden slat seats and straps for anyone who stands. But it also has tires and a bus driver.

A few passersby gave us curious looks. At Bonita and Yale, two women jumped up and down and took photos. Outside the Back Abbey pub on Oberlin, an employee watched quizzically before giving us a wave.

I rarely walk along First, so it was educational to learn the Peyton Grey clothing store is gone. With Chloe & Hunter, that's two recent closures in the Village Square. Oh, if only they could have hung on until the "trolley" started!

Moments later the vehicle was back at the depot, disgorging a columnist. I say, disgorging a columnist.

Former mayor Karen Rosenthal, who rode the faux trolley earlier, was lingering.

"I don't know who's going to ride it," Rosenthal admitted. "Maybe if you park in the Metrolink lot. But if you park in the Village, you could walk three blocks to the trolley, or you could walk three blocks to where you want to be.

"The ones who'll ride it," she added conspiratorially, "are the people who really need to be walking."

Queen Ellen (left) also received a mention in LA Times writer Steve Hymon's Bottleneck Blog. Hymon caught Taylor's opinion piece against LA County's Measure R, the proposed half-cent sales tax increase that would fund transportation projects. Hymon spoke with Her Highness:

I also spoke to Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor earlier today. She recently wrote a scathing opinion piece against Measure R that ran in the papers in the San Gabriel Valley. She doesn't believe the Gold Line Foothill Extension receives enough funds in the spending plan to get it to Claremont and Montclair -- the plan guarantees it $735 million -- and, equally important, she doesn't believe the money that the Gold Line is promised would arrive in any kind of timely fashion.

I posed this traffic question to her: What's it like in the Valley these days? Her answer:

It's miserable. I’ve lived in Claremont for 30 years and traffic has gotten much worse -- to the point that we don’t go into L.A. anymore. That’s not good for me. I like a full life where you experience stuff. We’ll go to a concert on Sunday afternoon [in Los Angeles] rather than Saturday night because it’s easier to get in and out...

We’re like the bologna in the bread here. And they keep building. You take the 210 east and all you see is roofs and they’re building them without building the infrastructure.

That's a fascinating quote. Why? In early 2007, Times columnist Steve Lopez wrote a piece about how bad Westside traffic is, with quotes from one resident saying they too no longer tried to attend cultural events in downtown L.A. (The Lopez column led to the creation of the Bottleneck Blog). Taylor is essentially saying the same thing, but from the other side of Los Angeles County.

Measure R Goes to the Voters

LA Times transportation writer and blogger Steve Hymon has an article describing Measure R, the LA Metropolitan Transportation Authority's half-cent county sales tax increase ballot measure. The measure is on next Tuesday's Los Angeles County ballot.

Measure R's potential revenue is supposed to fund traffic and transportation projects such as the so-called Subway-to-the-Sea on LA's westside. The measure has been opposed by some San Gabriel Valley groups and politicians who argue that the money generated would be not be evenly distributed and is unfairly LA-centric.

The article lays out the measure's supporters and opponents:

Who is for and against Measure R?

There is a healthy list of elected officials on both sides of the issue. Editorials among daily newspapers have varied -- The Times, the Daily News, the Daily Breeze and La Opinion are for Measure R and the Press-Telegram, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and the Antelope Valley Press are against, to name a few.

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce support it.

Among prominent politicians, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) have been the most vocal proponents.

Supervisors Mike Antonovich, Don Knabe and Gloria Molina have been fighting the measure, saying the MTA's spending plan favors the Westside and denies other parts of the county their fair share of sales tax revenues.

The MTA and Measure R supporters rebut that, pointing to a variety of projects that would be built in different parts of the county.

Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor recently had an opinion piece in the Claremont Courier that argued against the sales tax proposal. Taylor mentioned the MTA decision earlier this year to deny $80 million in MTA funds to the Gold Line Foothill Extension with the promise of Measure R funds. The trouble was that the the MTA's failure to fund the $80 million resulted in the Gold Line Extension being denied $320 million in federal funds for the project. The feds were requiring MTA to supply the $80 million as matching money.

Instead, MTA is dangling the prospect of $735 million from the Measure R honeypot for the Gold Line. However, there is no guarantee that LA Mayor Antonio Villarigosa, who is the primary force behind Measure R, won't raid the promised Gold Line funds to fund other projects in his city, including the westside subway. Taylor's article states that "the last time the MTA committed mass transit funds to the San Gabriel Valley was nearly 3 decades ago," so according to line of thinking, there is probably no reason to believe that the MTA would suddenly change 30 years of behavior once the election is over.

