Tri-City Mental Health Board Opening

The City of Claremont is looking for applicants to fill its seat on the Tri-City Mental Health Center's governing board.

The City's website has a job description:

The Board meets on a monthly basis. It is desirable that the Community Member appointed to the Board

- have a willingness to invest the time and energy required to ensure the health and viability of the system of care;
- be committed to participate in ongoing education and training;
- be committed to providing leadership and oversight to the Agency and the mental health system in the three member cities;
- be committed to being an advocate for the patients served by the Agency and the larger system of care;
- live or work in the City;
- have knowledge of mental illness, recovery and self help;
- have knowledge of cultural competency modes and program analysis as it relates to mental health service delivery

If this sounds like something you'd be qualified for, call the City Clerk's office at (909) 399-5460 for more information. You can download an application from Claremont's website.

Applications must be received by the City Clerk no later than 5pm, January 4, 2008, and should be sent to the Claremont City Hall at 207 Harvard Ave., P.O. Box 880, Claremont, CA 91711.

Changing Times

Dave Allen weighed in with his take on the Claremont Village Expansion and the ad campaign that has accompanied the new businesses and buildings west of Indian Hill Blvd.

Allen noted the ongoing debate in town on whether the attempt to update downtown Claremont into a mini-Pasadena is all good:

I like the Expansion myself, with reservations. The theater is a terrific addition, the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is becoming a hangout, the plaza has a neat fountain and there are now more restaurant choices and more to do at night.

Some of the chains are annoying, but as John Pixley has observed in the Claremont Courier, San Luis Obispo has many of the same chains, and more, yet manages to keep a healthy mix of local merchants.

Architecturally, the Expansion looks a little canned but it isn't bad. If its two-story frontage seems a bit pushy, maybe that points to how dull and empty the east side of Indian Hill looks: parking lots, the rear end of buildings and that godawful ziggurat at First Street.

Why does all this matter? Because the existing Village is the valley's most successful downtown. The streets are walkable, the shops are eclectic and there is a sense of place, even of magic.

But now that the Village has essentially expanded by one-third, this feels like a turning point for Claremont. Will the Village absorb the Expansion, or - gulp - vice versa?

One wonders if all the changes will be intended ones. We suspect that something of the town's character will change - perhaps for the better, perhaps not. We will undoubtedly be altered in some subtle ways, and the mom-and-pop feel of the Old Village may in time fade.

Other cities in the area, Monrovia for example, are experiencing this already as renovations and chain stores and restaurants drive up rents, shuttering older businesses.

We're reminded of some lines from the Richard Wilbur poem "The Beautiful Changes":

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
By a chameleon's tuning his skin to it.....

Andy Winnick Channels Distant Relative

Yesterday's post mentioned Andy Winnick, a distinguished member of the Claremont Human Services Commission. You may recall that on December 1, 2007, Mr. Winnick unburdened himself of a letter to the Courier on the affordable housing issue. It is online at this link.

In our relentless researches to understand the minds of such people, we have found an interesting letter from a 1939 number of the Bronx Times Reporter. It is by a Mr. Morris Samuel Winnick, a distant relative of Andy Winnick. We would never accuse Professor Winnick of plagiarism. We believe that channeling relatives qualifies as fair use.

We believe moreover that the discovery of this letter will inform the debate here in Claremont on the issue of health hazards at the Baseline site for the proposed affordable housing development, and we make it available as a public service.

Here is Andy Winnick's December 1, 2007 letter side-by-side with Morris Samuel Winnick's July 4, 1939 letter.

Click on the images to enlarge and to read. Or click on image below for a larger, more readable copy of the antique Morris Winnick letter. Best to print them or open two windows to compare them side-by-side.

The Windmills are Weakening

The Courier had an informative article in Wednesdays paper (December 12, 2007; you need to buy the paper because the article is not linked online.)

Under the head, "Baseline Project Still Under Fire", Tony Krickl reports the sands shifting even more under the foundation--such as it is--of the Baseline Affordable Housing proposal.

Comes now the spokesman for Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich quoted as saying, "He [Supervisor Antonovich] clearly has concerns about the project, and he has communicated them to the city and the developer."

Might those be the horrible reviews the project has received in the City-sponsored Environmental Impact Report, or perhaps the letter form the South Coast Air Quality Management District saying, "SCAQMD staff considers it [the affordable housing project on Baseline] to be incompatible land use based on proximity to the freeway."

