Weekend Mailbag

The mail's been piling up here the last couple weeks, so we thought we'd pass some of our readers' thoughts along.

One soccer parent wrote us because, in addition to copper theft problems, the city of Claremont still has some kinks to work out at Padua Park:

DATE: Sat, October 9, 2010 6:44:50 PM
SUBJECT: [No Subject ]
TO: Claremont Insider


Re: Padua park

FYI - AYSO soccer games today at Padua park were interupted several times because the sprinklers kept coming on. They first came on at about 11:30am and continued in different sections for more than an hour. Why was the city watering in the middle of the day?

* * * * *

Another reader wrote in to say that, rather than floating it's $95 million Measure CL bond on the November 2 ballot, what the Claremont Unified School District should be doing is cutting back on interdistrict transfers--students from outside CUSD's enrollment area, that is.

DATE: Tue, October 12, 2010 4:41:57 PM
SUBJECT: Does Claremont need to tax itself for the benefit of students who have transferred from adjoining districts?

TO: Claremont Insider

I have read someplace, either in these pages or in the Daily Bulletin, that as many as one out of six students in Claremont schools comes from an adjoining district. The "benefit" to our district supposedly is that Claremont schools get the normal state funding for each student. That brings in a little money to the district. (Cui bono?) However, as we have found out repeatedly, state funding is not sufficient to run the Claremont District. Each student in Claremont costs more than what the state provides. Hence, we have been persuaded to pass bond issues from time to time in addition to a parcel tax.

Now, we have been asked to supplement the state funding with a whopping $95 million bond issue. The question is, how much of this money will be used to benefit students other than Claremont students? One would think that if one out of six students is from outside the district than almost $16 million dollars out of the $95 million would be for the direct benefit of other than Claremont students.

Do Claremont citizens really want to take over a tax burden that properly should be borne by adjoining towns? Should the School District not be encouraged cut back on its expenses, for example, by limiting the number of transfers to a more reasonable number so that the bond issues paid by Claremonters actually benefit Claremont students? Maybe the whole District could be downsized to a size adequate for Claremont students. In that case, we might not be confronted by such an outrageous funding request.

The matter of CUSD's interdistrict transfers hasn't really been discussed too much by the local papers. We saw this with the Daily Bulletin editorial endorsing the bond. The editorial simply parroted back the Yes on CL campaign's mailer language without digging into them to see if they were true statements, and they ignored several of the arguments against the Measure CL, including the fact that 17% of CUSD's students have transferred in from outside the district.

Claremont is able to absorb that 17% because they have too much capacity and too many teachers. Yet the school district refuses to consider cutting back on the transfers and won't trim staff or downsize its facilities. CUSD's school board stubbornly clings to the idea that they must keep their enrollment numbers artificially inflated.

[CORRECTION: After we wrote the above-section of this post, we opened up today's Claremont Courier and saw that the interdistrict transfer issue did come up at Thursday night's Active Claremont Measure CL debate. So at least the Courier is trying to delve into all the nuances of the bond campaign. According to Landus Rigsby's article, Yes on CL representative Bill Fox claimed that CUSD would have to shutter its elementary schools, El Roble Intermediate School, and Claremont High. Highly unlikely. Mr. Fox was just being true to his nature.]

Another related issue is the fact that, because all those interdistrict transfers don't live in CUSD's area, their families don't have to pay for any taxes or bonds the district levies. They aren't paying off the $30 million we still owe for the Measure Y bond, and they don't have to pay for CUSD's annual Recreation Assessment District. They won't have to pay a penny of the Measure CL costs either, costs that amount to a total of around $250 million over 40 years.

In essence, the school district has asked property owners within the district's boundaries to subsidize those children from outside the enrollment area.

The involvement of people from outside the district extends to the Measure CL campaign. Besides a Bay Area consultant running the Yes campaign from behind the scenes, there are a good many people listed as Measure CL endorsers don't even live in Claremont. For instance, many of the CUSD teachers and administrators who were listed in the first Measure CL ad in the Claremont Courier reside out of town, including CUSD Superintendent Terry Nichols, who lives in Glendora.

[BTW, IS SUPERINTENDENT NICHOLS A LIAR? Maybe not, but he comes perilously close.

In the Courier article today, Superintendent Nichols was quoted as having said the district trimmed Measure CL from its original $160 million to $95 million before submitting it to the voters. Superintendent Nichols casts the district as being frugal, saving property owners tens of millions. The truth is, $95 million is just about at the state's limit of bonded indebtedness for CUSD: 2.5% of the total assessed value of all the properties in Claremont. The district wasn't pinching pennies; CUSD was making a money grab, maxing out their credit card.

Nichols is well aware of the limit to the amount of debt CUSD can take on, and he is behaving no better than a scamming telemarketer. If he could grab $160 million, he and the school board would.]

The faculty members who support the bond and who are working on the Yes on CL campaign don't really care about the long-term consequences of the measure. The teachers, like CUSD's contractors and vendors, will benefit financially if Measure CL passes, and the teachers union agreed to its latest contract in exchange for endorsing and working to pass the bond measure. It's pocketbook issue to some of them -- moving as much as possible from your pocketbook to theirs.

Because so many, including the Daily Bulletin's editorial board, think that we have to pass just about any school bond that comes up, these things will continue to pass, and the cumulative debt in Claremont and all around the state will continue to pile up. These bonds are simply financing schemes that are incredibly wasteful because of all the extra dollars that have to be diverted from actual projects to service debt and to line the pockets of the contractors who underwrite the bond campaigns. One way or another, it's going to have to stop.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs

Not OK

We've seen the trailer sign brought into town by the NO on Measure CL folks, or maybe it's just one opponent "going rogue". This is the kind of thing that is Not Done in Claremont, and as such is probably driving the proponents bonkers. As an aside, it is notable that the opponents can't even fit the amount of the proposed bond on their sign. They've only got 8 spaces and $95,000,000 takes eleven. That's a lot of money.

