"Poor Pomona"

So says frequent FC commenter and local character Miss Havisham in many of her comments on our blog.

We will have more on Pomona tomorrow.

Pomona's Recent Press Clippings

So last week the city of Pomona sent us a letter threatening us with legal action on account of some posts we put up regarding their city manager, Doug Dunlap. We took the posts down as a precautionary measure—we didn't want to deal with possible legal action. However, rest assured we are open to the possibility of reposting some of our writings after we get some expert advice. More on this later today.

We appreciate Wendy Leung and Frank C. Girardot (who had or has a few blogs of his own) for their efforts in writing an article Saturday about the stifling threats of the city attorney of Pomona against this blog. See the SGVT (Blog deletes postings regarding city manager) and the DB (Blogger gives in to Pomona). Please note that the city attorney, Arnold M. Alvarez-Glasman, pictured at right, said of Foothill Cities: "The credence that one puts behind this publication is no greater than the National Enquirer."

Thanks, no doubt, in part to a link from Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit, I noticed that the Daily Bulletin article was second on their "Most Viewed" list well into Sunday night. Glenn Reynolds said:

Even assuming Alvarez-Glasman has a legal leg to stand on here -- which is far from clear -- why is the City Attorney making legal threats on behalf of a private interest? Because the city has no interest in not being libeled, and the City Manager's interest is a personal one. Does the City Attorney routinely do personal legal work for city officials?




Kevin Roderick over at LA Observed was, I believe, the first to mention us, devoting a nice post to the issue even though I know his journalistic instincts are (to some extent justifiably) tweaked by "anony-bloggers," as he calls us. Roderick also quotes some of Edward Barrera's comments. Edward is the city editor of the SGVT, who has been friendly to us on his blog even though we've disagreed with each other in the past.

If you are interested in the legal issues at play, you should check out Eugene Volokh's kind post and the comments beneath it. See also Overlawyered.

Mayor Sam says (F-bomb edited):

Foothill Cities - we have your back. Don't let these bastards push you around. And private memo to Arnie and Dougie: We're not going to let you f%#k with FC. You've already made a mistake there. Don't even think about f#$%#@g with us over here - you will look like the biggest clowns to ever inhabit municipal government ever.

LAist says:

Although we have much love for Pomona, despite the fact that they don't allow booze in the Glass House, they better watch it or government officiating also might get outsourced to India. How hard is it to send a C&D via email?

The strangely named but widely read skippy the bush kangaroo blog gave us a nod as well:

...why would a city government want a blog to stop speculating about what's going on at city hall, unless there's something going on at city hall?

Little Miss Attila notices the way the Pomona city attorney's letter uses the word "blogs" as a noun:

This one features scare quotes and the usual idiot's confusion of a blog with a blog entry—these are, presumably, the same people who confuse 'faxes' with fax machines, and 'CDs' with CD players.

Peter Sean Bradley of Lex Communis says:

This is so typical of local governments . . . The post dared - dared! - to offer a theory about why the Pomona City Manager suddenly retired.

Prettier Than Napoleon takes a shot at Pomona:

The only good thing about Pomona is Juanita's Burritos.

We wouldn't go so far as to say it is the only good thing, but Juanita's is certainly one good thing about Pomona.

Thanks also to the Claremont Insider ("Pomona just may be making martyrs out of Publius and Centinel over at FC"), Sue's Place ("Just imagine if Greensboro-area city employees sought cease-and-desist actions against ‘local’ blogs spreading rumors"), State Sunshine and Open Records, Electric City, and anyone else I'm likely missing.

Now, as you might imagine, we have some more to say about this issue and the reaction to it. We'll have that for you later today, after we get all our ducks in a row. For now though, look at all of the above and consider—was it worth it to the city of Pomona to spend the taxpayer's money on the city attorney to harass us? Couldn't they foresee that they'd generate all this largely negative press? If they didn't realize that we'd post their threats and the above would result, it speaks to the PR incompetence of Pomona—and serves as a lesson to many local governments when it comes to the new media. But if they did realize this might happen but wanted to spend the taxpayer's money anyway, then why is it so worth it to them to silence us?