It is more than a little ironic, though, to see Taylor and the city of Claremont having to fight a much larger governmental entity. Karma's a bear to deal with, as Taylor may be learning by getting a little of the ol' Taylor treatment thrown back at her. There are always bigger fish in the local agency sea, and one would hope that Taylor and the city would remember the experience of being unfairly snubbed and ignored the next time a Claremont area resident comes before them with a objections to a city project or initiative.

The Enforcer Returns to the Scene of the Crime

We received some inquires about our post from last Saturday. The image we posted with Indio Assistant City Manager Bridget Healy's retirement farewell note to that town's staff was indeed real. It was taken without alteration from page 1 of the Indio city staff newsletter for October, 2008.

As Healy's goodbye note indicated, she is returning to Claremont, and she apparently wants to run for the Claremont City Council next March, at least according to the October 22nd issue of the Claremont Courier (the article is not posted online).

When she formerly worked here, Healy, along with former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard, was responsible for any number of scandals and missteps - the roundabout at Indian Hill Blvd. and Bonita Ave. that had to be removed after complaints and accidents piled up; the failed investment of over $5 million in the Orange County Investment Pool in the early 1990's; the handling of the Irvin Landrum shooting and lawsuit; the behind-the-scenes support of Preserve Claremont affair; and much, much more.

Now, like an arsonist who just can't resist returning to the scene of the crime, Healy is slinking back into town to add to the damage she inflicted in her last go around. This time, with the urging and support of people like former Police Commissioner and town busybody Helaine Goldwater, she intends to stick it to us as an elected official.

Goldwater, not content to have given us Ellen Taylor, wants to give us an even worse choice for council in Healy, who was the enforcer on Glenn Southard's Claremont and Indio staffs. Like Taylor, Healy presents a smiling public face; unlike Taylor, Healy is smart enough to keep her nastiness from public view.

You can bet, too, that Healy isn't done with Southard, as Saturday's post indicated. Expect the invisible presence of His Southardness to be performing His usual sleight-of-hand. You might, for instance, expect plenty of cost overruns on projects - He always loved to pay much more than expected for big ticket items, but those are costs that can easily be passed down to the taxpayers. Say, where do those cost overruns go, anyway?

So, the Healy-Southard axis will be back among us. Here it is in Healy's own words from her Indio farewell:

You all know that Glenn and I have worked together for over 20 years….27 years if you consider community and professional projects we worked on prior to working together in the same City Hall. Either way, we have seen, spoken to or emailed each other for about the last 7,482 days in a row. Constant communications with Glenn will be another old habit hard to break.

Healy was certainly right about old habits, so there was more than a little irony in what the Indio city staff had to say to Healy about the criminal life:

Bridget Healy, you are all done stapling the blue form to the red form and for that, we must offer our sincerest CONGRATULATIONS! It is an awesome accomplishment and we’re grateful for having had the chance to work with you!! We’re confident you will not turn to a life of crime after this, but will come back here if retirement is boring.

Claremont should be so lucky!

Click on Image to Enlarge

City News

For our 1,000th post, news of the mundane -

WILDERNESS PARK OPEN AGAIN

The Claremont Hills Wilderness Park is open again after being closed for a few days due to high fire danger. We also hear that work on the emergency remediation is underway to repair the damage done during the city's summer brush clearance.


CITY HALLOWEEN EVENT THIS FRIDAY

Claremont's annual Halloween Celebration will take place Friday in the Village. The city's website has the details:

Co-sponsored by the City of Claremont, Claremont Chamber Village Marketing Group and local businesses, everyone is invited to Claremont's Annual Halloween Celebration in the Claremont Village on Friday, October 31. There will be trick-or-treating, free games, and a lot of entertainment.

Over 50 Village businesses, marked with balloons and a special poster, will be handing out free goodies to trick-or-treaters from 3-5 p.m. Maps listing all participating locations will be available at the Claremont Depot (200 W. First St) and City Hall (207 Harvard Ave).

