Of Consulting Firms and City Managers. . .

Remember our post (and, more interestingly, your comments beneath it) about Sierra Madre hiring Mathis and Associates to find their next city manager?

The Claremont Insider makes some interesting points about Mathis and Claremont's former city manager. Thoughts?

And again, will any of the city manager's in the FC ever blog?

Sierra Madre, Quiet Again?

Well, Molly R. Okeon reports that "the council held a tame meeting of reasonable length." I think Councilman Buchanan is right: everyone's tired.

Anthony Ha of the Hollister Free Lance recently penned some lines of interest for Sierra Madreans:

The Hollister Downtown Association recently selected Irvine-based RBF Consulting to prepare a new downtown strategy plan...

RBF Consulting comes not just with a long list of experience, but planning awards as well. The firm's downtown-specific plan for the City of Sierra Madre won an American Planning Association Award for its public outreach in 2005. John Gillison, Sierra Madre's former city manager, said that although the specific plan has since been caught up in political turmoil, he's still happy with RBF's work.

"It was a very well-designed outreach process," Gillison said.

Of Lampposts and Mayors

To paraphrase an old saying, would you rather be a lamppost in Arcadia, or Mayor of Sierra Madre?

So begins Mike Lucas' article on new Sierra Madre Mayor Enid Joffe in the San Marino Tribune. Mayor Joffe says, “There is no point in pretending we have a consensus council ... but that’s okay." However, "Joffe tends to laugh off reports that her city is on the verge civil unrest or anarchy." Overall, Joffe comes off as pretty level headed in the article—even to the point of wisely refraining from wise-cracking about Arcadia politics.

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.

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.

Healthy Choices at Local Eats

Trainer Lynda Linforth-Moran writes the aptly titled "Trainer Tips By Lynda" column in the Arcadia Weekly. This week's column was about how to eat out locally in a healthy sort of way. I've added links to the restaurants in question:


The Derby, Arcadia: I choose the steak brochette, prepared with half rice and half grilled vegetables with no oil. Their fish of the day is also wonderful, however, request no sauce and be careful about your side dishes.
Mediterranean Garden Grill, Monrovia: Their meat is grilled, therefore less fat. I have the chicken kebab with grilled vegetables.

I'll add that you could also try the Canteloupe flavored tobaccy from their hookah. See also:

Macaroni Grill, Monrovia: Request the build your own pasta menu. I order the whole-wheat pasta, no sauce, grilled chicken, sun-dried tomatoes and broccoli.
Mountain View Sushi, Sierra Madre: One of the only sushi places I have found that will make sushi with brown rice. Try the brown rice vegetable roll or the tuna roll.

It Ain't Over in Sierra Madre

Downtowndirt.org's parting shotCouncilwoman Enid Joffe is the new Mayor in the Sierra Madre rotation, as reported by Erica Blodgett in the Weekly. "Joffe said she wants to focus on filling the city manager position . . . [and a bunch of other stuff, and then, my personal favorite:] and ending council meetings earlier." There was some controversy over the choice of Joe Mosca (who many Sierra Madreans are trying to recall) as Mayor pro tem, and no doubt this prolonged the meeting.

Erica Blodgett also has an article about how "just two and a half months short of the end of his second term, Ron Brandley resigned from the Sierra Madre Planning Commission effective this week after an anonymous phone call to City Hall led to his being questioned concerning his business relationship with Sierra Madre Congregational Church and his role on the Commission." We pointed you to Bill Coburn's report on this strange story a while ago.

The Sierra Madruh announces that Blodgett has started her own newspaper.

See also the Mt. Wilson Observer for articles on all of the above topics, except for Blodgett's alleged newspaper venture.

In lighter news, this report mentions in a throw away line that Sierra Madre is in the running for the National Civic League's "All-American City" award.

And darn it all, just as they were starting to put up online videos here of the most interesting city council meetings in all the FC these days, it looks like they took them down. Anyone know what's going on? I do know you can go to Sierra Madre's website and evaluate it via their quick online survey—in which you can ask them to put city council meetings online.