Planet Glendora: Teenage Girls Attack Councilman

A piece of campaign propaganda by Glendora city council candidate John HarroldSo as Centinel recently pointed out, not only will the two teenage girls arrested for "vandalism" not be charged by the District Attorney: they'll be charging forward with a lawsuit to the tune of $5 million against the city councilman who put them under citizen's arrest after he caught them putting stickers on his illegally placed campaign signs. So saith Alison Hewitt of the SGVT, who may just be the most quoted journalist on the FC blog.

Although I'm not surprised by the suit, I'm not really rooting for it either. However, this story illustrates a lot about our local governments. I have some sympathy for Councilman Clifford, who was caught up in the midst of another acrimonious Glendoran election. But if, as an elected official and a former cop, you can't understand the PR problems you are going to have if you put two teenage girls under citizen's arrest until 4 police cars show up to arrest them for putting stickers on your illegally placed campaign signs . . . well, I don't know what to tell you. Especially when you voted for the ordinance that made the placement of the signs illegal. As I said before, he has an argument for what he did, and I can understand that argument, technically speaking, but the fact that this man couldn't foresee such a lawsuit coming bares the sorry state of many of our FC. Up until recently Clifford and many others were acting as if the girls should be charged with a crime.

It kind of reminds me of the recent moronic public relations strategy of another city we cover. I'll give you a hint: this city's name rhymes with Pomona.

Speaking of Planet Glendora, there's an interesting letter on the strange world's NIMBYism in the SGVT. There's also plenty more on the Glendora "vandalism" case if you scroll down here. A few choice posts:

Planet of the Glendorans, Part I of III: The Media
Planet of the Glendorans, Part II of III: The Law
Planet of the Glendorans III of III: The Future

Pomona City Attorney Threatens Foothill Cities

[NB: Our regular coverage of the FC, including the latest on outsourcing Pasadena news to India, continues below this post, but we thought it sufficiently important to keep this at the top of the page.]

[Also, if you click on the images, they link to a higher-resolution version of the letter, which should be legible.]


A while ago we floated some rumors circulating via email concerning certain goings on in Pomona's city hall. We figured the accusations were so far out there that they wouldn't cause any harm, and we figured we'd learn more about what was going on by asking our readers about them. We also sent emails to all the parties concerned. We eventually decided that posting the name of one of the parties in question would be unfair, so we removed the name of that city employee from our little blog. Although we were able to maintain private email correspondence with that person, the City of Pomona made sure that all our emails to city officials were sent back to us as spam.

Some time passed, and (it seems) the City Manager did comment on our blog, although he made an unintentionally amusing spelling error in the process. What became clear from some of our comments and emails was simply that there were people out there who really didn't like the City Manager, and they were either telling bald-faced lies or something close to the truth. Other than that comment, we got nothing even close to official from anyone in the city. Until yesterday.

We've decided to remove almost all the posts concerning this incident from our "web-site publication," as the city attorney called Foothill Cities in his uncharitable letter-in-a-pdf file to us yesterday. He sent it, he says, "on behalf of the city and the parties named in your recent 'blogs.'"

I don't think we've done anything wrong, and I think we would likely be fine facing the threatened "legal consequences." But, of course, such a process would be time consuming and costly—assuming the city actually carried through with it—and, frankly, considering this is a very part-time gig, and we don't exactly have the resources the city of Pomona does, we're going to let Goliath win this one. If you want to know what this whole matter stemmed from, we've kept our original post online, which you can see here.

Feel free to discuss this matter with us further via our "web-site publication." You can name us all you want in your "blogs." And keep your tips coming via email. I'll be out of town this weekend, but I'll have more to say on this matter and the recent Pasadena Now outsourcing of local news to India first thing Monday.

This Post Has Been Removed: Pomona City Attorney Threatens Foothill Cities

This post has been removed from our humble blog as per the threat of the Pomona City Attorney.

Blogging City Managers

Speaking of Pomona, there is some interesting speculation in the comments beneath this post about who the city of Pomona might hire as their next city manager, a novel suggestion as to how Sierra Madre should pick their next city manager, and more.

In that exchange I mention that the current city manager of Ventura, Rick Cole—who should be no stranger to FC readers as the co-founder of the Pasadena Weekly, former Mayor of Pasadena, and former city manager of Azusa—has his own blog as city manager on Ventura's government website.
Can you imagine any of our current FC city manager's blogging? I can't, although this will no doubt be more common in the future. You'd think that maybe in Sierra Madre, at least, they might understand the advantages of starting one. At least Pomona city manager Doug Dunlap did us the courtesy of commenting on ours.