According to Brian Desatnik, the City staffer pushing this project, it would be "in serious jeopardy" if Supervisor Antonovich and the Board of Supervisors deny funding to the developer. (The Courier article discusses why Supervisor Antonovich is important to the funding process)

There is $2.5 million needed from the Feds and the State for this project. One of the things that these entities consider is community support. It is short-sighted for the City to persist in pushing a project that so clearly divides the community while having the manifest health problems that it has.

Of course, Human Services Commissioner Andrew Winnick can always be counted upon to be the stern no-nonsense teacher. No nonsense about economic justice. No nonsense about environmental justice. No nonsense about children's health. No nonsense about community buy-in. No nonsense that I, Winnick, could learn anything from anybody else. He sponsored a resolution at Human Services last week that is quoted in the article: "The Commission believes this project will provide low and very low-income members of the community the opportunity to live in Claremont, and therefore afford their family [sic] the many options and opportunities that go along with living in this city."

And so would the feasible alternative sites.

The handwriting is on the wall on this project, and it is our hope that Mayor Yao can gracefully find an off-ramp. Otherwise, the vision we had, coming from a 60s-era comedy album, might come all too true:

Trolley Folly?

Coming soon to Claremont: The Claremont Trolley. Or so our Mayor, Peter Yao, would have us believe.

The Daily Bulletin had a brief note about the idea, which had surfaced a while back. The proposal seems a bit more fleshed out - a three-year trial at a cost of $887,000 to start up.

The trolley would connect the Village, the Village Expansion, and the Metrolink parking lot. It would run 11am to 11:30pm. According to the Bulletin, the council may take the matter up in January.

If this is like other such projects - affordable housing, Padua Park, or even the erstwhile roundabout at Indian Hill Blvd. and Bonita Ave. (which had to be constructed, then torn out after complaints) the thing's a done deal. In our town, idea's only get floated in the papers after being vetted by the Claremont 400.

Expect to see a downtown trolley soon. And, it might even be a good idea, though we shouldn't expect a lot of thought or analysis to go into it. The idea's already being approved. The public comment is invariably for show, as in dog-and-pony.

Look for it at an upcoming 2008 council meeting.

[Here is the math: The article says the city officials hope for an average ridership of 15 riders per hour. Running 12 1/2 hours per day, three days a week, that's 562.5 riders per week. For the three-year trial, that amounts to 87,750 riders. At a cost of $887,000, that amounts to more than $10 per trolley trip. Seems like a lot to get from the parking structure to Yale Avenue. Don't worry, though, the Feds and State will pay for it.]

Tempest in a Teapot

Late Tuesday afternoon, just hours before the 5:15 Claremont City Council closed session, the Affordable Housing agenda item that suddenly had appeared, just as suddenly disappeared. Here is the notice of cancellation.

The reason give was that there was a "Notice Problem".

Well, yeah.

We alluded to it in our post of yesterday, pointing out that unless you inhabited City Hall or the City website or--we suppose--had garrulous and informed friends, there'd be no way to know about it. (Without getting too self-referential, we suppose you also would have known if you had read the "Claremont Insider" assiduously--always a good idea.)

There was a bit of confusing discussion of the timing of the Affordable Housing issue. Mayor Yao thought it had come up Saturday; Acting City Manager Ramos said it had come up Friday. Our question: if it had come up Friday, why hadn't it been included in the closed session agenda posted on Friday? Inquiring minds want to know.

On the matter of substance, we also wonder what the issue was. We posed three possibilities yesterday, and our reader posed another. Somehow, we doubt that we are on the mark and suspect that there was some $$$$ issue that somehow came up. After all, the agenda item did list Mr. Marc Gelman, the developer from Enhanced Affordable Development, in a way that implied he was to be a participant. We don't think that Council would have needed him to help discuss air quality issues.

We also don't think the "Notice Problem" had to do with not adequately informing the community about the meeting. Why accept a simple explanation when a more complicated conspiratorial one will do?

All of this is like reading tea leaves or chicken entrails, we realize. Or maybe it's more like Kremlin-watching. Still, when the City fails to provide detailed information, it leaves a vacuum that can best be filled by wild irresponsible speculation.

Affordable Housing Closed Session

[Updated below]

The Claremont City Council, in keeping with its tradition of considering anything substantive only in closed session, has scheduled an extraordinary closed session for this evening, Tuesday, December 11, at 5:15 p.m.