We are hearing that the NO on CL folks are getting heat from the proponents for the trailer sign. This is being done "the Claremont Way" of course, through official channels: the proponents' enforcement arm, the CPD or maybe it's Code Enforcement.

We are the first to admit we don't know all of the ins and outs of the sign ordinance. Believe it or not, Title 18 of the Municipal Code: SIGNS, runs 41 pages, and prohibits most things. Take a look at it here if you are really interested. You may have to scroll down to open Title 18.

Anyway, if the lit trailer sign is prohibited--and how does the City get by prohibiting a legal vehicle on the street?--then what about the permanent (and in our opinion very tacky) lit message board sign at Claremont High School? How come that's OK?

OK

Nothing to See Here Folks!

THE POLITICS OF POLICING

In response to Claremont PD Officer Sean Evans appearing in uniform in a political mailer for Measure CL, the City of Claremont issued this statement:

A recent flyer sent out and posted on the campaign committee website for the Yes on CL measure contained the photograph of a uniformed Claremont Police Officer. While the uniform is indistinguishable and the flyer does not mention the Claremont Police Department, it may give the impression that the officer is speaking on behalf of the Claremont Police Department. The officer was photographed for this flyer on his day off and any statements made by the officer were his own personal views and not that of the Claremont Police Department. The Claremont Police Department strives to be apolitical and is neutral on this local measure.

Click Image to Enlarge

For a while, the statement that the flyer didn't mention the CPD by name and you couldn't tell from his uniform he was CPD will be on the City website.

More about Officer Evans' duties here.

On His Own Time
Uniform Indistinguishable
Claremont Police not Mentioned
Not Speaking for Claremont
Nothing to See Here, Move Along

Claremont Police Department Used to Push Measure CL

CPD Officer Sean Evans. Let's Hear it, Kids, for Measure CL!

Is there no advantage that the proponents of Measure CL will not press?

Another mail piece hit our mailboxes today using Sean Evans, school cop, as a prop in the advertising campaign. We reproduce part of it above. You'd think that the Claremont Police would have a policy against officers in uniform advertising for a political campaign, but then, this is Claremont. It's probably only a policy when someone outside the power elite wants to do it. Did Officer Evans have no idea he was being used?--or did he readily assent to a photoshoot in costume? So many questions...

He gave them a nice quote, anyway. Or at least the consultant in San Francisco put a nice quote in his mouth. Really. Does anyone actually say, "Local funding for student safety that can't be taken away by Sacramento is a win-win for Claremont schools."

We think this doesn't help the street cred of the CPD when one side gets to use the badge and the patch as props. We know that the police command a lot of respect in town but can't see how trotting out friendly SRO Officer Evans in the tawdry search for votes for an ill-advised, unsustainable, $95 million school bond does anything to advance the interest of public safety in our community.


Look for there to be a short flurry of noise, ritual wringing of hands, and the matter will be swept under the rug because, well, it's for the kids.

Anything goes when you're doing it for the kids, and Piper Jaffray.

And while we are on the subject of kids, we've been noticing this: there are a lot of kids in those flyers and their faces are more or less recognizable. Since we here at the Insider really do put kids' safety first, we've been careful to blur out our kids faces (or otherwise obliterate them, see below). Does the consultant have permission from the parents to use these kids this way? And is it OK to use pictures of kids and classes, apparently taken on school time, for political advertising? So many questions...

From the reverse of the Measure CL mailer

As we post this late Wednesday, the mailer is still on the website.

On the Money Trail

As you may have heard, Saturday's edition of the Claremont Courier raised a lot of questions about the financing behind CUSD's Measure CL campaign.

Courier reporter Tony Krickl got a Nancy Mintie-style response from Yes on CL treasurer J. Michael Fay as he answered Krickl's questions about the source of the majority of the Yes money. Fay's response seemed to underscore rather than refute bond critics' concerns about the enormous amounts of money pumped into the Yes campaign by out-of-town school contractors:

“These aren’t just outside interests,” said J. Michael Fay, campaign treasurer for Yes on Measure CL. “Most of the companies have already conducted business in the district with Measure Y. So now they’ve volunteered to support the [Measure CL] campaign.”

Fay went on to say that any future school district contracts would have to go out to bid, so there's no quid pro quo involved. Fay, however, overlooks the fact that these bond servicing companies and contractors have a big picture to consider. This could just be thank-you money for past contracts, and dollars given here in Claremont can translate to contracts with other districts.

We got to thinking about this and looked back at the sources of some of the big money for Measure Y, CUSD's last bond measure in the June 2000 election. One of Measure Y's campaign donors was the architectural design firm Flewelling & Moody. On 5/11/00, F & M donated $2,500 to the Yes on Measure Y campaign. On 5/30/00, the week before the election, F & M made a second donation of $2,500.

Did they receive any consideration in return? We can't say for sure, but F & M's website does list Claremont Unified as one of their clients from 2005:

Click on Images to Enlarge

Flewelling & Moody has kicked in $5,000 so far for the current Yes on CL campaign. Judging from the way it went after the last Claremont school bond, if Measure CL passes, there's no telling what sort of contract they might land five years hence after everyone's forgotten about this election.

When one roots around, one starts to find all sorts of things. For instance, F & M, as well as the San Rafael financial advising firm Northcross Hill & Ach (another $5,000 Yes on CL donor) and Rancho Cucamonga-based WLC Architects (a whopping $25,000 to the Yes on CL campaign), are all sponsors of the Claremont Chamber of Commerce. So we shouldn't be surprised that the Chamber's governmental affairs committee voted to endorse CL after meeting with the Yes on CL campaign team and without seeking to hear at all from the No side.