Claremont v. Pomona: Putting Up the Wall

UPDATE
Please drink in the Claremont Insider's sparkling, refreshing, Frosty post on the matter:
As long as we're shelling out the money, why not build a wall around our town? Something there is that doesn't like a snob.
Brilliant.
__________________________________________________________


Will Bigham recounts the various places that the city of Claremont has sought to build a much needed, much expanded police station.

1. Vacant land near Oak Park Cemetery, Sycamore Avenue.
2. Howard Johnson Inn at Indian Hill Boulevard and San Jose Avenue.
3. Former Xerox property at Towne and Bonita avenues.
4. Packing-house project land at Indian Hill and Metrolink tracks.
5. Affordable-housing project land at Base Line Road and Towne Avenue.
6. Former rock quarry at Monte Vista Avenue and Base Line Road.

Option 2 and 6 would require the city to use eminent domain powers to force private property owners to sell their land. The Affordable Housing Bunny has big, pointy PR teeth when provoked, so they'll likely stay away from option 5. The ability to implement option 4 has come and gone, as the packing-house is full up of private development now. Option 1 is also off the table, because, unbeknownst to the FC blog "An expansion of the cemetery onto the vacant land was recently authorized by the City Council."

That leaves the, ahem, nuclear option—#3—nuclear because, as we've discussed before, Claremont wants to take a small part of Pomona unto itself.

In case you don't remember, Pomona didn't react very well to this idea. And Will Bigham also reports that Claremont Police Comissioner Gary Soto recently responded by calling Pomona Mayor Norma Torres "someone who lacks political savvy and professionalism." Heh.

I can understand Pomona's eye-rolling attitude when it comes to wealthy Claremonsters wanting to take away a plot of Pomona land that could serve as the site of a tax-generating business. After all, Claremont is basically saying, "Well, putting a police station within our own borders would cause us to have to make hard choices. Hm. Hey Pomona, why don't you fork it over? What's it to you, anyhow?" As I've said before, why not just put up a wall?

On the other hand, it sure doesn't seem like businesses are lining up around the block to set up shop at this site at present. And impressions aside, it would seem that a police station at the site would only help Pomona's crime problem. Anyhow, look for Claremont to begin the Anschluss by claiming that the land was theirs to begin with while stirring up general Claremontster anger towards Poormoana.

The real upshot of all of this is that it's giving David Allen some damn fine column material:

In Pomona, city commissions aren't a steppingstone to the City Council, they're a dead end. Where's the talent pool? (For the dispiriting answer, look at the City Council.) ... Rather than extend to Pomona a neighborly helping hand, Claremont's best and brightest generally prefer to stick out their tongue.

(See also the first round of joking on the matter.)

By the way, the Claremont Courier has an online article by Tony Krickl headlined Will South Claremont Finally Get Some Respect?

Wanted: City Manager in Sierra Madre & Pomona

Joffe...focused on the need for someone with good communication skills that would be comfortable dealing with the very active and involved public in Sierra Madre. --Eric Blodgett, SM Weekly

Heh. That's the nice way of putting it.

Sierra Madre is using a firm (Mathis & Associates—scroll to see the Sierra Madre listing, see our version of the listing here) to find the right candidate. This is the norm for cities looking for a city manager. After all, city managers are the ones who usually really run the city. Once they are made a city manager, so long as everything goes alright, many of the same people sort of rotate around various cities in SoCal.

Oddly, to my knowledge, the city of Pomona isn't using a firm like Mathis to find a replacement for the retiring Doug Dunlap. This is abnormal behavior; one wonders why. Perhaps it's no big deal; perhaps they already know that they are going to hire someone internally.

This Post Has Been Removed: Pomona City Attorney Threatens Foothill Cities

This post has been removed from our humble blog as per the threat of the Pomona City Attorney.

This Post Has Been Removed: Pomona City Attorney Threatens Foothill Cities

This post has been removed from our humble blog as per the threat of the Pomona City Attorney.

This Post Has Been Removed: Pomona City Attorney Threatens Foothill Cities

This post has been removed from our humble blog as per the threat of the Pomona City Attorney.

Claremont v. Pomona, Again

Pomona City Councilman Stephen Atchley was none to pleased by all the youngsters joking around about Claremont's proposed Anschluss of Pomona land for the sake of a new Claremont police station. I feel his anger, but...

