Mean Girls

SUGAR AND SPICE

We've noticed that the brand of bullying practiced most often by the Claremont 400 has a decidedly feminine component. The coterie that runs things in this town has long been dominated by women. Former mayors Judy Wright, Diann Ring, Ellen Taylor, Sandra Baldonado, and ex-commissioners Barbara Musselman and Helaine Goldwater have called the shots for far too long. And we can add former Claremont Assistant City Manager Bridget Healy (photo, right) to this list.

Just because the style is a dominated by a womanly kind of aggressiveness, though, that doesn't mean it's limited to people of the female persuasion. If you'll recall, men like Claremont Human Services commissioner Butch Henderson, former mayor Paul Held, former planning commissioner Bill Baker we especially nasty in their leadership of the Preserve Claremont campaign in the 2005 City Council race. (Not coincidentally, they are all also very much involved with current city council candidate Robin Haulman's campaign.) And the person who tapped into all that aggression to use it for his own purposes was a man, former City Manager Glenn Southard.

We've always thought the psychodynamic undercurrents in Claremont were worthy of academic research, and it turns out there's actually people who study the kind of female aggression at play here. We found an old NPR Talk of the Nation segment from February 27, 2002, the topic of which was just the sort of bullying practiced by the Claremont 400. (You need the free RealPlayer if you want to hear the discussion.) The segment's description said:

Girls are not all sugar and spice according to some researchers. The latest study on girls says they may be AS likely to use aggression as boys. Rather than fists, girls express it through manipulation, exclusion and gossip-mongering. It's become quite a problem in some middle and high schools, but what's the solution?

CAN YOU RELATE?

People who study such things, psychologists and anthropologists and the like, say that among children and teens, male aggression tends to be more straightforward and less complex than the sort seen in girls. Female aggression is generally indirect and has a strong social component, with the most aggressive girls leveraging their social intelligence to get their friends to ostracize girls they don't like, usually through gossip and whispering campaigns. Female aggression relies on the mastery and manipulation of social relationships to isolate and ostracize, hence the term "relational aggression."

The pressure of wanting to fit in, coupled with the relief at not be the one targeted, causes weaker girls in a group to join in or to at least remain silent, and the group comes to be dominated by the girls who the most socially adept but who have the lowest empathy, the ones who are capable of the most cruelty.

One of the panelists on that NPR show was seventh grader Nicky Marewski from Poukeepsie, NY, who described what she observed at her school:

The girls who are sort of in charge of all this, they figure out who they don't like and who they just don't think are acceptable, and they tell their friends.

That seems to be the general Claremonster modus operandi, which makes us wonder if we're just witnessing a collective case of arrested development. From what the relational aggression experts say, there seems to be some anecdotal evidence of this behavior continuing on through life. It can express itself in the workplace in the form of office politics or, in the case of the Claremont 400, in just plain old politics in general.

It's really empathy, or rather its absence, that seems to be the key factor, and that's certainly something that's been lacking among the Claremont 400, though they seem to be blind to their own shortcomings. Time and again, we've seen them unable to step outside of their own groupthink, unable to place themselves in their opponents' shoes, with the result that they have no openness to ideas that don't comport with their own preconceptions.

Let's go back to the 2002 Talk of the Nation show for a moment. Kaj Bjorkqvist, a Finnish professor of developmental psychology, remarked:

If you combine it [social intelligence] with low empathy, then it turns into indirect aggression. Girls who are high in both social intelligence and empathy tend to use more constructive strategies for solving conflict.

And that's exactly why we're caught in this odd community dance of anger. The people in power leverage their high social intelligence and dominate city elections so that they control the City Council and all the city commissions. Similarly, they control organizations like the Claremont Chamber of Commerce and various local charities. That's why you see someone like Preserve Claremont donor and former Claremont Board of Education member Michael Fay again and again, as treasurer of current council candidate Joseph Lyon's campaign or treasurer of the failed $95 million Measure CL school bond.

Or you see Preserve Claremont spokesperson Butch Henderson listed as an honorary co-chair of council candidate Robin Haulman's campaign and PC donor Bill Baker listed as Haulman's treasurer.


BIRDS ON A WIRE

If you want to observe relational aggression in action, go to a city council meeting. You're likely to see Helaine Goldwater seated in the back row knitting away like Madame Defarge as she watches the little melodramas she creates get played out.

At one recent council meeting, Sandy Baldonado, Barbara Musselman, and Robin Haulman were in the audience, all in a row like crows on a telephone line. Baldonado and Musselman, along with Bridget Healy, are backing Haulman as step one in their plan to get Healy elected to the council in 2013.

Recall that Healy lost badly in the 2009 city election, but rather than accept defeat, she and her friends began an image rehab program by getting Healy a position on the the Claremont Chamber of Commerce board, having her prominently involved with the Claremont Area League of Women Voters and by having her make appearances at City Council meetings to speak, along with Musselman, about the poor performance of current City Manager Jeff Parker, whom they accuse of gutting and outsourcing city services.

In their long range plan to shove Bridget down our throats, they've adopted more than a few positions they fought against when Baldonado was on the council and Healy working in City Hall as Glenn Southard's right hand woman. To listen to them now, they've replaced the secrecy they coveted with concerns for governmental transparency and have claimed to be champions of the people where once they had nothing but contempt for the public.

We can never forget, though, that Healy once authored a city staff report outlining a proposal to have a social worker or psychologist stationed at City Council meetings ready to rule on whether people trying to speak during public comment represented imminent threats to the council, commissioners and staff. The idea was to have a process for removing speakers from the council chambers. Then there was Baldonado, who with her trademark classiness, once told members of the public who were observing a council retreat to "get a life."