The Claremont Depot will have free games and entertainment, including a puppet show and a live animal show, as well as a children's costume contest from 4-7 p.m. Additional entertainment will be located at the Packing House, Village Square, and a variety of other locations. The entertainment will include live music, clowns, and a magician. At 5 p.m., a Dog Costume Contest will take place at TruCare Pet Boutique (346 Yale Ave).

For more information about the City of Claremont's Halloween Celebration, call (909) 399-5490.

TONIGHT'S CITY COUNCIL MEETING

The Claremont City Council meets tonight beginning with a special closed session at 5:15pm to discuss price and terms for the ground lease agreement for the Padua Theatre.

The Council will reconvene in its regular session at 6:30pm. Among the items on the agenda are:

• The second readings and adoptions of:
  - The ordinance allowing dogs on the Thompson Creek trail.
  - The city leaf blower ordinance.
  - The solid waste collection fee hike.
  - The city public park smoking ordinance.
  
  
• A staff report on the city's investment funds showing that in the quarter ending September 30th, the city's investments in certificate of deposits and the state's Local Agency Investment Fund declined by $3,544,846, from $24,106,427 to $20,561,581.
  
  The report also stated that the Claremont Redevelopment Agency's investments declined by $1,106,396, down from $3,286,039 at the end of July.
  
  The staff report states that the declines were "primarily as a result of the outflow of funds to maintain operations."
  
  
• A business climate survey commissioned by the City and conducted by the Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna College. The survey reported:
  

  The Rose Institute of State and Local Government conducted a survey of local businesses in the City of Claremont during July and August of 2008. Interviews were conducted by telephone with a random sample of businesses in Claremont. Additional personal survey interviews were conducted by Rose Institute staff with the some of the top twenty sales tax generating businesses in the city. Relevant graphs describing selected questions accompany each section.
  
  Results from the survey indicate that businesses owners are not likely to provide strong support for a campaign to increase the transient occupancy tax in Claremont Survey results also show that gross receipts for local businesses have been relatively stable despite the general downturn in the broader economy. Most Claremont businesses are relatively small with less than ten employees but usually have a significant non-Claremont customer base. There are substantial differences between the types of businesses that are located in the Village and outside of it. The Village has a heavy concentration of retail clothing, gift retail, and restaurant business while non-Village business is generally professional offices, accommodations or other major businesses such as car dealerships, and grocery stores. Despite differences in categorization, Village and non-Village businesses responded similarly to a number of questions regarding the local business climate.

  What was that about a hike in the transient occupancy tax? And, it's difficult to believe that there local businesses sales have remained relatively stable. All you have to do is see the number of businesses in the Packing House and the Village Expansion and elsewhere in the Claremont Village that have closed in the past year. Or consider the drop-off in auto sales at Claremont Toyota.
  
  The survey also said that 75% of the respondents believed that it was the business owner's responsibility to market their business - not the City or the Chamber of Commerce. A similar number also said that it was the job of business owners to pay for that marketing, all of which should make warm the hearts of the City Council and the Chamber, since it takes them off the hook for marketing the Village.
  
  
• A resolution supporting a 75,000-seat NFL football stadium in the City of Industry near the junction of the 60 and 57 Freeways, because traffic at that interchange isn't bad enough already.
  
  
• Consideration of a mitigated negative declaration and the lease agreement for the Padua Hills Theatre. Staff recommends taking public comment and continuing the matter until the Council's next meeting in November.
  
  
• Review and adoption of the Claremont's proposed Sustainable City Plan.
  
  
• Review of the city's Housing Element Land Inventory Sites. The infamous Base Line Rd. affordable housing site gets a special mention. According to the staff report by Claremont Director of Community Development Tony Witt:
  

  The Planning Commission reviewed the draft Housing Element on October 7, 2008. The commission recommended on a 4-3 vote that the Base Line site be removed from the land inventory. The majority felt that the site was not suited for affordable residential development because of the negative air quality impacts of being next to the freeway and the fact that the site is not within close proximity to parks schools, public transportation or grocery stores.

  Yet, despite the Planning Commission's recommendation, Witt's staff recommendation is to include the Base Line site on the list of potential affordable housing locations. We suspect this is being done at the behest of Mayor Ellen Taylor, Claremont League of Women Voters president Barbara Musselman, and former Police Commissioner Helaine Goldwater, all of whom cannot stop themselves from meddling unnecessarily in this affordable housing issue. They've got it in their little heads that there is only one way to accomplish meet the state affordable housing goals -their way, which means putting it on the Base Line Rd. site, come hell or high water.