Let me moderate this debate.

Is Claremont laughably arrogant? Yes.

Is Pomona embarrassingly insecure? Yes.

There. Everyone happy?

I'm surprised that no one has paid much attention to the fact that we caught some Claremont gadflies planning their next move on the homegrownbud online forums:

it wont be hard to put a damper on them with our big sign outside as they walk in. plus, when you wave and say high with a big smile, really tweaks the straights. our plan is to make them so uncomfortable, it drives them nuts. it is a very rich college town, and they don't like anything that disturbs their perfect order.

And by the way, despite the fact that the city quickly filters out our emails as spam, it does appear that we get some visitors from Pomona City Hall regardless. Go figure.

This Post Has Been Removed: Pomona City Attorney Threatens Foothill Cities

This post has been removed from our humble blog as per the threat of the Pomona City Attorney.

FC Blog Banned by Pomona Government

I just noticed this morning that seemingly any email I send to a Pomona city address gets blocked by their spam filter. This wasn't the case yesterday. Kind of reminds me of putting one's hands over one's ears in order not to hear things one doesn't want to hear.

Pomona City Manager "Retires"?

Monica Rodriguez says in the DB that "the city will cover the cost of Dunlap's health-insurance coverage until he becomes eligible for Medicare coverage, and at that time will pick up the cost of the highest retiree health contribution available under the contract the city has with the California Public Employees Retirement System.

The agreement also contains provisions that call for paying Dunlap $150 per hour plus expenses should his services be needed beyond his Oct. 5 retirement date."Monica Rodriguez wrote a longer article explaining that Dunlap's "been thinking about retirement on and off for the past year." Pomona Mayor Norma Torres says, "He's leaving on a very good note."

Problem is, Foothill Cities hears otherwise. Why do you think Doug Dunlap retired? Email us.

Your Friends and Neighbors...

Ouch:
Last year I did not renew my subscription to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, and this year I will end my delivery of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, I have opted to subscribe to an online news source instead.

My subscription to the Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly will continue, with no plans of stopping delivery this year.

I wonder if this guy found the place he wanted:
I got off on Azusa Ave./SR-39 and went up to take a peek at Azusa, one of the more working class suburbs in the area. It wasn't too bad, actually. A little more ethnic, but no different than Riverside. I cruised East on Foothill through Glendora, also a pretty city. The eastern edge of Azusa (closer to Glendora) was pretty nice...Initially I considered as far West as Pasadena...

What kind of shows?
We have shows in San Dimas, Pomona, San Gabriel, Norwalk, Glendora, and Covina.

They finally open up Glendora Mt. Road, and look what happens:
...got stuck offroading today in the mountains. Mr. Wilson and I decided to try to take a walking trail that was located about halfway thru Glendora Mt. Road; it was gated off...

He don't like Glendora:
I Don't think I want my kids living here.
:-/
Too much .... "Glendoraness"
Those of you that live here know what I'm talking about. There's too much hate, racism, and drama here. I would give anything to move out of this city.

Is he talking about Glendora, CA?

If Claremont Became Pomona . . .

Suddenly Claremont would have actual problems to solve, instead of all the fake ones the community invents to occupy its time.

Hah! So says David Allen of the DB in another excellent column that follows up on a DB op-ed suggesting Pomona demand a few things from Claremont in return for giving the city of trees and PhDs land for a new police station.

Also in regards to the proposed Claremont Anschluss, the Claremont Insider brilliantly suggested that the two towns switch city councils: "...Something along the lines of ABC's 'Wife Swap.'" Now that would be something I'd pay to see.

See also these two posts by the Insider on the water situation over there.

Reefer Sadness in Claremont

Local politics are really just plain weird. Tony Krickl's story in the Claremont Courier is a classic example. The guy who was trying to open a pot shop in Claremont now admits he was doing it on purpose in order to get the city council to ban such establishments in Claremont. Why? So that he and his partner running the pot shop in Pomona wouldn't have any competition, that's why. After their relationship fell apart, he felt bad and confessed to the city council. There are many angles of interest here, from Mr. Kruse's repentance to the ridiculous current system of selling marijuana as "the medicine you can smoke."