This session was shoe-horned in late on Monday afternoon, just under the legal wire that requires 24-hour notice. That's 24-hour notice if you happen to be passing by the City Hall bulletin boards and read the notices carefully. Or if you inhabit the City website. Otherwise, it's word of mouth.

We don't pretend to know what the subject will be. Anything and everything is fair game under the Brown Act rubrics of "Conference with Real Property Negotiators" and "Price and Terms". Our guess is that somebody sees the avalanche starting and is in a panic. First the EIR calls the site on Baseline dangerous to children's health, then the AQMD weighs in calling for the siting of the affordable housing elsewhere in the city, then Saturday's Courier reports that the Police Commission has gotten off-script and has "identified the plot of land slated for the affordable housing project as one of its top choices for a new police station." (Sorry, no link available. Buy the paper.)

[A reader writes, a couple of hours after this post went up, "Do you really think this City Council could be so enlightened as to see an alternative use for the property? They are probably talking about firing the Police Commission!" Probably.]

Maybe the City will discuss requiring the developer to purchase the item below to mitigate the respiratory health hazard.

Chef Jeff Gets a Tip

Look for the City Council to leave a little on the table for the chef at Council meeting tomorrow, December 11, 2007. The agenda report says that he will find another $17,764 in his pay envelope as an increase to his annual salary. In addition, he will receive a one-time payment for his meritorious service of $9,300. Total: $27,064.

The new salary, exclusive of the nice bonuses that seem to rain down predictably, will be $205,000 effective November 30. There are approximately 35,000 residents in Claremont. Did YOU get $7 in value from City Manager Jeff Parker?

We wonder whether it was the great work on the Johnson's Pasture purchase that earned Parker the bonus and the raise. Or whether it was his reaction--calling in Interpol, the NKVD, the Secret Service, and the Stasi--to our modest efforts at exposing the salaries of city employees. (No, Linda Elderkin reported in the Courier that that subject did not come up.) Well, there must be something good that he did. We will be interested to hear it at the council meeting tomorrow night.

Hey, at least he has a degree from a recognized university.

Expose Yourself to Art...In Claremont

Claremont currently provides a couple of very nice--and related--opportunities to have your senses challenged, for you to relax and perhaps see some things another way...opportunities to get your Art on.

The Claremont Museum of Art, located in the Packing House, has a terrific exhibit up through the end of the month. It is small, as befits the fairly small museum, but it is imaginative and unexpected. It is well worth a visit

The image heading this post is taken from the flyer for the exhibit: Ephemeral: Explorations in Light. The museum is located in the Packing House at 536 West First Street, Claremont. Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is only $3, or become a member and support the enterprise. The museum store, also well worth a look if you need any small (or even large and pricey) holiday gifts, is open the same days, through 7 p.m.

The exhibit was originally planned to run through November 18, but it was extended through December 30. Take a little time to check it out, and plan to spend a little time doing it.

All in all, a very auspicious opening year for the Claremont Museum of Art and a tip of the Insider beret to the community volunteers and those who contributed to get it going.

Also in Claremont, at the Pomona College Museum of Art, is a long-running exhibit of art by James Turrell, sometimes described as one of the most important artists you've never heard of. He also works in light, and his work is unique to him. He says that in high school art class when the teacher was showing slides of great art using a slide projector, he was always more interested in the beam of light coming out of the projector than the art on the screen. This only gives the barest idea of what his work is about. If you are unfamiliar with Turrell, the experience will be unexpected.

Go see it. It's in Claremont and it's free. Besides Turrell, there is another artist on display with additional imaginative light-themed work. The museum is in the Montgomery Art Center, located at the northeast corner of Bonita and College. Hours are Tuesday through Friday, 12-5, Saturday and Sunday, 1-5, and Closed Monday. Caution: The museum is closed during winter break, December 17, 2007 through January 21, 2008. However, there is no rush on this one. The exhibit will be up through May 17, 2008, so if you don't catch it before the holidays, you can do it afterward.

Also on the Pomona College campus: Another Turrell work, Skyspace. This is an outdoor architectural installation forming an entire courtyard between the Lincoln and Edmunds buildings on the Pomona College campus. Like most of Turrell's work, it is more or less indescribable. You need to plan an hour or so near sunrise, or, more likely, sunset. Rather than attempt to give visiting information here, see this link for the details. Since this artwork is part of the Pomona College campus, it will be up indefinitely.