The best CL information on the contract side of things comes from the agenda for the July 22, 2010, CUSD school board meeting. That was the same meeting where the school board approved the resolution to go forward with a bond election. Item 4 on that agenda was the approval of an agreement with Minnesota-based investment bank Piper Jaffray & Co. (see page 3 of the full agenda at the end of this post).

Piper Jaffray has so far donated $25,000 to the Yes on CL effort. Getting back to that July 22 meeting, the Claremont school board agreed to employ them as bond underwriters should CL pass. In return, Piper Jaffray would receive the following:

Total compensation for all of the pre-election and post-election services shall not exceed 1.10% of the total principal amount of each individual General Obligation Bond issue.

Hmmmm, let's see....1.10% of $95 million (the maximum amount CUSD could seek under CL)? That's $1,045,000. Not at all a bad return on $25,000 in what amounts to, uh, marketing costs. All CUSD has done is put the big money carrot up front instead of at the end of the campaign.

Bond counsel Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth also stands to make a decent bit off CUSD property owners from a successful Yes on CL campaign - up to 1% of the total bonds issued.

This is precisely where Yes on CL campaign consultants like Jared Boigon and TBWB Strategies could easily act as facilitators, getting contractors to underwrite bond campaigns in some places and then offering introductions between those same contractors and other districts that have successfully passed their bond measures with the aid of these ever-helpful consultants.

It's a great business model, earning Boigon and TBWB $35,000 from the school district for pre-campaign polling services, along with another $10,000 as of September 30 from the Yes on CL campaign. And the money wheel keeps spinning as long as voters are naive enough to believe the misinformation issued forth from the mouths of people like Michael Fay, who manages to remain credible in our community no matter how many times he and his friends play this game.

We can't help but stand in awe at the hypocrisy of those among the Claremont 400 who are pushing this incredibly flawed school bond. One sees this when the League of Women Voters complains about the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision opening up the floodgates to corporate election contributions as the local LWV chapter stays silent when companies with financial stakes in a successful bond campaign donate all but $2,000 of the $66,027 (and counting) raised by the Yes on CL campaign.

So, let's get this straight. Investment banks contributing to the campaigns of elected officials in charge of financial reform? Bad. Investment banks contributing to school bond campaigns they stand to earn $1 million from? Good.

Hypocritical? Certainly. But, heck, if you're a Claremont 400 critic, we suppose it's job security.

* * * * *

Here's the business operations agenda for that July 22, 2010, CUSD school board meeting:

Monday News Briefs

COPPER THIEVES NABBED

The Claremont Courier and Daily Bulletin both reported on the arrests of two suspected copper thieves last week. The Claremont Police Department, with help of three other nearby city police agencies, had the thieves under surveillance as they tried to steal copper wire from La Puerta Sports Park. There's been no word on whether or not the two suspects were responsible for the September 22 theft of wire from Padua Park.

Here's what the CPD website says:

On October 14 2010, two suspects were arrested for copper theft at La Puerta Sports Park during a surveillance by officers at the park. Following recent copper thefts at the park, officers were assigned to conduct surveillance operations. At about 12:30 a.m., two suspects were observed entering the park and going from light pole to light pole removing the copper wire.

Additional officers from the Pomona and La Verne Police Departments responded to the park, along with a helicopter from the Ontario Police Department to assist the Claremont officers in taking the suspects into custody. Upon hearing the helicopter approaching, both suspects fled the park. After a short foot pursuit and fight with officers, one suspect was taken into custody. The second suspect fled into the rear yard of a home in the 2400 block of San Jacinto Ct. where he was taken into custody with the assistance of a Pomona Police K-9.

Arrested: Brian Arnold, 24 yrs old, Ontario resident
Arrested: Ryan Lawrence, 23 yrs old, Transient

NEIGHBORHOOD FORUM TOMORROW

The City of Claremont is hosting another of its neighborhood forums tomorrow. Two council members and city staff will be on hand at the Padua Theatre to talk with North Claremont residents about anything that's on their minds (you don't have to be from the area to attend):

City Council Neighborhood Forum -Padua Hills Theatre

7:00 PM
4467 Via Padova
Claremont
(909) 399-5460

Council Members are also hosting a series of Neighborhood Forums. Neighborhood Forums give residents from different neighborhoods the opportunity to talk with City Council Members in a relaxed and informal setting. Neighborhoods can discuss issues that are important to them, air concerns, share ideas, ask questions and get the latest information about topics and projects that are specific to each neighborhood. Although forums are scheduled for specific neighborhoods, you do not have to live in that immediate area to attend.

VILLAGE VENTURE THIS SATURDAY

Claremont's annual Village Venture happens this Saturday in the Claremont Village:

Village Venture Returns To The Village On October 23

The annual Village Venture craft faire will return to the Claremont Village on Saturday, October 23 from 9:00am to 5:00pm. The event attracts hundreds of craft vendors and thousands of attendees each year. The Claremont Chamber of Commerce hosts the event, which features entertainment, food, and a children's costume parade. For more information on Village Venture, please call the Claremont Chamber of Commerce at (909) 624-1681.

Measure CL: Truth in Advertising

We think that any campaign materials from SupportClaremontSchools should come with this disclaimer:

"This advertisement paid for by Committee to Support Claremont Schools - Yes on CL. FPPC # 1330811, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Piper Jaffray, investment bank of Minneapolis, WLC Architects of Rancho Cucamonga, Stradling Yocca Carlson, bond counsel, Newport Beach, Northcross Hill Ach, financial advisors to public agencies, San Rafael, and Flewelling and Moody, educational facility architects, Pasadena, California, dba the Claremont Unified School District. Any resemblance of this campaign to a grassroots campaign is purely coincidental."
The Courier had an interesting juxtaposition on page 3 in Saturday's paper (October 16). We reproduce it nearby, and suggest you go to the newsstand and buy the paper if you don't have one. Click to enlarge and read the article. The page contained an article on corporate donations to Measure CL just above a photo spread of a MoveOn.org demonstration in Claremont against corporate donations.