As strange as it sounds, the Baldonado-Musselman plan seems to be working. Haulman (photo, left) stands a good chance of getting elected, and people have cut her a lot a slack. At candidate forums she's been unprepared and has read canned responses from a notebook she continually flips through (she's working on fixing this and a few of her other obvious shortcomings), but to hear the after action reports, one would think she's a regular policy wonk when it comes to city issues. People, too, have forgiven Healy and are willing to overlook the ethical conflicts of interests she would have on the council on important issues such as employee pensions.

We'll see how much Claremont has really changed since Healy last worked here. Our guess is that the mean girls still have the run of the town.

Coming Attractions

Some items of interest from the City's website:

CPD CHECKPOINT SUNDAY

The Claremont PD will be out tomorrow night conducting another DUI checkpoint beginning at 6pm.

DUI / License Checkpoint

Claremont, CA – On Sunday, January 23rd, 2011 the Claremont Police Department will be conducting a sobriety checkpoint at an undisclosed location within the City. The checkpoint will start at 6:00 p.m. and conclude at 2:00 a.m. Drivers will be stopped long enough to ensure they are not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Officers will also ensure that drivers are wearing their seatbelts and possess valid driver licenses. Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

WALKABOUT

If your New Year's resolutions included getting fit and losing weight, you might want to take advantage of the City's Generation Fit series of intergenerational walks:

Generation Fit Walking Program

The teens at the TRACKS Activity Center (TAC) will be challenging the Claremont adult community to a series of four walking excursions. "Generation Fit" will run four weeks on Tuesdays from January 25 through February 15, from 2:30-4:00 p.m. Both teens and adults will form a unified team in front of the Joslyn Center, 660 North Mountain Avenue, and walk a series of planned routes through the Claremont community to raise heartbeats, health awareness, and increase intergenerational socialization. Walking routes will average 1-2 miles each day. For more information, please call (909) 399-5488.

I CAN HAZMAT?

And if you've been stockpiling old batteries, cans of oil or paint, TVs or computer monitors, you can off load that stuff in two weeks when the City and the County of Los Angeles hold their next local hazardous waste roundup:

Household Hazardous Waste Roundup

Claremont and other Los Angeles County residents can dispose of household hazardous waste including unused pharmaceuticals, antifreeze, car batteries, used motor oil, paint, pesticides, and universal waste including household batteries, fluorescent light bulbs, and electronic waste (e-waste) such as TVs and monitors, computers, VCRs, stereos, and cell phones at the next free Countywide Household Hazardous Waste Roundup. It will be held in Claremont at the Claremont Corporate Yard, 1616 Monte Vista Avenue, on Saturday, February 5, 2011 from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Residents can bring up to 15 gallons or 125 pounds of household hazardous waste per vehicle to the Roundup.

Because We're Claremonters...

A PARABLE

Some years ago, a friend of the Insider moved to New York to work in the publishing industry. This person settled into a small, six-square block village on Long Island and soon came to marvel at the local natives, who insisted on spending large amounts of money on things like maintaining a volunteer fire department, complete with a fully equipped fire engine. Fires in the area were rare, and the main purpose seemed to be to keep up with the neighboring villages, all of which had their own volunteer fire departments.

The locals also overpaid for their trash service, whose waste hauler wouldn't allow residents to move their garbage cans from their yards to the street for pick up. The trash contract specified that the trash workers moved all containers, even if they were in backyards. This seemed mainly designed to require extra workers on each waste disposal truck.

Our friend tried asking some of his neighbors about these peculiar arrangements and received nothing but odd looks, as if he were crazy for questioning how much money the village was spending on toys. This is how we've always done things, they'd say. Our friend eventually came to the conclusion that his fellow LI villagers were completely irrational. One night at a restaurant, the friend struck up a conversation with a waitress, who was herself a West Coast transplant. He asked the waitress why people in the area seemed to have such a hard time with reasoning skills. She leaned over and whispered, "Because they're STUPID."


CLAREMONT CRAZIES

Claremonters seem similarly committed to their own brand of craziness, which includes overpaying for services too, for everything from their schools to their city services. Witness last November's $95 million Measure CL school bond campaign. Or the recent editorials and letters in the Claremont Courier by former Claremont Mayor Sandy Baldonado and police commissioner Barbara Musselman, who is also a former Claremont League of Women Voters president. Readers will recall that Musselman, in keeping with her LWV ties, has a long history of interfering in Claremont elections.

The two yentas, Baldonado and Musselman, are upset that the City has had to cut back on services because of budget deficits. Both, along with their friend and failed City Council candidate Bridget Healy, have labored mightily to put a scare into residents, first when city staff looked into outsource Claremont's trash service and more recently after someone in City Hall leaked the news that Police Chief Paul Cooper is a finalist for the chief of Glendora's police. The B-M party line is that Claremont City Manager Jeff Parker is gutting city staff and services with the support of his city council.

Baldonado and Musselman have both claimed that Chief Cooper wants to leave because he doesn't feel that our City Council fully supports the police. What they conveniently overlook is that Chief Cooper, who will be eligible for a generous CalPERS retirement in a few years, needs to bump up his salary, since his pension will be based on final salary. Glendora, which is larger than Claremont, will always be able to pay more than our town.

Musselman, who is a former human resources director for San Bernardino County (and herself a public pensioner) certainly knows this, as does Baldonado, who through her council voting record is responsible for awarding lavish CalPERS plans to Claremont municipal retirees - the very city pension that Cooper seeks to maximize with his Glendora job application.

If Baldonado had been more fiscally responsible, she wouldn't have supported those super-sized pension plans, which included having the City paying for the employees' share of their pensions, and we would have more money now to dedicate towards staff and services. It's because of the foolish arrangements supported by Baldonado's votes that management-level employees are able to collect six-figure retirement incomes, an inflation-indexed $166,700 per year in Bridget Healy's case, a good chunk of which is paid for by the City of Claremont.

