Odd Couple

We have commented on the business of city council candidates Robin Haulman's and Sam Pedroza's signs sprouting up together all over town. Many people have been puzzled by this, but the "interlocking directorates" of the campaigns, to coin a phrase, make this much more than coincidental.

We posited that a common thread is the Democratic Club of Claremont. While this idea just came to us from our knowledge and experience, it didn't take long for a reader to give us reinforcement. Said reader snapped the picture below at last Sunday's Farmers' Market, about 8 a.m. It shows the Dem. Club table set up every Sunday morning on the corner of Second and Yale, in front of the Starbucks. Usually the table is loaded with flyers, tracts, broadsides, and brochures, but when this was taken just a few signs were out. Our reader was interested in the apparent candidate trifecta: Robin Haulman on the left, school board member Mary Caenepeel in the center (sign cut down) and Sam Pedroza on the right. (The Caenepeel sign was cannibalized to provide the handwritten identification, not visible, facing Starbuck's: Democratic Club of Claremont.)


We remember in 2009 when the Democratic Club provided the footsoldiers for councilmember Larry Schroeder's campaign, and that they consistently endorse whichever candidates for this non-partisan office are Democrats, Pedroza and Elderkin in 2007 for example. So our idea is--and we see nothing here to dissuade us--that Pedroza and Haulman jumped at the chance to have the Democratic Club folks place some of their signs. By our informal count, their sign efforts seem to be lagging, after all.

But why bother to ask people for permission for an act so righteous? Who could object?

Sam and Robin would be an odd couple in any other town, but in here in Claremont they are in the mainstream. Still odd, though.

Around Claremont and Beyond

CCF Gallery Show

The Claremont Community Foundation Gallery's featured artist for February is Ward McAfee. CCF is holding a reception tonight from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. The CCF Gallery is located at 205 Yale Ave. in the Claremont Village (that's also the Claremont Chamber of Commerce office, if you were wondering).

For more information, call (909) 626-0222.

We were sorry we missed last month's artist, photographer Micki McAulay. There was a reception and lecture by McAulay on January 28. The event was hosted by Foothill Financial Advisors and the Andre Sobel River of Life Foundation, which provides aid to single mothers with children who are stricken by catastrophic illnesses. Realtor Laura Dandoy and Wine Styles also provided support for the event.


CAN YOU GIVE THEM A SECOND?



If you're looking for something to do tonight, head on down to the Claremont Village for the Friday Art Walk. Our friends at Claremont Community College, who sponsor the 5 Second Film Festival, sent us a reminder that they'll be represented at the Art Walk and that they also have an office in the Village Expansion.

The Third Annual 5 Second Festival is currently accepting submissions, if you're so inclined. The festival comes to town Thursday, April 28, at the Claremont 5 Laemmle Theatres. Claremont, home of the long-winded, including yours truly, is woefully lacking in brevity, so we'll take as much as we can get, if that makes any sense.

Here's the note from CCC:

DATE: Thu, February 3, 2011 10:31:27 AM
SUBJECT: Friday Night Artwalk
FROM: Claremont Community College
TO: Claremont Buzz

While in Claremont enjoying this Friday evening, please stop by our center to participate in fun (lots) and food (a little bit!)

We are participating in First Friday ArtWalk along with other happening venues. Stop by anytime starting at 5:30.

Come see the going-ons for the 5 Second Film Festival.

You know where we are. (Upstairs next to Chico's)

You can view all of the venues at www.artwalkclaremont.com.

RAVELERS HIT THE ROAD

If you're around the central coast on Presidents Day weekend and are feeling a little homesick, go on over to the Cambria Pines Lodge. The Ravelers will play at the Cambria Pines Lodge's lounge on February 20:

Hey Now!

The Ravelers figure you might be wondering what to do for President's Day weekend coming up in a few weeks.

Well now...Cindy is having her 50th birthday party at the Cambria Pines Lodge, and she is having The Ravelers play in the lounge. It just so happens that it is drummer Rob's b-day, too...so he gets to have his "birthday gig" in paradise! The Ravelers have played at the Cambria Pines Lodge a few times over the years, and we absolutely love the central coast of California this time of year.

We highly suggest getting a room with your love interest at one of the really romantic hotels nearby and joining us on Sunday for some fun. Monday is President's Day, so hopefully you can take advantage of a long weekend on the beautiful central coast of California.

• Sunday, February 20- Birthday Party in Cambria, come on up!!!
  
  Cambria Pines Lodge
  2905 Burton Dr
  Cambria, CA 93428
  (800)445-6868
  
  The Ravelers play at 8:30 pm.
  

Cambria Pine Lodge web site: http://www.cambriapineslodge.com/
Other local hotels: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g32148-Cambria_California-Hotels.html

You can see some photos from our previous roadtrips to Cambria on our Facebook site, just click here.

We love shopping in Downtown Cambria...


















All the Best from your pals...