This must induce cognitive dissonance in the wee minds of some of the "good government" types in town. The Claremont Area League of Women Voters comes to mind. The campaign dear to their hearts, on the one hand, accepting huge private money; and on the other hand the very idea of huge Corp. Contrib.

Read the article before continuing.

There is much to be said, but J. Michael Fay, treasurer of the Yes On CL group must think we just fell off the pumpkin wagon if we are to believe his breathtaking assertion that there is "no quid pro quo". Of course there is; just go back to Measure Y, see who contributed to it, and then find out who underwrote and advised on the bonds and then lease financing done in 2001, who got architectural engineering and design contracts worth gazillions, and who got other largess spread around by the CUSD.

We've already alluded to the fact that the bid process can be rigged to result in the selection of a desired vendor.

On a side note, it appears as if the NO on CL people are trying to draw the YES side into a debate on numbers. More than one person has noted that none of the material put out by the YES side thus far even mentions that--er--Measure CL is a $95,000,000 bond with a probable total price tag north of $250,000,000. Saturday's paper was folded with a flyer by the NO crowd (right, click to enlarge) that contains cockamamie numbers on Measure Y. We won't bother to dissect it. We'll let the YES folks do that. And why does it refer to Measure CI instead of Measure CL?

Subtle are some peoples' minds in this town. Mrs. Insider posits that this is bait put out to draw the proponents into a real debate on facts, with plausible deniability built right in. If so, and if it works, very clever.

* * * * *

Acknowledgment is made to the Claremont Courier for not complaining--yet--of our use of the headline on page 1 and the material on page 3 of Saturday's paper. The opinions herein are ours and not those of the Claremont Courier.

Scared Straight

With Halloween fast approaching we might have expected to get a good scare from our beloved Claremonsters. The sky-is-falling strategy has traditionally been one the Claremont 400's favorite tactics to get people to vote for someone or something.

They used fear-based strategy when current council member Corey Calaycay was running in 2005 ("our city staff will all quit if he's elected") and again in 2006 with the failed Parks and Pastures assessment district ("developers will buy Johnson's Pasture if we don't act now"). Somehow the Claremonsters always manage to disregard reality in their attempts to get voters worked up for or against anything. With the park assessment district, for instance, they ignored the fact that the open space they were trying to save had been stuck in probate court for nearly 10 years without changing hands and that the City was the only likely buyer. The urgency they tried to create was false.

This campaign season they're at it again, telling Claremont Unified School District residents that we need to pass the $95 million Measure CL bond because our schools are falling apart. They tell us that our school buildings will collapse on top of our kids if we don't pass this bond. This past Wednesday, the Claremont Courier carried just such a letter in which Uncommon Good executive director Nancy Mintie compared the state of Claremont High's theatre to a slum. Mintie writes with the famous Claremonster voice of authority, saying she was an attorney who fought slumlords, so she should know.

In her letter, Mintie went on to say that the sorry state of CUSD's facilities is proof that Claremonters should support the proposed school bond. But if we read Mintie's letter correctly, what she's really saying is that CUSD is a slumlord! Just like the slumlords Mintie opposed in the past, our school board and the district's admnistrators took the $48.9 million from the last school bond in 2000 and squandered it. They didn't pump all of that money back into fixing up their properties, and they neglected the young people who occupied those building. We clip the first three paragraphs of her letter, right. Buy the Courier to read the rest. Click to enlarge.

Following Mintie's argument to its logical conclusion, one should be compelled to deny CUSD access to any further bond money because they can't be trusted with it. But, this being Claremont, Mintie drew the opposite conclusion, despite her rather persuasive evidence to the contrary. Instead, Mintie said she supports this bond in order to fix our decrepit school facilities - precisely what CUSD and its supporters said the last bond was going to accomplish.

If Mintie were being truthful with us and herself, she'd say that CUSD needs to borrow more money because it mismanaged the last bond and didn't keep its promises from 10 years ago. But, as we've seen, the Claremonster capacity for deceptions of all sorts is limitless.

We have every right to be fearful - of Mintie's screwball logic, of our school district's waste, of the money being pumped into the Yes on CL campaign by bond and building contractors, of the willingness of our school board and its friends to hide the truth and rewrite the past. Run as fast as you can away from these people!

Downtown Beer Fest

Downtown Claremont plays host to the California Beer Festival tomorrow, October 16, from 12:30 to 5:30pm. The event will take place in front of the Claremont Packing House on First St. between Oberlin and Cornell. Tickets are $40.

They're also offering a designated driver ticket for $25. That includes a free meal and free non-alcoholic beverage. Yellow Cab will also offer discounted cab rides -call (909) 622-1313 for information.

The event's website says there will be three live bands and food from various local restaurants, including a preview from Eureka!Burger, which is supposed to open in the Packing House sometime this winter.

Cui Bondo?* --Part 3

Ahead of the Power Curve

Like Nero Wolfe's sidekick Archie in the Rex Stout series, or the enigmatic Joe's bestboy Tom in William Saroyan's 1939 Pulitzer winner The Time of Your Life, our own Junior Insider went yesterday on an important errand on our behalf. We wondered how the Measure CL fund-raising was doing and wanted to compare it with the funding for Measure Y in 2000.

Fortunately, Insider Junior was able to find the information we needed in the dusty musty archives of a local government office. We found a plot of contributions to Measure Y, prepared by some highly-paid, highly-pensioned Government Employee, and were able to use the information in our previous post to add the Measure CL funding as an overlay.