Click to Enlarge

From californiapensionreform.com

The simple fact of the matter is that the free-spending ways of Baldonado and her friends, not Parker, are responsible for City Hall's present belt-tightening. However, instead of owning up to their respective roles in all this, they want to take down Parker's administration and seek to take us back to the Glenn Southard era in City Hall. (The two, if they were capable of introspection, might consider where we'd be if Glenn were here now - after he retired from Indio, Southard left that city with a $9 million budget deficit.)

But, because they suffer the same malady that once afflicted certain Long Islanders, Baldonado and Musselman are bent on stirring things up in town, mostly because they think this will benefit the election prospects of their friend and current City Council candidate Robin Haulman, whom both Baldonado and Musselman have endorsed.

The Haulman campaign, or at least her endorsers, seek to scare voters by telling them city employees are leaving because they're being undermined by Parker and by the City Council. We've seen this scare game before with the 2005 Preserve Claremont campaign, so it's no coincidence Human Services Commissioner and former PC spokesman Butch Henderson is an honorary chair of Haulman's campaign. Also, PC's treasurer, Francine Baker (a city employee, by the way) is listed as a Haulman endorser, and her husband Bill is Haulman's treasurer.

We should expect more than a little campaign skulduggery from Haulman's backers. After all, Pastor Butch has told us this is how Claremont does campaigns.


A NEW VOICE SPEAKS FOR ROBIN

This past Saturday, thanks to the Baldondo-Musselman-Haulman communications team, the Claremont Courier carried a letter by Musselman, and another by a third Haulman endorser, Gregory Shearer. Shearer's letter took up the B-M message. Oddly, though, Shearer also included a passage that left us scratching our heads:

In speaking with the rank and file officers of the Claremont PD, I am sure they will be glad to see Cooper get the Glendora gig as more than one Claremont officer has mentioned his abusive management style, which may just be frustration over working with the current city council.

Hmmm. Tell us again why we want to keep the abusive Chief Cooper? It's the city council's fault for driving Cooper to abuse his employees? We had all wrong. We thought a good boss protected his employees and took the heat himself.

One thing's for sure, Shearer fits right in with Baldonado, Musselman, Haulman, Healy, Henderson, the Bakers and all the rest of their friends when it to wasting public dollars. In 2000, Greg Shearer was the subject of a money-makeover column by LA Times business section columnist Kathy Kristof:

In short, unless Shearer learns to restrain himself, he'll never attain the comfortable retirement that he wants, said Margaret Mullen, a fee-only financial advisor in Los Angeles.

But restraint is something that the Claremont adult-video salesman, who has filed for personal bankruptcy three times, finds exceptionally difficult.

Serial bankruptcy filer advising us on municipal policy? Makes as much sense as anything else here in this kooky town. Shearer probably has some ideas for next summer's movies in the park series, too.

Scripps on Giffords

This afternoon, Scripps College posted more on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was shot today in Tucson. Giffords is a Scripps College alumna.

See here.

Giffords' 2009 Commencement address at Scripps is here.

See any national news source for more information. This is a huge national story. Google New right now is showing 8,505 stories. The story is moving so fast it's more or less pointless to try to keep up.

Our humble best wishes for Congresswoman Giffords to make a speedy and full recovery, to her family and friends, and to the loved ones of the six who died at the hand of this crazy.

Scripps Graduate Shot

Gabrielle Giffords, Congresswoman
and Scripps College Graduate,
Shot in Arizona


Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) was shot Saturday morning at a constituent outreach event in Tucson. She was a graduate of Scripps College, class of 1993, was first elected to Congress in 2006, and was re-elected to a third term last November.

Giffords had been Commencement Speaker at Scripps in May 2009.

Early reports were that she had died. MSNBC (screenshot below) and others are unable to confirm it and in fact are reporting that she is in surgery at noon Pacific time. President Obama has just (12:17 Pacific time) issued a statement saying her condition is unknown but she is "gravely wounded".

Update, 2:40 p.m. Saturday, January 8: Congresswoman Giffords survived the shooting and surgery. Her surgeon is optimistic for a recovery of some sort.

At least five other victims died: a federal judge and a nine-year-old among them.

The shooter, whom we won't stoop even to name, is certifiably loony.

Heading for the Exit

Terry Nichols Resigns as CUSD Superintendent

The Duarte Unified School District website has a crawler welcoming Dr. Terry Nichols, CUSD (lame duck) superintendent as it's new superintendent in 2011.

click image to enlarge

The Courier has this breaking news on its website, here. (link will go stale soon, but paragraph is quoted below; buy the Courier for more news)

From the Courier:

Claremont Unified School District Superintendent Terry Nichols will no longer be with the district come January. After recently submitting his resignation, Dr. Nichols was appointed as the new superintendent of the Duarte Unified School District at a special board meeting on Monday night. Duarte Unified confirmed the appointment to the COURIER on Tuesday afternoon. Dr. Nichols appointed superintendent of CUSD in July 2009 after the resignation of former Superintendent David Cash earlier that year. More news as it develops.

The Contra Costa Times has picked up Wes Woods' story which fleshes out some details. There is a lot about "going home", as if Claremont was not much more than a bad vacation, a rained-out camping trip, or a deployment in Afghanistan.

Lisa Shoemaker, Claremont Unified's assistant superintendent of business services, said she was surprised by Nichols departure.

"I don't think it was something he anticipated," Shoemaker said. "I'm not sure how it went down, but it went down quickly."

We don't know if the Nichols pull-quote in the article contains any subtext below the text. You decide:

"I consider this move as going home and am very pleased," Nichols said. "It is an honor and a privilege to be working closely with the board and the community that continues to focus on student success."