SM Art Fair Starts Soon (via inSierraMadre.com)

Farm Your Market: Victory Park to San Dimas

The San Dimas Farmer's Market starts up again today, from 5:00PM to 9:00PM. Go to the San Dimas Farmer's Market website for all the current info and see our our earlier post on its revival.

In celebration, SanDimas.net points us to a YouTube video promo for the old Market (its just one of many San Dimas event videos on YouTube):



Speaking of Farmer's Markets, the LAT' Russ Parsons ranks an SGV Farmer's Market #3 of 10 in his SoCal list:

3. Total Victory

Tucked away in an affluent corner between Sierra Madre and San Marino, Victory Park is a big market that somehow still feels neighborly. Established in 1984, its maturity shows. While lesser markets can brag of only a few scattered high points, at Victory it seems like everything is terrific. There is a splendid balance among the roughly 40 certified vendors every week: vegetable dynamos such as Underwood Farms, which this week is selling three kinds of radishes, celery root, baby leeks, two kinds of cauliflower, beets and kohlrabi; high-quality mid-size farmers such as Joe Avitua at Walker Farms, who has several types of mandarins, Oroblanco and Melogold grapefruits and blood oranges, as well as dried fruit and walnuts; and even backyard grower Mike Taylor, who draws lines every weekend for his eclectic mix of head lettuces and citrus. On one recent visit, there was even someone selling fully grown artichoke plants in 10-gallon containers — the ultimate in cooking from scratch.

Pasadena Victory Park, Saturday, North Sierra Madre Boulevard and Paloma Street, 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (626) 449-0179.

Eavesdropping the FC: Sierra Madre Edition

The journey of this long weekend took me a lot of places I’ve never been before . . . I have never been to an official tea party or in Sierra Madre before. Quaint little town full of rich people it looks like. Heh.


She spins a tale of Downtown Sierra Madre: Beantown, Starbucks, the Village Pizzeria, and her lost car keys.








I used to wear all sorts of vintage skirts and dresses from the 50's and 60's for dancing. The petticoats added to the authenticity of my outfits. I would find them in thrift shops at flea markets and at Square Dance Land in Sierra Madre.






The Folee is a bag produced by the company Booq, based in Sierra Madre, California.





I reach the intersection — downtown Sierra Madre. There’s not much, only things that matter the most — Starbucks, ColdStone, Curves, Dominos…but no signal. There are none. Locals call it Sierra Mayberry . . . I never would’ve thought that I’d ever fall in love with this city. How can you resist? It’s almost perfect.


The Treasure of Sierra Madre lies not underground in gold veins but above ground with a lavender blooming vine. Even more pics here.




The Sixth Chamber, a new-but-old rock band checks out their own press from the Pasadena Weekly: "The music starts at 10 p.m. Wednesday at the Buccaneer Lounge, 70 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre. Call (626) 355-9045."




Today Cathy, Jeff, and myself met at Alverno High School in Sierra Madre to start off their engagement photos. I’ve shot at this location a few times and I absolutely love it! It has such great architecture and amazing light. More of Tammy's wedding/engagement photo shoots set in Sierra Madre here.

Wrapping Up in the Sierra Madre

Measure V proponents Sierra Madre Councilman Kurt Zimmerman and resident Kevin Dunn celebrate the results of Tuesday night’s election. – Photo by Terry Miller

In the Measure V victory post, I neglected to mention Erica Blodgett's Arcadia Weekly article.

See also the Bill Coburn article, pictures, and two videos (videos both involve Councilman Kurt Zimmerman) from the Sierra Madre News.

[Further, note that "Planning Commissioner Ron Brandley has tendered his resignation to the City Council," but not, he says, because he has done anything wrong. His resignation is the result of an anonymous phone call suggesting the fact that his wife's flower shop gets money from a nearby church—which sought and received a conditional use permit from the planning commission—amounts to a conflict of interest. Very strange incident, written up by Bill Coburn.]