Goldwater, who is responsible for giving Ellen Taylor, isn't through with her machinations (hint: municipal election time is nearing). More on that in a future report.

Passings

The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that former Claremont Mayor Enid Hart Douglass passed away in Sunnyvale on October 17th. Douglass graduated from Pomona College in 1948 and later at CGU became a pioneer in the field of oral history.

Douglass helped found Claremont Heritage, served on the Claremont Planning Commission beginning in 1978, and was elected to the Claremont City Council in the 1980s. The Times obituary said, in part:

When she entered Pomona College in 1944, "there were about 32 men on campus" because of World War II, she said in a 2002 oral history. One veteran who returned to the school after the war was her future husband, Malcolm Paul Douglass.

They married soon after she graduated in 1948 with a bachelor's degree in government.

After he earned a doctorate in education from Stanford University, they moved to Claremont in 1954 so he could teach at what is now known as Claremont Graduate University.

"Between child two and three," as she phrased it in the oral history, Douglass earned her master's degree in history in 1959 from the university. She wrote her master's thesis on the Claremont Planning Commission.

"When you think of Enid, you think Claremont," said Ginger Elliott, executive director of Claremont Heritage. "She was an example of the kind of people who make the town special to us, an academic who gave a lot to the community and who worked hard for projects that were really worthwhile."

October is a Scary Month

From the Indio city newsletter, Indio Insights, Bridget Healy's farewell address. You will recall that she is returning to Claremont to run for city council. She gives away the game, though, with her comments about Glenn Southard. Can there be any doubt who will be--or is--pulling the strings?

click on image to enlarge

78,000 Pounds of Frozen Chickens Dumped in Claremont

This was on the Daily Bulletin Breaking News website this morning. Only minor injuries to humans. Not sure how long the link will stay alive, but the best part is the headline and the nut graff:

Semi hauling 78,000 pounds of chicken
overturns in Claremont,
Sig Alert issued

By Melissa Pinion Whitt on October 24, 2008 6:08 AM

A tractor trailer loaded with 78,000 pounds of frozen chicken overturned on the 210 Freeway this morning, blocking one lane and prompting a Sig Alert.

The semi collided with a car on the westbound 210 east of Indian Hill Boulevard at 2:28 a.m., said California Highway Patrol Officer Francisco Villalobos.

Don't put those barbeques away yet.

Xavier Alvarez in Court Again

This time it was only briefly, to have his arraignment delayed until December 4th.

Yesterday's Daily Bulletin, in its Crime and Public Safety newsbriefs section, reported on the delay:

"Alvarez, 50, stared ahead with his hands folded in front Tuesday morning at Pomona Superior Court. Alvarez ws charged Sept. 19 with misappropriating public money, insurance fraud, and grand theft of personal property. Alvarez--who represents south Pomona on the water board and was elected in 2006--reportedly placed his ex-wife, Juanita Ruiz, on his insurance from Jan. 24 to Oct. 31, 2007."

Last week, according to an October 15 story, Alvarez had taken a "tough guy" approach with Will Bigham of the Bulletin: "When asked by a reporter whether he intended to plead not guilty at his arraignment next week, Alvarez said: 'Why don't you go on the court date and find out?' "

For those just joining this story, Xavier Alvarez is the local Three Valleys Municipal Water District director who was fined and sentenced in July of this year under the Stolen Valor Act for claiming that he had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He hadn't.

The DA Public Integrity Section had been on this insurance business which arose in the course of the scrutiny Alvarez received for his medal claims.

(We have covered the mustachioed malingerer many times over the past year, for example here for an early one, and here for a search of this blog for posts relating to Xavier.)

We have already commented on Alvarez's bio on the Three Valleys website. It was substantially downsized last summer and we think that is unfair. We think, since Three Valleys sees fit to disclaim the information presented in the biographies anyway, that the directors should be allowed to put up anything they want. We would like to see this one for Alvarez:

parody alert for the humor-challenged

Bridget Healy, Carpetbagger

So, the wind from Indio not only blows hot and hard, it blows ill. The stories on the ether turn out to be true. Bridget Healy, Assistant City Manager to Glenn Southard in Indio plans not only to return to Claremont in December but to run for City Council in the March election. Shades of the Reconstruction-era cartoon by Thomas Nast, above. Maybe that's the plan for Claremont: Reconstruction.