Terry Nichols (standing, fourth from left)
Not feeling at home with the
Claremont Chamber of Commerce Board

Local Attorney Loses License

CLAREMONT COMMISSIONER DISBARRED

The California Bar Journal reports that Claremont Community Services Commissioner Stacey Matranga (photo, right) was disbarred on October 28. According to the Bar Journal's December edition:

Matranga committed 17 acts of misconduct in seven matters. Among other things, Matranga misappropriated $21,000 of client funds without any explanation for five months. She also “flagrantly breached her fiduciary duties in seven client matters,” State Bar Court Judge Richard Honn found, and she abandoned clients, did not comply with a court order, and failed to perform legal services competently, return client files, communicate with clients, promptly return client funds and account for or maintain client funds. She also she commingled funds in her trust account and committed acts of moral turpitude.

Matranga had her office in Ontario, but is a Claremont resident.

It's our understanding that the State Bar Court takes client trust account issues very seriously, and any sort of irregularity can be grounds for disciplinary action. Generally, however, the Bar is not quick to pull an attorney's license, so any first offense that results in disbarment must be a serious matter, at least to the Bar.

It appears from the State Bar's records that the combination of client fund issues, together with Matranga's failure to return client documents and files, her lack of communication with clients, and her failure to cooperate fully with the Bar's investigation led to her disbarment. As Judge Honn explained in his decision in this matter:

It is settled that an attorney-client relationship is of the highest fiduciary character and always requires utmost fidelity and fair dealing on the part of the attorney. (Beery v. State Bar (1987) 43 Cal.3d 802, 813.) In this matter, respondent had flagrantly breached her fiduciary duties in seven client matters, including failure to return unearned fees of almost $5,000 to two clients and misappropriation of more than $21,000 in five months. Such misconduct reflects a blatant disregard of professional responsibilities.

Moreover, the misappropriation of client funds is a grievous breach of an attorney’s ethical responsibilities, violates basic notions of honesty and endangers public confidence in the legal profession. In all but the most exceptional cases, it requires the imposition of the harshest discipline – disbarment. (See Grim v. State Bar, supra, 53 Cal.3d 21.)

Commission Roster; Click to Enlarge

It's always painful when something like this happens, for Matranga and her clients, and for the community as well. Matranga seems to be generally well-liked, and she hasn't really been involved in a lot of the political maneuvering that goes on in and around our City Hall.

The State Bar's website has the Bar Court's decision online or you can find it here:

Village Event for Scripps and CMC Students

We don't usually do product placements in here, but we received notice of an event that might be of interest to students at 2 of the 5Cs.

Tonight from 9pm to 11pm, the American Apparel store at the southwest corner of Indian Hill Blvd. and First St. is hosting a college night for students from Claremont McKenna and Scripps Colleges. They're offering 30% off all store merchandise, as well as $10 coupons to first 40 customers.

For details, click to enlarge

The Coming Seasons: Holiday and Election

No matter how hard we try to go gentle into that good night (and believe us, we do try), we're always compelled to start yakking again, usually after the powers-that-be start stirring things up.

Now that the Measure CL school bond has come and gone, Shelob-like they've been in their lairs licking their wounds, but rest assured, you'll see many of the old familiar faces back in action in the next City Council election, which should be hitting high gear in another month or so.

If things follow form, we'll see a number of unforeseen issues come to the fore at the next two City Council meetings. These issues will have been carefully chosen to position the insider (small "i") candidates in their campaigns. In the past we've seen things like false rumors of council members harassing city staff or the imminent threat of gravel mining rise up in the months before the election and then fade as soon as the polls close. As always, they'll use a false sense of urgency to instill fear into people - we need to act NOW or else....

We can't wait to see what surprises the next month will bring. We know this much: there will be at least two new faces on the council come next March. Incumbent Sam Pedroza is running, but Mayor Linda Elderkin is not. Peter Yao, the third council member whose term is up, had to step down after he was appointed to the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. Incidentally, Yao was named interim chair at the commission's first meeting yesterday.

The city council candidate pool will these people, all of whom have pulled the necessary papers but haven't filed yet:

• Joseph Armendarez, unknown
  
• Robin Haulman, former Architectural Commission chair
  
• Rex Jaime, unknown
  
• Citizen Michael John Keenan, man about town
• Ed Leavell, former Human Services Commission member
• Joseph Lyons, unknown
  
• Opanyi Nasiali, former Traffic Commission member
• Sam Pedroza, incumbent and America's Got Talent 4th Runner Up
  

We've got some thoughts on these folks, but we'll hold those until the race firms up. We'll be curious to see which one(s) will end up as the straw candidates the Claremonsters encourage run in order to siphon off votes from the people they don't want on the council.

* * * * *

In the meantime, there's plenty going on around town, beginning with the City's tree lighting ceremony this coming Friday beginning at 5pm at the Claremont Depot (from the City's website):

Annual Holiday Promenade & Tree Lighting

The evening will include a variety of entertainment throughout the Village, as well as the following activities:

• Photos with Santa and Mrs. Claus at City Hall
• A Tree Lighting Ceremony at 6 p.m. at the Train Depot
• An arts and crafts fair, hosted by Gypsy Sisters, in the Packing House
• Performances by holiday carolers and the Claremont High School Chamber Singers
• Many shops and restaurants hosting "Holiday Cheer Stops"

You won't want to miss this magical Claremont event. Please join us on Friday, December 3 from 5 - 8 p.m. at the Claremont Village Holiday Promenade and Tree Lighting. Enjoy the festive atmosphere and remember to shop Claremont this holiday season.

For more information, please call (909) 399-5490 or visit us at www.ci.claremont.ca.us.