You will want to go back again and again. It is also without charge.

Concert Tonight

Fiddler Jaimi Laval and mandolin player Ashley Broder will be performing Celtic and bluegrass music tonight at the Claremont Folk Music Center beginning at 7:30pm. Tickets are $12.00.

You can hear samples of the duo's music on their MySpace page.

Claremont Folk Music Center
220 Yale Ave.
Claremont, CA 91711
(909) 624-2928

Saturday Mailbag

Another trip to the mailbag finds a reader responding to Thursday's post. The reader agrees that our City Council seems to be overcompensating for it's feelings of inadequacy. Must be redevelopment envy.

Here's what our reader had to say:

I found this Blog kind of by accident as I was surfing the web for some info on the expansion and have since been reading it on a regular basis. I absolutely love reading it.

I share many of your views and observations that are written on your blog. I have lived in Claremont for 8 years now and come to really love it here. But I'd have to say that from my observations over the years I see the city council as inexperienced small town folks trying to emulate the urban artsy fartsy social scene of Old Town Pasadena, especially since Yao and company came on board. In other words they are urban wannabe's. (sp?)

I found it amusing that Ms Baldanado would call the people of Victorville "hicks", when I know many from the L.A. area and Orange County area think that Claremont is a hickish town. I grew up in New York City and when family are in town, they all think Claremont is a small hick town, as well. But then, they feel any city outside of New York is a small town. So I don't know what Ms. Baldonado is talking about.

The current city council likes to present themselves as caring and educated yet they seem to make many decisions regardless of the facts presented to them. One council member Peter Yao, I believe, is trying hard to change the feel and landscape of the city. He seems the most inclined to change the face of the city. Yet he is not seeing the whole picture and the long term effects and eventual consequences of these decisions. I see him as a chameleon who changes his views according to what he sees would get him the most votes during an election. As was evident during his first run for city council. He had been so against the Padua Park, speaking out against it very publicly but then suddenly when it became apparent that he was running for city council he changed his views on the park. Was it because he saw that he would get more votes if he was against it? I think so. He seems to enjoy the concept of "Eminent Domain" of just taking over property if owners refuse to comply with what the city council's plans are. I was appalled at the threats of taking over the property where the present Doubletree hotel sits. It would seem that Mr.Yao and company have already planned things out for the future to take away the land from the current owners.

Again, after eight years of being in Claremont, I have concluded that the city council are like children wanting to be something they are not. They are urban wannabe's but have no clue how to properly go about it. They lack common sense and seem apathetic to what the residents of the city have to say. With the exception of two or three both previous and current city council members since I have lived here In my view, have exhibited arrogance and apathy. I have seen a lot money spent on so called studies for their pet projects. Money that could have been spent more wisely. Hey, lets build another "roundabout" on Indian Hill and then spend money to take it away.

California's Hickiest Town

Victorville gets a lot of ribbing from Southern Californians and Claremonters who look down their long noses at our high desert friends.

In June we wrote about former Claremont Mayor Sandra Baldonado, who had some choice words for Victorvillians at a 2005 City Council meeting. Like a lot of the Claremont 400 and a number of Claremont League of Women Voter members, Sandy had a veneer of civility underlaid with a real nasty streak. If you meet them in a social setting, with a glass of wine at an art show, say, they're wonderfully chipper and polite.

But cross them, and their true sides show. Most people never get beyond the veneer, but scratch the surface and the true, inner nature comes out.

A couple days ago, Victorville Daily Press writer Ryan Orr picked up on the Baldonado audio clip we posted a YouTube back in June, and the FC Blog has more on the subject. Orr's column had this reaction to Sandy:

As an Apple Valley resident I can remain relatively objective here, but I’m not sure who should be more offended, Victorville residents, or West Virginia residents? Last time I checked, Claremont is no paradise.

The YouTube clip's gotten several comments from current and former Victorville residents:

We lived in Claremont for several decades until recently moving to... you guessed it... West Virginia - where a person exhibiting Ms. Baldonado's conduct would be pitied for her obvious lack social education and Southern Manners. In the South, good manners are extended to everyone, regardless of whether you know them or where they live. There's a saying in the South, "Good manners don't cost you anything, but the lack of them may cost you dearly."

and:

What a idiot. What kind of a Mayor is she? Not only is she putting down all of us in Victorville, but also West Virginia.