As the LA Times' Political Muscle blog said recently, "the unspoken truth is many others are using the 10-year-old, randomly enforced California law to grow pot for sale to people who aren't sick. Just say it."Don't take the LAT' word for it: watch the video of a recent CBS2/KCAL9 undercover investigation which revealed that if you are over 18 and have $175, you can get a marijuana prescription no matter what. Undercover operatives who said they were suffering from dry skin, hair loss, and sore feet from high-heeled shoes were all given prescriptions. And check out the kid gleefully sharing his medicine on the street with all his—no doubt sick—friends.

Many of these doctors are simply pro-marijuana activists using the medical marijuana issue in order to advance the greater cause of legalization. For instance, one doctor/activist who handed out over 1,000 marijuana prescriptions also "grew pot in his backyard and distributed it for free." People are free to argue about legalization, but to my mind, hiding behind the medical marijuana issue is disingenuous.

There are undeniably lots of people out there in pain, some of whom use marijuana with self-reported success. Yet I do find it odd that on the occasions that I have been to medical marijuana centers, the vast majority of sick people going to buy weed looked like stereotypical potheads, mostly male, between the ages of 20-50.

Anyways, you have to feel for Mayor Yao and all the spam he must be getting these days. Never heard of the Poor Man's Bikini Beach Show on the independent KJLA? Funny, neither had I. The website for the show says that "$50 gets your ad on TV or the web," so someone shelled out the big bucks for this ad featuring Mayor Yao's email address:



No doubt this was to reach all the sick people—er, certain sort of male in the 20-50 year old range—watching the Poor Man's Bikini Show.

Commence the Anschluss!

Claremont v. Pomona, again. Will Bigham is on the case in the IVDB:

City officials believe they've found an ideal location for the new Claremont police station: Pomona ...a 10-acre lot...that Claremont police believe would perfectly suit the department's needs.

I commented on the proposed Anschluss the other day; as I said then, the plan would annex the property to Claremont, where the station would fly the sovereign Claremont tree flag, and guard. our. borders. Why not just start building a wall? I feel for the council on this one, though, as the "style" of the current (tiny) building is lost in the uglier, older, era of rancid bong-water. And Claremont's crime problems are often related to Pomona spill over. But maybe this isn't the best way to go about things.

Not suprisingly:

[Pomona Mayor Norma] Torres says there is no way the city would sell the land to Claremont, much less allow it to annex the land, which Claremont officials want to do before building the station.

"We can talk about annexing the city of Claremont into Pomona, but not any part of Pomona into Claremont," Torres said wryly. "That sounds like as good an idea as them trying to build a police station in my city.

"This is the first I've heard about this. They've not had an official conversation about this with our staff or any city officials. ... I think the whole idea is a bit laughable."

Well, Norma, it might actually help the crime problem in your city. But I can understand your frustration with the Claremonster attitude the plan projects to the world.

List! Claremont City Council's Top 4 Issues

Pot use aside, the Claremont Courier ran an article by Tony Krickl detailing how the city council recently met and "offered its vision of the most pressing issues affecting Claremont:"

1)Acquisition of water company
Hmmm...a measly $100 million in costs to the city, the use of shady eminent domain laws, and no reduction in water bills for 20-30 years? d00d! Sign me up!

[Um, why can't we just switch to another company instead of reinventing the wheel? Or is the water supply biz a free-market free zone?]

2)New police station
The plus here is the use of eminent domain again, or, even better, the opportunity to purchase a property in Pomona and commence the Anschluss. Yes, that's right, the plan would annex the property to Claremont, where the station would fly the sovereign Claremont tree flag, and guard. our. borders.
I mean, why not just start building a wall? I do feel for the council on this one, though, as the "style" of the current (tiny) building is lost in the uglier, older, era of rancid bong-water.

3) Johnson’s Pasture negotiations
Let's get this one behind us. We're all sick of hearing about it; Claremont voted to buy the damn property, now lets enjoy it. Late at night. While smoking medicine.

4) Other priorities
These include "monitoring the activities of the [nefarious] Pomona Valley Protection Association" (for more info, scroll through our Pomona and Claremont categories and check out the Insider). Of course, an "ordinance on mansionization and incorporating green building design" ranked above "addressing the city tree policy" or "south Claremont beautification." Cuz' really, who cares about south Claremont? Maybe we could let Pomona annex that area unto itself.

Thankfully for all of you at home, ole' Publius has his own list.