The Mount Wilson Observer announces "Village People Prevail With Measure V Victory" and basks in the sun of victory. Meanwhile, Downtown Dirt signs off:

...this is downtowndirt.org’s last article. It’s time to move on to other endeavors in other ways. I will miss the phone calls, and the emails; I’ll miss the camaraderie, the friendships; I’ll miss the news and the excitement, the emotion and the urgency; I’ll miss the passion.

I will miss you guys terribly…

…But not them.

Heh. What will happen next? We'll all be watching...

Measuring V-ictory

Surprising Centinel and myself, despite being outspent by the opposition by a fairly large margin, and in the face of their online enemies, Measure V won by (thus far) 93 votes. The city's website has the all-but-offical breakdown.

About half of Sierra Madre's voters came out to ensure that, in the words of Molly R. Okeon's SGVT article, "any proposed downtown development that is taller than two stories or 30 feet, and greater than 13 units per acre" will need to be voted on by the whole city. And as Valerie Reitman of the LAT says: "Any sale, lease or development of parking lots, streets or other publicly owned land in the central district would also require voter approval."

So out of the swirling cloud of downtown dirt, dust, mud, fur, claws, blood, dead moles, broken windows, and dirty blogs that is Sierra Madre, the Sierra Madre Residents For Responsible Development (SMRRD), as they proclaim on their Yes on V website, have emerged victorious. Fair enough.

Normally I am against such initiatives, as the solution to policy questions in most cases in a representative government such as ours is to simply vote against your elected official, not to take power away from them. Requiring elections to decide policy questions instead of making your elected official do their job is usually a bad idea that has bad (and in almost every case unintended) consequences.

But, there is a bit of a difference between initiative based politics on the state level as compared to the local—for one thing, the stakes are lower. If Sierra Madreans as a whole think that desperate measures are called for to prevent downtown development, and that recall attempts and city council elections aren't enough, so be it. Given the seemingly inevitable drift towards ever growing development projects in the San Gabriel Valley, this isn't a completely indefensible fear. And it won't hurt much else in the grand scheme of things—in fact, it will make for some damn interesting politics in the future.

Forget about American Idol, I can't wait to watch the next city council meeting, can you?

Now that it is all over, I just found the old Sierra Madre Radicals and Assorted Characters blog, as well as a brand new one: Sierra Madre, A view from the Canyon.

Of blogs and websites in Sierra Madre there is no end...

Measure V Update

One of our most faithful commenters, anonymous, brings us the latest on the outstanding Measure V votes:

There seems to be some question about how the 180 ballots (absentees turned in during the election as well as the provisional ballots) yet to be counted will affect the outcome.

While the 180 ballots are key, too large a percentage (at least 77.8%) would need to be NO votes for those ballots to affect a change in the results. Looking through the various precincts and absentee results that seems highly unlikely*. While the gap may grow or shrink it looks as though Measure V has indeed passed.

*The results so far show an average shift of 9.6% with a standard deviation of 6.3%, therefore this is NOT a statistical dead heat. We're talking about being around three standard deviations away from the 77.8% needed to change the results.

Measure V Passes; Sierra Madre Burns

Or at least that's what inSierraMadre.com is reporting (minus the rioting, though it can't be far behind). There's no real reason to doubt this claim since it's what the city is reporting as well. Full take coming in the morning.

Calm in the Sierra Madre

In Sierra Madre, voters will also decide whether to approve Measure V, which would put some city development decisions in the downtown corridor directly in the hands of voters.

So says the P-Star.

That's about all that was published today on the subject, as the natives of the Sierra Madre go to the polls. Strangely quiet today all along the Sierra Madre media front. Lots of info sits quietly up at the Sierra Madre News site. And in Sierra Madre is resting in the info they've already posted. Downtown Dirt has written its last editorial on the subject.

The Sierra Madre Cumquat is silent; the Yes on Measure V blog is gone; the Sierra Madre Cactus has dried up. Only The Sierra Madruh blog has a post up thus far today, and this guy says he's busy. Over on YouTube, user "migwell1957" has taken down many of the videos that were there formerly, leaving only two clips of complaints about the Cumquat for posterity's sake, I suppose.