Hai, Pat, Martie, Rob

Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs, Part 2

No Claremont campaign season would be complete without a little candidate sign craziness. You might recall that in the 2009 municipal election Bridget Healy's campaign stuck signs up illegally on city-owned property at the so-called "pork chop park" at the southeast corner of Harrison Ave. and Indian Hill Blvd. Bridget's signs came down pretty quickly after someone called them to the City's attention. We covered Measure CL sign issues here, here, and here.

The more typical Claremont campaign games usually consist of election volunteers stealing other candidates' signs. In recent elections, candidates have stooped to putting up signs on lawns without permission. Sometimes campaigns will look around to see who has the most signs and then sneak their own signs up next to the other ones to try to create a coattails effect. People driving around see Candidate Smith's signs together with Candidate Jones' signs, and they just assume the two are jointly supported.

This year, the two worst offenders seem to be incumbent council member Sam Pedroza and candidate Robin Haulman. At least, that's what we gather from reading Claremont Courier reporter Tony Krickl's blog:

Gwen Brown, who lives on Scripps Drive, came home yesterday to find lawn signs from city council candidates Sam Pedroza and Robin Haulman in her front yard. They've since been taken down and put in the garage.

"I would appreciate if I was asked first before a political sign went up on my property," Ms. Brown said. "I really take offense to a controlling political party trying to push an opinion on me."

In another neighborhood in north Claremont, the same 2 candidate's signs appeared in another resident's lawn.

"I do not know anything about Robin Haulman, never met nor do I know her," said the resident, who asked not to be named. "Sam I am aware is on the city council now but I was surprised that someone had the hutzpa to plant their signs in my yard without asking permission. I have nothing personally against either one but thought it was rather rude."

For his part, Pedroza, à la Mission Impossible, disavowed any knowledge of his volunteers' actions, saying that if it were up to him he'd just as soon not have any signs because they're not worth the trouble. (Ya think?)

Still, two different incidents involving the same two candidates in two different neighborhoods? Something's rotten in the state of Claremont.

We think--and this is going to shock people--that the problem can be traced to the Claremont 400 and their fellow travelers. No, wait. See Sam Pedroza's Facebook page, screenshot below. Who appears to be the sign factotum but the redoubtable Judy Wright? We are sure her tentacles into the activist community in Claremont, such as the Democratic Club, are adequate to explain the goings-on. Also note, Sam is supported by Lee Jackman, leader of the Yes on CL organization.

click to enlarge

David Brooks Comes to Scripps

New York Times columnist David Brooks will be speaking at Scripps College 7:30pm next Tuesday, February 8.

Brooks will speak at Garrison Theater as part of the Elizabeth Hubert Malott Public Affairs Program. Garrison is located at 231 E. Tenth St. His lecture is titled "The Social Animal Post Election."

Brooks is slowly making the rounds at the 5C's. In April, 2003, he spoke at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum and talked about McMansions and bobos (see below).

Here are the details from the Scripps website:

Book signing to follow in the lobby. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. Priority seating in Garrison Theater will be given to members of the Scripps Community with their Scripps ID. Limited seating will be available to others on a first-come, first-served basis. FMI: (909) 607-9372

David Brooks is a keen observer of the American way of life and a penetrating analyst of present-day politics and foreign affairs. He has become one of the prominent voices of conservative politics in the United States; with his elegance and finely tuned reason and wit, he engages both sides of the debate eloquently. Brooks is one of the New York Times's most widely read columnists and is a regular analyst on NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and NPR's All Things Considered.

Brooks was a founding senior editor of The Weekly Standard and has been a contributing editor at Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly. He worked at the Wall Street Journal for nine years in a range of positions, including op-ed editor. He has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Forbes, the Washington Post, and many other periodicals. Brooks was a visiting professor of public policy at Duke University's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy and taught an undergraduate seminar there in the fall of 2006.

In his Elizabeth Hubert Malott lecture at Scripps College, Brooks will draw from his upcoming new book and the recent elections to paint a thorough and eye-opening picture of today’s political climate. His new book, The Social Animal: the Inner Roots of Character and Achievement, is due out in March 2011. In his previous two books, New York Times best-seller Bobos in Paradise and On Paradise Drive, Brooks describes what he calls “comic sociology”—depictions of how we live and “the water we swim in.” In Bobos in Paradise he coins a new word, Bobo, to describe today’s upper class: those who have wed the bourgeois world of capitalist enterprise to the hippie values of the bohemian counterculture. Brooks has a gift for bringing audiences face-to-face with the spirit of our times with humor, insight, and quiet passion. He is also editor of the anthology Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing.

Wednesday Mailbag

A reader wrote us with a response to Sunday's post about former Claremont Assistant City Manager Bridget Healy's long range plan to grab a spot on our City Council:

DATE: Tue, February 1, 2011 10:09:26 AM
SUBJECT: [ No Subject ]
TO: Claremont Buzz

That's the saddest, smallest, most desperate little thing I've ever seen in print. There are living beings who devote conscious thought to a long-term plan to get Bridget Healy elected to the Claremont City Council? Is there nothing better to do with that time and energy?

