General Plan Update Committee Hosts First Town Hall Forum

This editorial is the opinion of Bill Coburn, publisher of Sierra Madre News Net and 15 year Sierra Madre resident. It is not intended to reflect the views of any other person or entity with whom I am associated.
While I really had no idea what to expect, the meeting far exceeded any expectations I might have had. The water rate forums, as outraged as people were, drew very few people. I went to one water forum, and only 6 non-staff people were there. Sunday's meeting drew somewhere in the range of 250-300, or more than the City has said attended ALL the water forums.

The best thing for me was having one of the Commissioners tell me afterwards that one of the big things he got out of the meeting was that there were a lot of things mentioned to him that he would never have thought of. Things he wouldn't have known, unless someone else, affected by the item, had brought it up to him. That was one of my hopes for the meeting, that the Commissioners were aware as they move forward of how much they weren't aware of, and how their actions might negatively impact people if they did not fully consider the effects of those actions.

There was definitely a business contingent there, I saw at least a dozen owners that I know, some Chamber, some not. And I'm sure there were business owners there that I am not familiar with, as well. One of the Commissioners told me that she felt that there was a good representation of business owners.

Other positives: There were a lot of people I've never seen before, in other words, new participants in the process. Also, many of the people putting this thing on, myself included, with whatever small role I played, are polar opposites in many aspects politically, yet every one worked well together, and treated each other with respect. That's something that's been lacking in the Sierra Madre political scene, to a degree.

Melissa Thew did a great job with food. Carol Canterbury did a great job rounding up door prizes. Event co-Chairs Teryl Willis and Leslee Hinton did a great job organizing the event. One resident with whom I spoke told me he was very impressed, and that in particular he liked that everything was very straight forward.

Friends of the Arts was there to work with children while their parents did the busy work, and though there weren't many children there for them to work with, they did at least get to talk with many of the folks to increase awareness of their concern that the Arts are properly considered and included in the General Plan. But there was a youth influence, the YAC kids painted all the banners that hung on the tables that represented the seven elements of a General Plan. Who knows, as 2030 approaches and the Plan is updated again, maybe some of those youth will sit on the committee and recall when they helped with the update "back in 2010".

Staff and City Council were there, listening to what the people had to say. Unfortunately, only one Planning Commissioner was there, Kevin Paschall. Hopefully more will be able to attend future meetings. Three members of the GPUSC were unable to attend, Debbie Sheridan, who was out of town, Colin Braudrick, who is just out of the hospital, and Chairperson Denise Delmar, who was with her daughter who had just had a baby. The other commissioners were there at each of the tables, answering questions, but more importantly, listening to community input.

A survey prepared by the committee was distributed, and the original 150 copies were supplemented by an additional 2 publishings of 50 copies each. A PowerPoint presentation of 25 slides detailing what a general plan is was shown on a projection screen, an endless loop using a laptop and a projector with speakers (voiceover by Chairperson Denise Delmar), though the crowd was large enough that the audio was frequently overpowered.

All in all, I think it went exceedingly well. Congratulations to the GPUSC (and staff) for a great event, and to the Communications team which got the word out and drew the large crowd.

To view pictures from the event, go to http://www.sierramadrenews.net/editorial/GPUForum11_14_10.htm

Attn: City Council - She's Not Always Wrong Just Because She's MaryAnn

This editorial is the opinion of Bill Coburn, publisher of Sierra Madre News Net and 15 year Sierra Madre resident. It is not intended to reflect the views of any other person or entity with whom I am associated.

Last Tuesday night at City Council, four members of the Council again rebuffed Council Member MaryAnn MacGillivray, and in doing so, they cost the City money, and overlooked what I consider to be a very good idea.
At issue was an increase in the water rate that was being proposed that would have raised the water rate 7.5% for each of the first two years, followed by smaller increases for the next two years. The increase as proposed (over the four years) exceeded slightly the amount that would have been raised in the first four years by the increase that was suspended by the Council in July when more than 1,700 letters of protest were received from Sierra Madre rate payers as part of a Prop. 218 response to the proposed rate increase. Because the amount of the increase exceeded the previously proposed increase, it would have triggered the need to notify rate payers that they again had the right to protest the increase through Prop. 218. The Council was proposing that this new rate increase be modified slightly to reduce the amount so that it was below the cap at which Prop. 218 would be triggered, allowing the increase to move forward without further input from the ratepayers.