We show the data below.

click to enlarge

The data show that, first, Measure CL is about a month ahead of the contribution-collection profile of Measure Y, thanks solely to the two $25,000 contributions by CUSD vendors or vendor-wannabees, WLC Architects of Rancho Cucamonga and Piper Jaffray, investment bank, of Minneapolis.

We are not privy to the SupportClaremontSchools budget, but we assume that eventually school board members such as Jeff Stark, honorary campaign chairs such as John Maguire, and ballot argument signers such as Randy Prout, will be shamed into contributingg money to the cause. Perhaps they have done so already.

Let's just say with under $2,000 in contributions from Claremont by the September 30 reporting date, the Yes on CL side has lots of room to get even more $$$ from the supporters in the Claremont community.

We note that without the $25K contributions from WLC Architects and Piper Jaffray, augmented by the four and five thousand dollar payments from Stradling Yocca, Northcross Hill, and Flewelling/Moody, the take to date would be a bit anemic.

Measure Y in the year 2000 was the most expensive campaign ever conducted in Claremont, by a wide margin, with some $80,000 raised by one side alone (the proponents). This campaign is on track to exceed that total--maybe even break into six figures. We are sure TBWB Strategies, who is preparing all the campaign materials and who gets the bulk of the payments hopes that is the case.

* * * * *

*Latin: Who benefits from the bond? Answer: TBWB.

Who Really Benefits?*--Part 2

Measure CL Primarily Supported by Large, Out-of-Town Businesses

$66,027 Cash Raised as of September 30

• $25,000 from Piper Jaffray (investment bank) in Minneapolis

• $25,000 from WLC Architects in Rancho Cucamonga

• $5,000 from Flewelling and Moody (architects) in Pasadena

• $5,000 from Northcross Hill Ach (financial advisors) in San Rafael

• $4,000 from Stradling Yocca Carlson (bond attorneys) in Newport Beach

• Only $1,050-$1,577 in Claremont Contributions: 1.6% to 2.4% of Total

• $10,000 in fees (so far) to campaign consultant Jared Boigon and TBWB Strategies
  
  
  
• $1,492.52 for Cell Phones!!!

The Campaign Finance Disclosure shown below is from the SupportClaremontSchools--Yes on Measure CL group. It just came our way. We will have comments later, but we are afraid they are going to be pretty obvious: Like, uh, where is the community support?

And what are they doing with fifteen hundred dollars worth of cell phones???

And, "Who benefits?" "Cui bono?" "Cui bondo?"

Answer: The Education Mafia--Piper Jaffray, WLC Architects, Flewelling and Moody, Northross Hill Ach, and Stradling Yocca Carlson Rauth. For these big businesses, this is just a business development expense.

The teachers or even the kids? Way down the list.

Grassroots Measure CL support? Minimal. Money from bond servicing firms and public school design and building contractors? Big. Really big. Which ought to be enough to tell you these businesses are just trying to buy their way to the public feeding trough, something they've done up and down the state.

If the very people footing the bill for a ballot measure are going to profit from it, that should be enough to tell voters to think twice. These companies aren't tossing in thousands and tens of thousands of dollars out of the goodness of their hearts. They're in it for the profit motive, and that doesn't necessarily translate into good public policy or fiscal prudence.

And you can bet that if Measure CL were to pass, those same campaign contributors would look to the bond to recoup those contributions. There is a lot of discretion in the bidding process, specs can be written a certain way, etc., etc., and so on and so on...

Read committee treasurer J. Michael Fay's report below. Download it. Print it. Pass it out to a dozen friends. Everyone in town should know just where the money for the Yes on CL campaign is coming from:
CLYes460 Oct 1 2010

* * * * *

*This time the title is in English.

Cui Bondo?*

More than a half-dozen readers have pointed out that the advertisement for Measure CL that appeared in the Claremont Courier last Wednesday contains the names of numerous CUSD employees and names of many persons who are not residents of the school district.

This was uniformly jarring to our correspondents, because the heading over the "social register" list of names is: "Please Join Us and Vote Yes on Measure CL".

Uniformly our correspondents interpreted this injunction to mean that people in the list were going to vote for Measure CL and wanted the reader to join them in doing so.

Problem is: many, many of the names are of people who are not residents of the district. We were given various counts: eighteen, twenty-five, forty-one, and sixty-nine of the 168 names.

We do know that there are a couple of prominent administrators listed who don't vote in the Claremont district: Dr. Terry Nichols, the Superintendent, for one--and Mike Bateman, Executive Director of Student Services. Joe Tonan, a teacher and head of the teachers union in the district also signed on but lives outside the district. It is indisputable that another dozen or two--at minimum--don't vote in the district.

So why are their names on the list? Because they would benefit directly from the bond. As the opponents of measure CL state in their ballot argument,

Then there’s the legal requirement that bond money “not be used for teacher and administrator salaries”. The District emphasizes that. But “ANY MONEY FROM A BOND NEEDS TO GO TO SALARIES,” the Claremont Courier quoted a senior District administrator. “Before the District can spend money on other things, a certain percentage will go back to salary restoration for all the employee groups,” he added.
Forget all of the nebulous atmospherics about "high-quality education in our neighborhood schools" and "education is highly valued in our community". This measure is about money in the pockets of teachers and--make no mistake--administrators.

click to enlarge

The recent advertising for Measure CL (there have already been at least three four-color glossy mail pieces--who's paying for those?) is subtly de-emphasizing the legal requirement that no bond money be spent on teacher salaries. This is because it's hard to make that statement and at the same time make the statement that Measure CL will "help attract and retain great teachers". Even the flexible minds of the proponents and their consultant can't square that circle.