They'll have a skating rink set up as well, and if you've got any old holiday lights and want to exchange them, you can do that at the tree lighting. Southern California Edison customers can bring in one strand of the old-style lights and exchange them for a strand of LED lights.

* * * * *

It's also the first weekend of the month, which means the City Council will be at the Farmers Market in the Claremont Village on Sunday, December 5, between 8am and 1pm.

Around Town

Now that Measure CL has come and gone, we can turn our attention to the more mundane goings on around town.

If you're interested in meeting Claremont's council members, you'll have two chances this weekend. On Saturday, November 6, from 8am to 2pm, the City Council will hold a workshop to review and reviews its ongoing priorties list. The workshop will be held in the Padua Room of the Alexander Hughes Community Center at 1700 Danbury Rd.

Some things, like buying the water system from Golden State Water Company, will fall off the list because the City is no longer pursuing a municipal water service. Others, like a new police station, remain on the A-list of priorties. And there are new items to add to the list, like the problem of Claremont's seriously underfunded CalPERS pension liabilities.

The City has the workshop's agenda posted on their document website. You can review last year's priorities here. They've also posted details on the City's ongoing or completed projects, an update on its existing priorties, and descriptions of new topics proposed for inclusion in the priorties lists.

For more information on Saturday's council workshop, call (909) 399-5460.

* * * * *

You can also speak to individual council members in a more informal setting at the Claremont Farmers' Market on Sunday, November 7, between 8am and 1pm. The market is located on 2nd Street between Indian Hill Blvd. and Yale Ave. Council members take their turns in one hour shifts in the little council booth, so feel free to talk one of them up.

Measure CL Goes Down in Flames

UPDATED WITH FINAL RESULTS

Measure CL Fails: 7,977 NO, 5,222 YES

According to the Los Angeles Register-Recorder/County Clerk, as of 12:01am Claremont Unified School District's $95 million Measure CL is certain to go down to defeat (55% needed to pass):

NO - 60.13% (6,949 votes)
Update, Final - 7,977 (60.44%)

YES - 39.87% (4,608 votes)
Update, Final -5,222 (39.56%)

That's with 94% of the Claremont school district precincts reporting and only 2 out of 35 precincts left to report. (Now Final) We won't comment further at this point, other than to say that CUSD will be back with another bond or parcel tax. Let's see if they are willing to include the wider community the next time around, or if they will play the same ol' overreaching Claremont game with consultants like Jared Boigon coordinating things and getting hundreds of thousands from school contractors.

Incidentally, there were five other bond measures on the ballots for other L.A. County school districts yesterday. Four of the five appeared to be winning handily, and the fifth, Lynwood's Measure L, was very close at 53.4% with a little over half the precincts reporting. Claremont's CL was by far the outlier in school bond measure NO votes. (Pomona's Measure SS parcel tax, which needed 67% to pass, was at only 49.84% with a quarter of the precinct results in.)

You can check for updates here. The results probably won't be official for a day or two. Click on "SCHOOLS" and then look for the Claremont CL link. You'll need to refresh the screen for updates - be prepared to get redirected back to the original menu.

Click to Enlarge

Election Today

In case you missed it, there's an election today. We don't care which cabal and/or vast conspiracy, Right or Left, holds your loyalties. We just think you ought to get involved, assuming you took the trouble to register to vote.

It's part of the social contract, and it's the least you can do as a responsible citizen. That means get up off the couch, put on your shoes, and head on down to your precinct's polling place.

If you don't know where to go, check out the magic polling place locator, courtesy of the Los Angeles County Register-Recorder/County Clerk. Just enter your street address, and the locator will tell you where to go. It's that easy. Then you will get one of these:

Repetition is the Soul of Wit

Measure CL Propaganda


We are sure everyone in Claremont has experienced it. That sense of deja vu when you go to your mailbox, open up the latest CUSD Measure CL mailer, and read the same, old, and by now tired messages. You definitely have the feeling you've read this stuff somewhere before.

"Where's the beef?", you are probably asking yourself. Well, there's not much protein in these political mail pieces, animal, vegetarian, or vegan. There's a lot of saccharin and bromide though.

So you wouldn't have to do it, we went through the nine mailers shown above. We tallied the occurrences and re-occurrences of the messages in the mailers. Most of the time the language was identical. Occasionally, either by mistake, fatigue, ennui, or design the ad-writer threw in a different word. We attempted to be accurate but truth be told, our eyes were glazing over towards the end of this project.

One-sided Messaging or,

$135,000 from Special Interests
Is Not Quite Enough
for Us to Tell the Full Story

Here, in rank order are the top 12 messages (of about 50):

1. Local funding: 12 mentions
2. State an unreliable partner: 10 mentions
3. Protect property values: 9 mentions
4. Replace outdated wiring/fire alarms: 9 mentions
5. Safety: 9 mentions
6. Upgrade classrooms/libraries/labs w/ 21st C technology: 9 mentions
7. Attract/retain great teachers: 9 mentions
8. No money for administrators' salaries: 8 mentions
9. Pay off/Refi old leases and debts, usually paired with offset state cuts: 7 mentions each
10. Replace old/worn-out roofs, plumbing, lights, or windows: 7 mentions
11. Local funds state can't take away (see number 1; this is distinct): 7 mentions
12: Reduce energy/utility costs: 7 mentions.

And the messages that the woman or man in the Trader Joe's parking lot might think were relevant...how often did they occur in these propaganda pieces?:

A. Measure CL is a bond: 0 mentions
B. Measure CL will borrow $95,000,000: 0 mentions
C. Measure CL total cost estimate: 0 mentions.

The spreadsheet we used to tote up these numbers is reproduced here. Click to enlarge.

The messages above align quite well with the polling done by District consultants prior to initiating the bond. A page from their presentation listing projects is shown below.