The Mt. Wilson Observer remains frozen in the swirling controversies of the final countdown. Belligerent Sierra Madre city council meetings lie embedded with Google Video on K-Gem's website.

If you scroll through our Sierra Madre posts, you'll discover a whole lot more: the last bits from the Sierra Madre Weekly, the P-Star, and even the LAT.

On this day of peace in the eye of the Sierra Madre storm, I'll leave you with the strange, [unfinished?] YouTube video from September 11th of 2006, posted by user "smrrdWebmaster:"

More than Drums Beating in the Sierra Madre UPDATED

Getting you caught up on the Sierra Madre drum beating...

Molly R. Okeon of the Pasadena Star does her best to serve up the recent politics of the Sierra Madre:

In the last few months, residents who once likened their town to the idyllic Mayberry have set about lambasting each other with the kind of venom usually reserved for "The Jerry Springer Show."

What began as a policy debate over a proposed initiative to limit downtown development has deteriorated into name-calling and personal attacks.

The divisions may be behind several acts of vandalism in the neighborhood of Acacia Street and Valley Vista Drive, where on Monday yard signs were stolen and mailboxes damaged - the latter resulting in calls to the FBI, according to resident Leslee Hinton. On the same day, a truck window was shattered by a large rock on Valley Vista, she said.

Sierra Madre city councilman Kurt Zimmerman gets a longish letter in the Pasadena Star refuting the Star's editorial against Measure V, other letters against include one by Lisa Spigai-Perez, Foothill Cities blog commentator.

Over at Sierra Madre News (.net), there are a few interesting op-eds against Measure V—see city Planning Commissioner John Hutt's argument, for instance. More here from inSierra Madre (.com), which also announced the hiring of Lt. Larry Giannone. We have some questions for him here.

If you want to know what was happening going into this weekend, see my post below.

Drums Beating in Sierra Madre

Deep in the Sierra Madre, the natives are preparing for war...

Or, at least, the upcoming election.

Check out Erica Blodgett's latest: A Town Divided Prepares to Cast Their Ballots. Meanwhile, Blodgett also describes how the recall against Councilman Joe Mosca rolls onward.

For your weekend reading assignment, go to yet another Sierra Madre online news site: sierramadrenews.net, which I just added to the sidebar. I believe I linked to them long ago, but in any event go scroll down their page and check out all their anti-Measure V schtuff.

Better yet, go to Bean Town, have a "killer cuppa joe" and watch and listen. If you're lucky, you'll hear the beating drums of Sierra Madreans in their native land.

Five Questions Giannone Hasn't Answered

The Pasadena Independent reports that Lt. Larry Giannone has joined the Sierra Madre Police Department. Giannone will be taking the spot vacated by Lt. Abernathy, which is second only to Chief Marilyn Diaz. Before we applaud his arrival, I've got a few hard-hitting questions that I'll bet no one has posed to him.

1. How many police officers does it take to arrest teenage girls?
2. Will you offer fried chicken or loose lips to citizens who vote on Measure V?
3. What religious holiday will you use to crack down on prostitution?
4. Can you deal with criticism...very personal criticism?
5. Have you ever been employed by DataDots?

Note to Sierra Madre: Civility Offsets Available

Perusing only the finest news sources, I found the perfect program for the acidic blog community up in Sierra Madre: Genteel blogs offer "civility offsets" to vitriolic bloggers.

A draft proposal circulating in the so-called blogosphere would allow family-friendly blogs to sell “civility offsets” to vitriolic bloggers who prefer to pay for “nastiness indulgences” rather than to tame their bitter tirades.

Hey SM, you listening?

In the Sierra Madre, Blogs Grow on Trees

Centinel found ANOTHER Sierra Madre [satirical] blog:
THE SIERRA MADRUH
weakly news... daily

More Measure V

InSierraMadre.com posted a bunch of links and resources (including this very blog) concerning Measure V. Sierra Madre resident Fay Angus has a letter in the Sierra Madre Weekly.