We have been told that district teachers were told to sign the ad whether or not they lived in the district. There can be no doubt that pressure is great to conform to the Measure CL party line. The pressure is being exerted by the District staff their cohort who have the power, literally, of professional life and death over all serving under them.

Perhaps the community would like to give a little bit more to the teachers, but isn't a capital bond--money that is intended to build, "furnish and equip" school facilities, with tens of millions of dollars in interest costs to muni-bond investors, the wrong way to go about it? Because of the nature of the bond, and even with the loose accounting of CUSD, only a fraction of this bond money will reach the intended beneficiaries. Even less will improve the lot of the students.

* * * * *

*Our title is in Latin. Translated, it means, "Who benefits from the Bond?"

Heard This One Before?

Former Claremont City Manager Glenn Southard (photo, left) may be settled into retirement, but he continues to cast a long shadow over the city of Indio, where Southard fled to in 2005 after it became clear his days here were numbered.

Just as was the case after he left Claremont, Southard remains a factor in Indio's politics. Southard, you'll recall, engineered a golden parachute for himself earlier this year, leaving Indio to contend with the $9 million budget deficit he left in his wake. Now he's a humble pensioner struggling to make ends meet on $255,600 a year from his CalPERS retirement plan, of which Claremont is on the hook for $131,500, according to the Daily Bulletin.

The Desert Sun reported last month that most of the candidates for Indio's November 2nd city council election are running as fast as they can from Southard's record:

During a meeting with The Desert Sun's editorial board last week, five of the six Indio council candidates distanced themselves from controversial former city manager Glenn Southard.

The only candidate expressing full support was Elaine Holmes, a local businesswoman who helped organize a half-page newspaper ad commending Southard for his work after he retired amid the credit card saga.

Maybe Holmes' support is part of the reason she's also the only candidate to get a $1,000 donation from Southard.

When he was still in Claremont, Southard never shied away from maneuvering behind the scenes in city elections. Perhaps our man Glenn is angling for a consulting gig with Indio and is just trying to ensure he has a friendly face on their council when he makes his pitch. A call to arms has been circulating Indio, and it seem that some citizens there are trying to head Southard off at the pass by removing the incumbents who supported Southard and his policies.

Strange, isn't it, that Southard somehow managed to elicit the same "throw the bums out" fervor in Indio that he did in Claremont? And, just as he did here, Southard slipped off just as things were heating up, leaving the sitting council members to take the fall for the wreckage he wrought. As a result, the Indio voters are feeling mighty chippy:

CITIZENS OF INDIO:

A group of concerned Indio citizens have formed a "Committee to Oppose Melanie Fesmire, Gene Gilbert and Ben Godfrey for Indio City Council, 2010". This committee wants to remind the taxpayers of Indio about the past few years of City Council issues and why everyone should vote against the incumbents.

The issues are simple: honesty, integrity, character, and leadership.

The Indio City Council has repeatedly said "we have $14 million dollars in reserves and we do not have to lay off employees". Even the public spoke out about financial concerns. The incumbents lied to us the taxpayers. They failed miserably to be honest, truthful, with integrity and show leadership. Show up to heal the current City of Indio Council and The People we are hoping to replace them.


COME

Date: October 19th – Tuesday, 6:00PM SCSH Club House

Bring your questions and if you have a broom Sweeping bring it to show that we want to sweep out the Incumbents

See more below the signs and make sure you pass this to everyone you know that votes in Indio. Help save our city !

What are we the voting public to make of this failed leadership?

· Are we to turn our heads?

· Are we to simply overlook the facts that they chose not to lead by example?

· Are we to settle for City Council members who are not trustworthy?

· City Council members who do not have character?

Are we to believe their word has any value?

So when you hear them say "I'm a leader with honesty and integrity", you know these are untruths and their prior actions speak louder than words. For these reasons SHOULDN'T CHARACTER MATTER?

Our group is supported by donations and we need money to purchase signs -

Call:
THE COMMITTEE TO OPPOSE INDIO CITY COUNCIL INCUMBENTS
PHONE # 760-342-6115
or Email : NOT4INCUMBENTS@AOL.COM

The incumbents of Indio are not deserving of your vote to be re-elected.

SHOULDN'T CHARACTER MATTER?

SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW THAT LIVES IN INDIO TODAY

Crime Alert

Padua Park was the scene of a crime last month, though city officials don't seem to want the public to know about it. Apparently, on Wednesday, September 29, when city workers tried to turn on the soccer field lights at the park, they discovered the lights were inoperable because someone had stolen over 130 feet of copper wire from the park's main electrical vault.

The information going around town is that the copper, presumably taken by thieves who turn around and sell the wire to metal recyclers, was worth around $500. Like gold, copper's price has shot up the past few years, and such thefts have become more common. The city of Glendale issued an alert last year because of a rise in just this sort of crime:

Glendale has seen a sudden rise in metal and copper wire theft in the last two years. Customers are urged to contact authorities if they see people lingering near electrical equipment or inactive construction sites. Stealing copper wire is a crime and very costly for the City, but the bigger issue is public safety. Tampering with wires can cause serious harm, bodily injury or death. Power and telephone outages can also result from copper wire theft.

Odd that Claremont officials haven't issued a similar alert. The only way of catching copper thieves in the act is to have more eyeballs on the lookout, and people who reside near likely targets like parks and schools need to be alerted to this fact.

We suppose the City may say this was just a case of vandalism, but this kind of theft requires specialized knowledge. Poking around a high voltage electrical panel can be very dangerous, and from time to time we hear about the occasional copper thief getting electrocuted. The Padua Park incident, however, sure sounds as if it were done by someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

City Hall and the Claremont Police are no doubt hesitant to let news of the Padua Park theft get out because one of the complaints before the park was built was that it would lead to a rise in crime. Police Chief Paul Cooper (photo, left), who has worked with Claremont AYSO Region 3 as their Volunteer Protection Advocate, himself may have an interest in keeping a lid on the information, even if means less public awareness about the matter.