The entire polling package can be found below. You can see how the propaganda minister of the Yes on CL side, Jared Boigon, has been feeding Claremont what he thinks it wants to hear. It is somewhat lengthy, but see especially pages numbered 23, ff., for the message "resonance" portion.

Claremont USD Survey Report '10 DRAFT 1T

Measure CL Update

CHS STUDENTS TO CL CAMPAIGN:
THANKS, BUT NO THANKS!

A reader sends word that the student paper at Claremont High School had an editorial urging a NO vote on the school district's $95 million Measure CL. One of the reasons the Wolfpacket cited for recommending a NO on CL was that it doesn't make any sense to fund operational costs with bond:

Though all of the 95 million dollars are supposed to go towards the Claremont schools, only about a third of the money will actually benefit schools. The high interest rate of the bond will result in increased prices for basic purchases--If the school was to buy a computer costing $1000, due to the interest rate, that computer would cost the school $3000.

The students are right on this count. Although the Claremont Unified School District and its superintendent, Terry Nichols, have refused to release the financing details for the bond, we do know that the bond proponents have acknowledged that the CL bond will be financed over 40 years and that the total costs, with interest payments, will approach $250 million. The district has essentially stipulated to that much.

So for every dollar we borrow and spend, we'll be paying back more than $2.50. The CUSD board of education's enabling resolution for this bond stated that some of the borrowed money from CL will go towards paying operational costs. It means a ream of paper that costs you and I $5.00 would end up costing CUSD $15.00.

Using the bond money in such a way is no different than using a credit card or borrowing against your house to pay for a car. And like a car, that computer the Wolfpacket editorial referred to is going to be worth much less by the time it's paid off. In the case of a computer, it'd be worth nothing at all, except as a collector's item. Ask yourself how much is your own computer going to be worth in 40 years?

We're surprised to see that many people associated with this extremely flawed district finance plan are affiliated with the Claremont Colleges. Pomona College president David Oxtoby, Harvey Mudd College president Maria Klawe, Claremont McKenna College president Pamela Gann, Claremont Graduate University interim president Joseph Hough, CGU president emeritus John Maguire, retired CMC president Jack Stark, and others like Pomona College professor David Menefee-Libey have all endorsed CL.

Yet, if those same parties tried to run their own institutions with bond money financed as proposed under Measure CL, the trustees of their respective colleges be screaming bloody murder. It's simply foolish to spend money in such a way, and the CHS students are on target with their commentary.

Incidentally, this reminds us of some information buried in that the pre-election polling commissioned at a cost of $35,000 by CUSD earlier this year. The poll, conducted by our favorite district consultant, Jared Boigon of TBWB Strategies, indicated that a bond would have less support among people with kids in Claremont Unified schools than it would with people who were older and who didn't have children attending the schools. We suspect that this is because the closer one is to the actual day-to-day workings of our school district, the less wonderful it actually is.

As they do with most things they want you to pay for, the Claremont 400 have romanticized our schools to the point that their idealized vision of our local schools bears no relation to the reality of the situation.

Here's the Wolfpacket editorial, courtesy of our reader:

Click Image to Enlarge

Dept. of Corrections

A couple readers wrote in to comment about our post on the missing developmentally disabled person who went missing for a few days. We had noted that a reader had written in to ask why the City's CodeRED system wasn't used to notify the public about the missing person.

Turns out the Claremont police did use the CodeRED system as well as its E-Watch email alert system to let people know about the teen they were looking for. However, the reader who wrote in on this point noted this and was actually wondering why the CodeRED alert didn't get to him/her until four days after the person went missing.

Nationalizing Measure CL

Get Out the Pig Grease, Dave, and Start Smearing

We think we've now finally seen the single most childish argument to vote for Measure CL. It appeared in Saturday's copy of the Claremont Courier:


What is with this seeming attempt to nationalize Measure CL? What Could This Mean?

The intellectual foundation, if you want to call it that, for this otherwise inexplicable injunction is helpfully provided in the same issue of the Courier by the redoubtable Dave Nemer. We are not going to reproduce his Piece (O.S.) here. We have standards. But suffice it to say its a bunch of paranoic drivel with schizoid overtones. It also shows a pathological need to "belong". It is a smear, done up in his trademark smarmy tone.

Where most people in this community would applaud diversity coming together, Nemer sees "strange bedfellows". He very quickly dismisses the other personalities publicly associated with No on CL, to focus in on the one who supports his strained argument. Here it is (to save you the trouble of reading his screed): No on CL is a Tea Party Plot.

It appears he expects the No on CL side to spend their "less than $4000 (total reported raised in Daily Bulletin, Friday, October 29) restating the Yes side's arguments. Hey--here's a thought--maybe the Yes side could spend some of its $130,000 from outside Special Interests to honestly address some of the cost and planning issues instead of sending out ten or twelve glossy city-wide mailers filled with nothing but Pablum--or maybe it's Ensure. These political mailers don't even tell the community this is a bond. Instead it's presented as some sort of "Magical Mystery Initiative" that will make Claremont schools all better if we just vote for it. Pay no attention to the men behind the curtain. (big contractors, architects, investment banks, and consultants)

Where did this stuff take root and grow? No place other than the airy-fairy precincts of Pomona College. Four of the five named signers of the ad above, David Menefee-Libey, Eleanor Brown, Dan O'Leary, and Len Seligman are on the Pomona College faculty. Wendy M.-L., spouse of David, is at Harvey Mudd College.

We hope Claremont is smarter than to be taken in by the middle-school social group politics that passes for informed discussion in Our Town. We are not sure.

Saturday Mailbag

Public Nuisance?

Not a Stadium. Can't you See?