To answer the second comment, Sandy was a Claremont 400 mayor in the mold of her friend and current Mayor Pro Tem Ellen Taylor or former Mayor Paul Held. Again, all nice people socially, all with deep mean streaks, all snobs.

For those who missed it, you can listen to Sandy letting her guard down. Here's the clip again:

New Blog Link

We've added a link to the David Allen blog in our local blog list in the left-hand column. Allen has a regular column in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and has some great, wry observations on the local scene - everything from politics to food to cultural events.

Staff Credentials

The Claremont 400 love to tell us how our city staff members are the most well-trained, the most highly qualified, the most competent of any staffers around.

So, we wonder, why is it we're always getting into such messes, whether it's putting over $5.3 million of city money into the failed Orange County Investment Pool in the 1990's, losing out on a $1 million open space grant because of faulty deed language for Johnson's Pasture, or $17.5 million because the city failed to implement a Vegetation Management Plan they created for the Claremont Wilderness Park?

That got us here at the Insider to thinking that maybe our staffers qualifications aren't as sterling as we're led to believe.

We came across City Engineer Craig Bradshaw's resume on Linkedin, and saw this for Bradshaw's education:

Education

• Rushmore University
• Brigham Young University
• Brigham Young University

Turns out Bradshaw has an MBA degree from Rushmore. Never heard of it? Rushmore University, that bastion of higher learning, is unaccredited and is located in the Cayman Islands. It deals exclusively in "distance learning."

At Rushmore, once you get your degree, you can become an associate professor and join a faculty that counts among its ranks such learned educators as Morten Middelfart. (Honest, we didn't make that one up!)

The Rushmore website boasts:

After you graduate from your program you may be eligible for an appointment to the position of Associate Professor of Rushmore University. To be considered for this honor, you must be the author of a published book or other significant project. An Associate Professor usually acts as an advisor for a Rushmore student who wants to study one of his or her books or related materials.

Self-promotion? Marketing? You tell us.

In any event, in 2006 Claremont paid Bradshaw $129,910.63 in earnings plus $48,520.50 in benefits. Not doubt there's some stepped-up pay scale for having that Rushmore MBA degree. Imagine what an MBA from an accredited university would get him!

Claremont seems to love those "distance learning" degrees. Recall that the city hired a biologist named Thomas Leslie to do it's biological study for the Padua Park environmental impact report (EIR). Leslie, whom the Claremont Courier reported signed his report for the Padua EIR "Thomas Leslie, Ph.D./Biologist," got his doctorate (in theology) from the Universal Life Church, an online institute of "distance learning." That ULC degree, by the way, cost about $100.

(Coincidentally, Leslie, like Bradshaw, did his undergrad work at BYU.)

Rushmore (established 1996) gets a lot of ribbing from other educators. Blogger and economics professor Ronald M. Ayers, who teaches at the University of Texas at San Antonio, wrote this back in 2005:

Rushmore is certainly different from the more widely known, accredited online universities, such as the University of Phoenix. You can enroll in Rushmore's MBA (Master of Business Administration) program for a one-time payment of $5,499. No Bachelor's degree, the normal prerequisite for an MBA? No problem, because Rushmore doesn't require a Bachelor's degree. Don't waste your time studying for the usual admissions test either. There is none. Speed is of the essence at Rushmore, though. Because there are no admissions tests and no transcripts required, your application will be processed in a mere three days.

Not only are there no admissions tests, there are no tests at all, according to Ayers. Rushmore was founded in South Dakota, which explains the name, but the state apparently cracked down on unaccredited universities, and the school relocated to the Caymans. The Chronicle of Higher Education had an article in March, 2001, about states trying to get handle on diploma mills like Rushmore.

You'd think that a place like Claremont that calls itself "The City of Trees and Ph.D's" would do a better job of verifying credentials. Oh well, at least this explains Claremont's traffic woes, which Bradshaw oversees as the City Engineer.