Or maybe it's all just a sign of CPD's competence level. They've issued press releases before when there were scams or more serious crimes in our area, even in cases where Claremont wasn't hit. So why not now?

Speaking of crime at Padua Park, we're waiting to hear about an increase in burglaries in the area. The public restroom sits on a rise that a good 20-25 feet higher than it should be, with the result that it offers a great vantage point from which to peer into the backyards and windows of several of the surrounding homes.

When they were planning the park, the City promised to plant a screen of trees around the perimeter to create a natural screen. But you know how it works with Claremont and promises. When the park was finally built, a good part of that natural screen consisted of oak saplings, which are pretty slow growing. Maybe in 15 or 20 years, City Hall will finally make good on its word to area residents. Of course, given the City's record with landscape management, a good number of those trees won't last that long:

Community Service

The debate over the Claremont Unified School District's $95 million Measure CL bond has raged in the pages of the Claremont Courier's reader letters section these past few weeks. Citizens on both sides of the school bond issue have used letters to the Courier as a sort of community forum.

The Courier itself seems to have slanted its coverage more towards the Yes on CL side, presenting an interview with members of the Yes on CL committee, taking readers on a CUSD-sponsored dog-and-pony show tour of Claremont High School, tossing in an article praising the district's test scores, as well as what amounted to an interview with Yes on CL's campaign consultant Jared Boigon of TBWB Strategies, who has been stage managing the yes campaign from San Francisco (at the cost of many tens of thousands of dollars, we might add).

Still, there not many other places to find both sides of CL the argument presented, the Courier did manage this past Wednesday to throw the No on CL group a bone by featuring an interview with their spokespeople, Donna Lowe, Opanyi Nasiali, and Jay Pocock. In a normal election year, our various local service organizations and institutions would be holding election forums where matters such as the November school bond could be debated.

For example, The Kiwanis Club, the Claremont Chamber of Commerce, Pilgrim Place, the Claremont Manor, Our Lady of Assumption Church, and Active Claremont all traditionally hold city council candidate forums, as they will next spring in advance of the March, 2011, municipal election.

The local League of Women Voters chapter holds the forum with the greatest cachet. It's usually one of the best attended of the candidate debates, and a good showing there can certainly help a prospective council member's chances of winning a seat.

Which is why this blurb from Daily Bulletin reporter Wes Woods' Claremont Now blog strikes us as odd:

Pros and cons on the nine California propositions for the Nov. 2 general election will be discussed at 2 p.m. Sunday Oct. 10 at the Claremont Public Library, 208 Harvard Ave.

The league and the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Pomona Valley Alumnae Chapter will host a 59th Assembly District candidates forum. The forum will run from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday Oct.11 in the Padua Room at the Alexander [Hughes] Community Center at 1700 Danbury Road.

We would have expected the LWV, an organization that prides itself on its non-partisan efforts at educating voters on local, state, and national issues, to have been one of the first to offer both sides of the Measure CL debate to give their reasons why voters should be for or against the bond. This is clearly an issue that's generated a great deal of community interest and one that will affect CUSD property owners' pocketbooks for years to come. Yet, Measure CL is conspicuously absent from the League's fall election events.

Similarly, the Chamber of Commerce and other local organizations, including Sustainable Claremont, have endorsed the bond without giving opponents a chance to present their views. Whatever side one favors in the Measure CL election, all this lack of activity by our so-called communitarian organizations gives a good insight into how things work in our little, close-minded community.

As always, it's not what you know but who you know. It's a good ol' girls and boys network of the same circle of people running each and every group mentioned above, along with the Claremont Education Foundation, the Claremont Community Foundation, the Red Cross, and a host of other local charities.

The result is that opponents of any issues have an extremely hard time making their cases to the voters. Forums, by their very nature, require each side to have equal time. So even if the LWV tries to tailor the debate questions to the strengths of the people it favors, they still have to give opponents a chance to respond.

The absence of any school bond forums makes us wonder if the League and their fellow Claremont 400 organizations recognize Measure CL's weaknesses and are trying to help it by not holding any public debates. This goes along with the perception that bond's proponents are trying to avoid substantive discussions of the measure.

All of the Yes on CL mailings, for instance, speak in generalities, and the proponents, as well as the school board, have failed to offer up any specific details of how the money will be spent. For instance, the most recent mailings, which went out this past Monday and Tuesday, don't make any mention the $95 million price tag. And you'll never hear them talk about the $250 million total price after financing the bond for 40 years - an extra long payment schedule CUSD had to use to keep the payments per household at $45 per $100,000 of assessed value.

Further, CUSD has actually ignored public records requests and has withheld public information on the bond's financial details because they know that their own numbers will torpedo their arguments (another thing you won't hear about in the Daily Bulletin or the Claremont Courier).

The one organization that is holding a forum is Active Claremont. The AC school bond forum will be 7pm Thursday, October 21, in the Santa Fe room of the Alexander Hughes Center. Both sides will answer questions submitted by those in attendance.

By the way, Active Claremont, unlike the League or the Chamber of Commerce, is truly neutral, which probably explains why they're willing to host the debate. They don't endorse one side or another, they just let them talk. So let's stop giving false praise to those other groups for their community building efforts. The real communitarians in Claremont demonstrate their respect for all people and opinions in town through their actions, not their words.

O'Toole Pleads Guilty in Somalia Gun-Running Case - UPDATED

Claremont resident and former City Council candidate Joe O'Toole pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to move planeloads of AK-47 to Somalia. Politico has all the news available right now.


We covered aspects of this story here, and here, over the summer.