This is a piece of news that parodies itself.

Though she was a mid-level staffer when Glenn Southard arrived in Claremont twenty years ago, she became identified with him, joined at the hip as it were, through the years she was his "Hammer" or Assistant City Manager here. So close they were that she even preceded him to Indio by two weeks in 2005 while he took care of the unfinished business of getting the compliant Claremont city council to fix up the top city employees' pension arrangements with the International City Management Association. As we recall, Bridget even presented the first agenda report on this subject that was shot down by council two months before, in February. (This was in the time, some may recall, when Southard had gotten into a profane shouting match with councilmember Jackie McHenry, and pulled that February item in a huff when councilmembers Yao and McHenry started asking questions.)

Can anyone think of anything Bridget Healy has done for this community, good, bad, or indifferent, in the past three years?

Somehow the Powers That Be must think that Claremont is governed best when it is guided by former City staffers such as Bridget Healy and Sharon Hightower, an "inside" person and an "outside" person if the plans work out.

It would be just like the old days in a warped sort of way: instead of approving the agenda reports beforehand, which was Bridget's former job, she wants to approve them afterward as a member of city council.

Kon-Tiki

The compelling subject of traffic median islands came up last week. Drive through Claremont on Foothill Boulevard and the trafficy-ness is relieved by these accomodations to the natural world, with large eucalyptus trees growing from the grassy greensward. The Claremont Courier, in an obituary on October 15 of the estimable former Claremont Mayor (1968-1970) Marjorie Spear, cited her as the mother, if you will, of the Foothill medians: "Ms. Spear's daughter, Kimberly McIntyre, recalls that her mother played in instrumental role in the installation of the median strip on Foothill Boulevard, where many trees grow. 'She always felt that she was responsible for that,' Ms. McIntyre commented. 'That's the one that sticks out.' "

Ms. Spear might have been a little surprised at the stubby islands that rose from the asphalt in the recent re-paving of Baseline. It seems that there are only a half dozen or so small mounds plunked down in the two-mile stretch between Monte Vista/Padua and Towne. They seem to have been downsized in all dimensions, sitting awkwardly well inside the double-yellow lines defining the left lanes. If City Manager Jeff Parker spent all the money he received from CalTrans to repave and landscape the road, then too bad he didn't negotiate for more to do the job right. If he actually received enough from CalTrans to do a complete job, and diverted some of it to other projects in the City, then his legacy, if any, will not stand up to that of Ms. Spear.

It has been noted that these blobs of islands don't even contain what is referred to in the traffic biz as the "finger", that long skinny extension of the median alongside the left-turn pockets. (See image, above left) Please, Mr. Parker, give us the finger.

* * *

The spirit of adventure, though, does live on in Claremont and a local group of intrepid explorers wondered if it would actually be possible to travel the great distance from one island to the next across the vast expanse of Baseline Road. Taking their cue from Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 voyage in the balsa raft Kon-Tiki (showing the possibility that the Polynesian cultures could have emigrated from South America), these Claremont explorers undertook the dangerous trip from one Baseline island to the next, just to show it could, in principle, be done.

We have pictures and a portion of their log from the trip:

August 28, 2008: Set out with some trepidation but confident our preparations would lead us to a successful conclusion of our voyage. Scanning the route ahead, we see no sign of our destination.

September 1, 2008. A new month, and laundry day: Our hearty crew is happily at work making fast the lines and setting the sheets.

September 8, 2008. The doldrums take their toll on the men. Will this voyage never end?

September 17, 2008. The vast expanse of Baseline now seems utterly boundless to us. Murmers below.

September 23, 2008. The watch imagined that he espied land. When the haze lifted we were yet alone. Time will play its tricks.

September 28, 2008. One month out. Celebrated our good health with the last of our grog. Eastward ever! But the wind is gone.

October 11, 2008. After two weeks, the wind again freshens. From the top of the mizzen we are nearly certain the island is in view on the horizon.

October 14, 2008. Land ho!, on the forty-eighth day. The undemonstrative inhabitants gather on the beach.

October 15, 2008. We make safe harbor in the lee of the point, avoiding the dangerous rocks, and having proven the practicability of reaching one island from another. We eagerly anticipate our intercourse with the native inhabitants of this land.