Village Expansion Mail

A reader weighs in on the Claremont Village Expansion:

Hello,

I have been reading about the Village parking problems and it's amusing to me because the Village has had the same parking problem for over 20 years. When the new parking structure was being planned in the new Indian Hill mall in the Village did the planners take into consideration how much parking West Village was going to require? Since the Village was already in dire need of new parking wouldn't logic dictate creating more new parking in the west? Restaurants need more than a few parking spaces at lunch and the dinner hour and there are some supersized restaurants and many drinking places in the mall not to mention a hotel and a movie theatre. Great planning.. the old "build it and they will come " mantra... but neglect to give "them" a place to park. I have also noticed when I visit the expansion how difficult crossing Indian Hill has become along with entering the expansion itself . I see near pedestrian hits every time I am there and shake my head in disbelief that more thought was not put into allowing cars and people to enter and exit without putting their lives at risk. Am I the only person who has thought of a left turn light onto Indian Hill from the expansion? Am I the only person who has witnessed cars backed up beyond Bonita on Indian Hill while someone is attempting to turn right onto First St into the expansion but is waiting for a flock of strolling shoppers to cross the street? I am no expert on traffic movement but I can attest to what I have witnessed and it's absurd.

Every time I stroll past the plaques (in the two big rocks, in front of the hotel ) dedicated to the super brains on the city council who orchestrated the Village expansion I have to chuckle. Isn't it typical that they spent the time to think of and dedicate a memorial to themselves rather then make sure the finished product was "finished" and not a joke? It might be wise for them to stop patting each other on the back and finish the job and make their brain child a viable customer friendly environment.

I shudder at the thought that the Village we loved is gone forever. It's like a bad face lift, one that leaves the face unrecognizable with all distinguishing features altered and all character gone. When the city installs parking meters in the old Village the dismantling of the small town, stop and chat atmosphere will be complete. The city has pimped out the Village and told us it was for our own good. The question is does anyone buy that????

Thanks for letting me vent......

The reader makes some very good points. Traffic planning, for one thing, may be an oxymoron. Claremont has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last 20 years on traffic studies from experts like Urban Crossroads, who are really paid to present findings that support projects, not to present information that might actually change a project or stop it if there are real problems.

Because they're worried about getting a given project approved, traffic experts tend to ignore or downplay things like the cumulative effects of multiple projects. Oh, they say, this project will only generate this many roundtrips and will and only that many pedestrians, so it really has a very small effect. Go ahead and build it, there won't be any problems.

The problems start when you add the car and foot traffic from multiple projects, and you get a traffic mess. Don't believe us? Just take a look at Indian Hill Blvd. and 1st St. on any weekday late afternoon.

The experts, like the Claremont 400, are great at the theoretical. Their ideas just don't translate very well into the real world.

* * *

Another worry the reader brings up is the effect the Village Expansion will have on the Old Village. We really wonder if the Expansion can generate enough year-round business to sustain the shops that have gone in. As we've indicated in the past, the restaurants certainly seem overpriced for the area. Heck, they'd be overpriced for New York City or Paris, and the service is uniformly bad in the new and old Village.

When you get down to it, Claremont is still an Inland Empire town, and shoppers looking for to make an event out of their buying experience will go to Victoria Gardens to the east or to Pasadena's Old Town to west for that sort of strolling, shopping, dining, movie experience, especially when the facilities here are bad, the service is poor, and the parking and traffic are unbearable.

People will come out of curiosity initially, but over time, the traffic will tail off. In the meantime, the mom-and-pop sort of shops and eateries in the Old Village will not be able to compete with the chains in the Village Expansion, and Claremont will end up losing the unique charm it once had.

Such is the price of the Claremont 400's vision for our town, and no amount of advertising can paper that over, as another reader observed:

chamber/city ad campaign

Is “postmodernist” another way of saying “trashy” or perhaps déclassé? What sort of vapidity have we sunk to? These ads are AWFUL.

Claremont Chamber Rings in the Season

The Claremont Chamber of Commerce is certainly busy this holiday season. The 12th Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony & Holiday Promenade is this Friday, December 7th, beginning at 5:30pm at the Metrolink Depot at 1st St. and Harvard Ave. in the Old Claremont Village.

The event is co-sponsored by the city of Claremont and a number of Village businesses.

The Chamber is also working with the city on an ongoing postmodernist advertising campaign. You may have seen an ad in the California section of the LA Times with a photo of a seated woman's extended leg about to receive a shoe, a la Cinderella, from the hand a salesperson. The text says:

JENNA NEEDED NEW
STILETTOS TO GO WITH HER
RUBY RED CONVERTIBLE.

CLAREMONT
Shop, Dine...Chill.