We received the email reproduced below in our Inbox this morning. It brought to mind the promises the school Superintendent made a decade ago about how Claremont High would not use any Measure Y bond money to build a stadium on the south edge of the high school. There was even an emergency agenda item and a Board resolution to this effect. This was done to mollify the Towne Ranch neighbors and defuse an uprising against Measure Y.

Unfortunately (for the CHS Neighbors) the neighborhood bought what the District was selling, fell into a hypnotic trance, and Measure Y passed narrowly.

By November of 2001, the district deep-sixed that promise and proceeded with the stadium construction, as was reported in the Courier on November 10th of that year:


Anyway, we're not supposed to talk about Measure Y. And its faults. And lies. And broken promises. And mismanagement. Put away those gloomy thoughts. On to Measure CL! Forward thinking! Vision!

The email appears immediately below. The reader invites response, so...both of you Insider readers be sure to swamp the inbox:


CHS Neighbor
From: CHS Neighbors, chsneighbors@gmail.com
To: claremontbuzz@yahoo.com

Dear Insider,

I have been a residential neighbor of Claremont High School for almost 10 years, and this has always presented its challenges. However, over the past few years, the high-school has shown an increasing disregard towards its neighbors. It seems like there is always some activity going on at the track after hours, including Sunday mornings when loud music and voices on PA systems can began as early as 8 AM. Apparently when these activities are scheduled, or permission is given for use of this track, no consideration whatsoever is given to those who make their homes around the school’s perimeters. At this Friday night’s football game (10/29), an extended fireworks display was set off at 8:30 PM. Certainly the high school should have the decency of alerting its neighbors—especially those with pets—of any planned fireworks activity in advance. This is basic courtesy.

These are two blatant examples of the disinterest and disrespect the school shows towards its neighbors. In the past, an attempt I made to address some of the issues with the principal at the time was completely ignored.

I would like to know if other neighbors are frustrated with the level of noise, the traffic problems, the parking problems, or any other issues. If you might be so kind, can you provide my email address on your site so others might communicate their experiences/concerns?

chsneighbors@gmail.com

Thank you.

* * * * * * *

Thnx to a reader for the Courier clip.

Red Alert?

A reader contacted us to say that they wished we would devote less space to the Measure CL school bond and more to other issues such as the disappearance last week of a developmentally disabled teen named Deontay Antone Barlow.

Deontay, who disappeared from his home on Thursday, October 21, was found five days later at a Kaiser Permanante facility in Downey. Claremont Courier reporter Tony Krickl wrote about the happy ending to this story on his Courier City Beat blog.

Our reader wondered why the Claremont Police Department didn't employ their CodeRED system to alert the community immediately after Deontay's family discovered he was missing. CPD's used the system before for community-wide emergencies like fires, so why not in this instance?

The CPD website does list missing persons as one of the emergencies CodeRED is for:

CodeRED WILL BE USED FOR EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

CodeRED is intended to supplement our local law enforcement and public safety first responders with making timely emergency notifications. Examples of its use include:

• Evacuation Notice
• Fires or Floods
• Missing Persons
• Hazardous Material Spills
• Water Contamination
• Identifying Evacuation Centers
• Emergency and Critical incidents where rapid notification is essential.
  

Now, the CPD did use their Neighborhood E-Watch newsletter to email residents that Deontay had been found. Our reader wonders, why pay spend all that money for CodeRED if we don't use it for something like this?

Halloween Fun Downtown Tomorrow

Those of you with young children will probably want to take the kids to Claremont's annual Halloween Celebration tomorrow from 1-4pm in the Claremont Village. The main events will take place in front of the Claremont Train Depot at 200 W. First St.

Here's what City Manager Jeff Parker's weekly newletter had to say:

HALLOWEEN CELEBRATION

The City of Claremont, Village Marketing Group and local businesses will host Claremont’s Annual Halloween Celebration in the Claremont Village on Sunday, October 31 from 1 – 4 p.m. Enjoy trick-or-treating at Village businesses as well as Halloween-themed games and entertainment at the historic Claremont Depot. The YAC and Teen Committee members will volunteer and will assist with game booths, handing out prizes and helping out where they can during the event. Youth volunteers are excited to help out the community. For more information on youth volunteering, please contact the Youth Activity Center (YAC) at (909) 399-5360.

For more information about the City of Claremont’s Halloween Celebration, log onto the City’s website at www.ci.claremont.ca.us or call the Human Services Department at (909) 399-5490.

This year’s schedule is as follows:

1:15 - 1:45 p.m. Franklin Haynes Marionettes
2:00 p.m. Howl-O-Ween Dog Costume Contest
2:15 - 3:15 p.m. The Animal Guys
3:30 p.m. Children’s Costume Contest

Claremont Unified is a "Pay to Play" School District

Big Donor Cash Tops $125,000

Only about 2% Raised Locally

There is more big money pouring into the Yes on Measure CL campaign, even as the local contributions are very weak. Recent filings with LA County elections officials show over $125,000 in contributions from 8 district vendors and a teachers' union. Totals after the October 18th filings are as follows, new money in red:

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

• $25,000 from WLC Architects in Rancho Cucamonga

• $25,000 from Adolph Ziemba, Architects, in Burbank

• $20,000 from Telacu Construction Management in LA

• $10,000 from Vanir Construction Managment in Sacramento

• $10,000 from Flewelling and Moody (architects) in Pasadena. $5,000 previously reported, $5,000 new money.
  

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

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

• $1,500 from the California Teachers Assn, Burlingame CA
  

With 98% of the cash received by the Yes on CL side coming from big businesses outside Claremont with a direct financial interest in the outcome, it's pretty clear the CL's supporters and the District leadership have put out the word that CUSD is a Pay to Play district, and a little baksheesh in the form of help on Measure CL is necessary to get business down the line.