I mean, seriously. I hear Match.com is pretty useful.

That note was followed by this post script:

DATE: Tue, February 1, 2011 8:16:56 PM
SUBJECT:Re:
TO: Claremont Buzz

And why on earth does Bridget Healy *want* to be on the city council so badly? She has a six-figure pension [$166,000+ per year - ed.] -- she can't take that and ride her broom into the sunset?

Why indeed? We're in complete agreement with our dear reader. Isn't it enough for Healy to have her prosperity guaranteed at taxpayer expense while the great majority of the rest of the workforce labors on without the safety net of a generous pension indexed for inflation?

We're of the mind that Healy can't help herself. She's so driven to seek power over others that she absolutely has to be on our City Council, even if it's to the long-term detriment of our town. She can't help herself. She's the scorpion in the old frog and scorpion parable. (Here's one version that tale that weaves game theory into its interpretation.)

That leaves the voters who would forget Healy's many transgressions in the position of the frog. The naive among us - and Healy's betting there are enough to get her friend Robin Haulman elected this year followed by Healy in 2013 - invariably forget the scorpion's sting.

The game theory piece we found ends with this judgment:

The human dilemma is that all progress ultimately fails or at least slides back, that anything once proven must be proven again a myriad of times, that there is nothing so well established that a fundamentalist (of any religion or stripe) cannot be found to deny it, and suffer the consequences, and then deny that he suffered the consequences.

And Healy, along with the core of her supporters, the holdovers from Preserve Claremont's 2005 smear campaign, are nothing if not fundamentally devoted to their sad religion.

Upcoming Meetings

DRAWING THE LINE(S)


Former Claremont mayor Peter Yao and the California's Citizens Redistricting Commission are coming to town this month for its first public meeting. The City's website explains:

Citizens Redistricting Commission Will Hold Public Meetings In Claremont

The Citizens Redistricting Commission will hold its first public meeting in Claremont at the Claremont Colleges from February 9 to February 13, 2011. The 14 member Commission must draw the state's districts in conformity with strict nonpartisan lines designed to create districts equal in population taht will provide fair representation for all Californians. The 14-member Commission is made up of five Republicans, five Democrats, and 4 not affiliated with either of those two parties but registered with another party or as decline-to-state. The Commission must hold public hearings and accept public comment. After hearing from the public and drawing the maps for the House of Representatives districts, 40 Senate districts, 80 Assembly districts, and four Board of Equalization districts, the Commission must vote on the new maps to be used for the next decade.

You can read more about the CRC, watch videos of its meetings and review meeting agendas on the CRC website.



PLANNING COMMISSION MEETS TONIGHT

Harvey Mudd's amended master plan is on the agenda for tonight's Planning Commission meeting. HMC's north parcel, which used to be part of the Bernard Field Station, gets a very small mention in the amended plan.

Harvey Mudd Master Plan Amendment Review

Residents are invited to attend the upcoming Planning Commission meeting regarding an amendment to the ten-year campus master plan for Harvey Mudd College The Planning Commission will discuss the item at its meeting on Tuesday, February 1, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. The meeting will be held in the City Council Chamber, 225 W. Second Street, Claremont. All persons interested in the master plan amendment are invited to attend the meeting and provide comments.

The proposed master plan amendment is based on a maximum student population of 800 (currently 734), 335 faculty/staff (currently 307), and 297 assembly seats (currently 604). This is an increase of 66 students and 28 faculty/staff, and a decrease of 307 assembly seats. The master plan amendment proposes the following:

• no change in the maximum number of students permitted under the existing master plan (800),
• minor revisions to the design guidelines for the campus,
• new policies and guidelines emphasizing the sustainability of the campus,
• the incorporation of recently completed construction projects into the master plan,
• revisions to the campus parking plan to reflect recent changes to the campus, new ampus parking policies and City zoning code,
• deletion of previously approved yet unconstructed projects, and
• addition of new/revised buildings, most notably a new Teaching and Learning Building, which is proposed for the current site of the Thomas Garrett Building.

The Planning Commission is the final decision-making body on this matter.

City staff has completed a detailed environmental review of this master plan amendment and drafted an addendum to the environmental documentation for the original master plan, a mitigated negative declaration, to reflect the changes contained in the proposed master plan amendment.

Click Image to Enlarge

Questions regarding the project may be directed to Senior Planner Christopher Veirs, at (909) 399-5470. Written comments may also be submitted to Mr. Veirs at P.O. Box 880, Claremont, CA 91711.

* View Master Plan Amendment Documents

TREE SUMMIT

Also, the City is having a special tree committee meeting at 6pm tonight at the in the offices of the Community Services Department at 1616 N. Monte Vista Ave. We're not sure which is special, the trees, the meeting or the committee. They'll be talking about the City's tree replacement program.

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