The Chamber and the city of Claremont have partnered on this marketing project. They've also created a website: http://www.experienceclaremont.com/.

Photo Op

Canan Tasci in the Daily Bulletin had a writeup of Saturday's unveiling of the PhotoBooth Community Art Project.

The project was commissioned by the Claremont Museum of Art and is the work of Bay Area artist Christopher Irion, who back in October set up a photo booth and took over 200 photos of area residents and put them into a 72-foot long mural installed between the College Heights Lemon Packing House and the new parking structure on 1st St.

Claremont Community Development Director Tony Witt (twice) and Human Services Deputy Director Mercedes Santoro are represented in the work ($330,000 in salaries in benefits - your tax dollars hard at work). Councilmember Sam Pedroza and his wife are also among the faces on display. A lot of ordinary folks appear as well.

The Bulletin also has a video of the unveiling and photos of the event on their website.

At the Movies

Daily Bulletin writer John Weeks had a column in Friday's paper critical of the Laemmle Claremont 5 theatres in the Claremont Village Expansion (née Village West).

Weeks' main complaint was that Laemmle wasn't showing enough art house films:

As the summer unfolded, Laemmle's Claremont 5 played host to the blockbuster "The Bourne Ultimatum" with Matt Damon for four weeks, the big-cast comedy "Death at a Funeral" for five weeks and such other Hollywood fare as "3:10 to Yuma," "The Nanny Diaries" and "The Brave One" with Jodie Foster.

Yes, there were little films, usually one a week, such as "Rocket Science," "Vanaja" and "The Rape of Europa." But many films that played at Laemmle theaters in Los Angeles and Orange counties never made it to Claremont at all, including "Manda Bala," winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize, and "Self-Medicated," winner of 39 international film awards.

Currently at Laemmle's Claremont 5, the lineup includes one art house offering, "Control," plus such big-studio releases as "August Rush," Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," "Lars and the Real Girl," "No Country for Old Men," "Love in the Time of Cholera" and "Dan in Real Life."

We noticed the same thing, though to be fair movies like first-time director Craig Gillespie's "Lars and the Real Girl" don't strike us as mainstream Hollywood films, unless there's a genre for movies about painfully introverted, lonely small-town Midwestern young men who fall in love with sex dolls named Bianca.

(By the way, we recommend "Lars," which not about sex at all; rather, it's really about hope, love and community.)

It's quite possible that our area just may not have the demographics to support more than one screen showing independent and foreign film. If Los Angeles is a tough market for art houses, which over the past 20 years have become increasingly rare, then the Inland Empire would .

One thing we did observe after going to the Claremont 5 a few weeks ago to see "Lars" was that the theatre we were in was very small. Most of the seats seemed too close to screen, and the screen itself seemed to fill up the entire wall edge-to-edge, so that it seemed too large for the space. If you weren't there early enough, you might not have gotten one of the 10 or 15 seats that were far enough back, and you'd have been looking up at Ryan Gosling's nosehairs.

We haven't noticed this problem at other Laemmle venues like the Pasadena Playhouse 7, so we have to assume it's a result of having to shoehorn in as many screens as possible into too small a space. This might be a problem in the long run for the Claremont Laemmle.

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The Village Expansion Plaza in front of the new Le Pain Quotidien bakery and the Claremont 5 was scheduled to open yesterday.

Also, yesterday was the unveiling of artist Christopher Irion's PhotoBooth community portrait project. The project was commissioned by the Claremont Museum of Art and is on display next to the Packing House parking structure on First St.

The installation is on display through at least January 1st.

Three Forks Discussion Thread

Three Forks, the chophouse in the new Claremont Village Expansion, is the subject of a discussion on Chowhound.

Reader reviews seem mixed. High price and poor customer service seem to be the biggest complaints - something that the folks at M-M-M-My Pomona noted quite a while ago when speaking about Village West in general. Another comment questioned the glowing review Three Forks got from S. Irene Virbila in the LA Times at the beginning of November. (See our November 8th post for more details.)

One More Closed Session

The Claremont City Council is holding another closed session meeting today at 3pm to finish up its evaluation of Claremont City Manager Jeff Parker.

The council must not have been able to finish things up at their meeting Thursday - apparently there was too much to going on with City Attorney Sonia Carvalho and her high, lonesome sound to complete Parker's evaluation.

Today's meeting will take place at City Hall.