What other conclusion is there that is not, well, ridiculous? Certainly no one is buying Yes on CL Treasurer J. Michael Fay's assertion that "There is no quid pro quo." That's an insult to our intelligence.

We post the report for the Period October 1-October 16 below. The earlier report is covered here. Following the first report is a single-page "late contribution" filing detailing $21,500 (included in the above totals) from Ziemba, Flewelling and Moody, and the teachers unions.

One interesting fact is that named contributions from residents of Claremont number only nine and total only $1,100. Even crediting all of the unitemized contributions ($115) to Claremont brings the total Claremont money to a mere $1,215. This is only 1.9% of the total cash reported since October 1 of $63,715.

This is nothing like a grassroots cause, and doesn't appear even to have the financial backing of the President of the Board of Education, Hilary LeConte, nor board supporters Jeff Stark and Beth Bingham. Only board member Mary Caenepeel and her husband kicked in a hundred bucks.

For those whoe worry about big money influencing elections, possible corruption, pay to play, sweetheart deals, bid-rigging, and the like, there is plenty to worry about here.

Yes on Cl Campaign Finance Report Oct 18 2

And here is a report dated October 18, 2010. "Late" reports of contributions exceeding $1,000 are required to be overnighted to the county campaign finance disclosure office.

Form 497

Daily Bulletin Opinion on Measure CL Influenced by Supporter

Why the Bulletin Editorial Sounded Like Regurgitated Measure CL Talking Points

It was just a little too pat. The phrases had the ring of a familiar cant even if there was nothing of the truth in them: ...energy-efficiency improvements that will save operating costs in the long run ... $45 per $100,000 of assessed valuation ... long-term investment ... sustainability improvements ... construction costs are low ... modern-day computers ...

It was a bunch of pedestrian nouns decorated with jargonish adjectives.

The words seemed to be cut and pasted from the Yes On CL 4-color glossy mailers that have been arriving at about the rate of one per day in Claremont recently.

It was a disappointment but not much of a surprise, this Daily Bulletin opinion.

Who writes these things?

We have our ideas on this.

Take a look at the masthead below. The Bulletin uses an editorial board. Presumably the editorial positions are hashed out by said board, and whaddya know? The name "Nick Quackenbos fairly jumps out at you.

Click to enlarge

Could this be the selfsame Nick Quackenbos whose name appears as a supporter of Measure CL? We are pretty sure it is. How many N. Q.'s could there be?

Click to enlarge

When we tumbled to this, the similarity of the article to the Measure CL propaganda was instantly explained. We wonder if the Daily Bulletin is willing to reveal whether or not Mr. Quackenbos, a local commercial real estate broker, participated in the discussion leading to the decision of the paper to endorse Measure CL? We think he should have recused himself from that discussion based on his obvious bias and conflict. If not, he should have been excused by Editor Mike Brossart. And if Mr. Quackenbos participated in the decision, did he reveal to the board his public position on Measure CL? And if he participated, was Mr. Brossart careful to include a member, from Claremont, with a counter-balancing bias to ensure robust, informed, and fair discussion?

The Bulletin could clear up any questions about the objectivity of its endorsement of Measure CL by publishing a short statement of the facts of its deliberation and decision.

Meanwhile, we see that the NO on CL people, on their website, have posted a deconstruction of the Bulletin opinion piece. We clip it below along with this link: nocusdbond deconstruction

Although the point and counter-point in the aforementioned deconstruction is lengthy, it is complete. It's beginning to get out, for example, that the first $10,000,000 in bond money, should CL be approved, does not go to the kids, to safety, to technology, to modernization, but rather to bail out the District from a tricky financial scheme it entered into in 2001, where it leased out Claremont High School to investors. This garnered the District an immediate $11,300,000 payment to refurbish the District Offices at 170 San Jose by the 10 freeway but obligates it to an ANNUAL payment of some $930,000. This payment is what the district would like to shift to the taxpayers.

But we digress.

The Bulletin opinion has the air of illegitimacy if Mr. Quackenbos participated in it. But Claremont should not be surprised, The Yes on CL people have their tentacles everywhere in town and, to mix a metaphor, have been assiduously working their traplines in all of the Better Organizations: The Claremont League of Women Voters (endorsed CL without hearing from the opponents), The Claremont Chamber (endorsed CL without hearing from the opponents), Sustainable Claremont (endorsed CL without hearing from the opponents), Claremont teachers' union (endorsed CL without hearing from the opponents and also has a pecuniary interest in its passage), California School Employees Assn (ditto).

Even the Claremont Police Department. Here, here, and here.

Sunday Sermon

As we've often said, some Claremonters (the ones that count, anyway) possess a peculiar, almost religious devotion to their city workers with members of groups like the local League of Women Voters or the Claremont Community Foundation acting as oracles or priests. Sometimes they are even actual religious leaders.

A mere hint of outsourcing any of city services will result in widespread hysteria among the true believers, the Claremont 400, as the recent civic discussion over Claremont's waste management showed. Imagine the wailing that would ensue if the city were to consider disbanding Claremont's police department and entering into a contract with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office. The pitchforks-and-torches set would be out in force at the next City Council meeting.

Yes, Claremont loves its public servants.

As if to prove our point, the Yes on Measure CL campaign, the folks who are trying to pass a $95 million school bond, sent out a mailer last week adorned with photos of one of Claremont's finest, CPD Officer Sean Evans, who was quoted and featured in a couple photos.

We were mulling over our politicized police department, which seems intent on lending the Measure CL campaign a helping hand or two, no matter how many claims of non-partisanship City Hall makes. Looking at the recent flyer, it struck us that, as Officer Evans blessed the children gathered around him in one of the photos, he might have possessed just a touch of that beaming, beneficent, iconic presence leaders of all types, religious and political, like to affect in order to inspire the masses:

SEPARATED AT BIRTH?