Until recently, O'Toole resided north of Baseline near Mountain Avenue. More recently--and perhaps for the next five years--he has been the guest of the Feds in Florida. At 79 years of age, there may be tactical and practical reasons O'Toole chose not to contest the charges. Who knows?--maybe he is actually guilty. We understand he had a public defender at least until a month or so ago when a private attorney was brought on.

Things started to take a serious turn last week when the judge and prosecutor said there would be no more delays, and no plea bargain offered, and the trial would proceed as scheduled on October 5. That's gotta clear one's mind.

[Update: Apparently there was a plea agreement; see below]

Sentencing is scheduled for December 14.

We'll have more as this develops...


UPDATE - 9:55pm

We tracked down the O'Toole plea agreement, signed yesterday by the prosecuting U.S. attorney and the defendant.

O'Toole pleaded guilty to count 1 of his indictment, and the government dismissed counts 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the original indictment. In addition to dropping the remaining charges, the government tentatively agreed to go easy on O'Toole, giving him a sentence towards the lower range of whatever advisory sentence the court arrives at after its probation office conducts a Pre-Sentence Investigation.

Judging from the language of the plea, it sounds as if the feds are mainly miffed at O'Toole's arm dealing without a proper license or permission. Uncle Sam apparently owns the American arms sales rights to Somalia. So no gun shows in Mogadishu, unless you get the official thumbs up:

Click Image to Enlarge

Here's the whole thing:

It's Easier to Ask for Forgiveness than to Get Permission

Coming Soon to a Yard Near YOU!

Updating the Saturday post on Sign Wars, we see that many of the signs appearing with the "Yes on CL" message carry the following note taped to them:

please click on image to enlarge

This is a strategy we haven't seen yet: just go ahead and plop the signs in someone's yard, and leave it for the homeowner to deal with. Sort of the "Opt-Out" model of yard sign commerce. There oughtta be a law...

Harvey Mudd College 7th Most Expensive in Nation According to Forbes.com

Harvey Mudd College, the local institution for propeller-heads and other nerdy types has just made the Forbes.com list of the nation's top ten most expensive institutions of higher learning, garnering honors in the Number 7 spot.

America's Most Expensive Colleges--Number 7

click image to enlarge

Topping the list was Sarah Lawrence at $57,556 yearly, followed by:

2. Columbia University, $54,385
3. Bard College, $54,275
4. Wesleyan University, $53,976
5. Vanderbilt, $53,660
6. University of Chicago, $53,604
7. Harvey Mudd College, $53,588
8. Trinity College, $53,380
9. Georgetown University, $53,340
10. Bates College, $53,300

Observant readers might note in the screenshot above, that Forbes has the enrollment wrong at 200 students (that might have been the enrollment forty years ago), and you wonder what else they are not getting right.

Still, fifty-three Large is a lot of dough. But HMC president Maria Klawe is doubtless used to large numbers. We see in a flyer sent by CUSD--Oh! excuse us; we mean the private and totally independent "Support Claremont Schools" committee--that Mudd president Maria Klawe (right) endorses the $95,000,000 Measure CL. "One can't shovel too much money into education"--that must be her thought.

Education, along with health care, has sported the highest rate of price increases of any sector of the economy for decades. By our admittedly crude and offhand calculation, the Claremont Colleges have raised prices by an average of something like 7.25 %, compounded, over at least a generation. The CPI increase over the same period has been "only" 4.4%. So institutions like President Klawe's have been inflating their prices about 65 percent faster than the economy as a whole.

But then, higher education shares the same pricing model as a used car lot: There is the sticker price and then there is the price you pay. Many students get subsidies--in higher ed these are called "scholarships"--participants in the sector's own private income-transfer plan.

Too bad the institution President Klawe runs, Harvey Mudd College, won't have to participate in paying for the school measure she supports because non-profits, such as the colleges and some of the retirement homes in town, are exempted from paying property taxes.

Signs of Our Times

Let the Sign Wars Begin


Claremont has a rich recent history of political signs. Usually the arc of the story is predictable: One side puts out signs; the other side, or possibly kids, steal them; there is a complaining letter in the newspaper, maybe two; the opposing signs sprout up; corner lots such as the southwest corner of Indian Hill and Foothill are plastered with multiple signs; one or two pop up in the public right of way; there is a gripey Courier letter from a partisan--as was the case we think in the early part of the "Parks and Pasture" debate when the "No Assessment" signs appeared unanswered--"so I guess the side with the most signs wins"; and then things settle down to the Claremont Norm: the Village one color and the rest of the town another.

It's probably a small beer issue to note that the "NO Bond" people stole the march on the YES folks last week and got their signs out first. It remains to be seen whether this is indicative of superior organization and strategy on part of the ragtag ad hoc NO team or sand in the gears of the YES juggernaut.

We do note that in more than a few places where the YES signs appeared, they were planted directly in front of a NO sign. This strikes us as bad form. Having talked to people on both sides of several political issues, we know that usually the locals try to get permission from the property owner. And some property owners allow signs of any stripe on their property on the theory of robust public spirit and all that. (The aforementioned Sherwood Florist at Indian Hill and Foothill seems to be one such business.) However, most owners try to encourage comity and civility in the signs' placement. We know that some places, such as the strawberry field at the corner of Towne and Baseline (see image, end of post) never give permission to the establishment side.

On the other hand, placing your signs literally on top of the opponents' signs seems to be a quite natural and predictable behavior on the part of the proponents. Like a big old tomcat spraying his territory, the YES people are busy putting their scent over that of the unwanted interloper. It's a limbic response to a perceived threat, atavistic really in its entitled origins and operation.

When we see one of the signs covered by another, it's a bit of a jarring image to imagine one of the alpha male leaders of the YES side--Bill Fox or Mike Seder or Jeff Stark or Superintendent Terry Nichols--doing the marking.