Council Member MacGillivray had proposed that the City ease into the 7.5% water rate increase that was being proposed, suggesting that beginning Jan. 1, a 3.5% increase be instituted, with the amount raising to the 7.5% level in July when the new budget begins. She further proposed that the level not be tweaked at all, allowing it to exceed the Prop 218 imposed cap, and that the Council should give rate payers the option of protesting the increase, as she felt that the reduced level (from 15.5% to 7.5% the first year) of the increase would be sufficient to ensure that protestors did not generate enough protests to stop it from being approved. Council Member MacGillivray noted that from what she has observed, people were willing to pay more, but were upset about the process by which the Council and the City administration had attempted to raise the rates the first time.

So here we have a proposal that would have generated a 3.5% increase six months earlier, and that would not have been tweaked to fit within the cap needed to fall within the limits imposed by the first Prop. 218 process. That means more money for the City. The Council shot down MacGillivray's proposal.

Further, the Council had an opportunity to quiet some of the critics (and there are many) that claim the Council/City staff had misled the ratepayers by "hiding" the water bond debt that most of the rate increase is intended to cover. Now I have to kind of disagree with that, because these bonds have been around since 1998 and 2003, and they are addressed in the annual budget. They also were not passed by previous councils without the public being informed. Nothing was hidden. But that's a subject for another editorial. The issue of this editorial is that Council Member MacGillivray proposed an increase that would have raised more money for the City's beleaguered water department, and increased the level of trust that ratepayers of the City have in their current City Council, and that was never given any serious consideration by the other members of the Council.

Now I recognize that there is a possibility that the protesters might have been able to generate enough letters of protest that the increase as proposed by MacGillivray might have failed. However, since a large number of the protesters have tremendous faith in MacGillivray and consider her to be a Council member they can trust when they lack that trust with other members, the fact that it was her proposing it and trying to get it passed would have eliminated many of those protests. Additionally, since the 1700 letters of protest were gathered, the City has embarked on an education outreach program to inform people why it is so critical to the City that the rates be increased. Does the Council lack faith in the outreach program's impact? Between that program, the countless hours of discussion at City Council meetings about the current state of the system and the increases, and Council member MacGillivray's backing, I have no doubt in my mind that the proposed increase would have passed without sufficient protests being received to put it on hold.

I think the problem is that this Council has a tendency to oppose ideas brought forth by Council Member MacGilllivray.

In my April 18th post-election editorial, I wrote the following: "On election night, I heard one of the folks who will be sitting on the Council for the next four years telling someone that the Council’s job now is to bring Mayor MacGillivray back into the fold. In essence, this person said that rather than ostracize or criticize her, the Council needs to be inclusive, because if they can get her working WITH them, the council can only get even more accomplished. Of course, the other side of the coin on that is that if Ms. MacGillivray chooses not to work collaboratively with the other members of the Council when they have attempted to work with her, it will reflect poorly on her."

I think what we have here is a combination of both. I could be wrong, but I'm guessing that Council member MacGillivray had never discussed her proposal with the other Council members prior to that evening. Had she suggested this idea to the other members of the Council with enough time for them to consider it for a few days, and discuss it with their supporters, they might have seen the benefits of raising the additional money, as well as had time to consider the fact that there was less likelihood of a Prop. 218 rejection with MacGillivray joining them in backing the proposal. I don't think this is the first time that Council member MacGillivray has come to Council meetings and surprised her fellow Council members with a proposal, rather than trying to work with them to get a consensus for a united front at the meeting. Her suggestion regarding the General Plan Update Committee a couple months back being a case in point.

Here's what I wrote at the time: "Council Member Maryann MacGillivray, in my opinion, came on a little too strong at the beginning by asking her colleagues to repeal what had been approved as a compromise at a previous meeting, the authority to appoint technical advisory committees to assist the General Plan Steering Committee. I think she asked for too much, too soon. But she ultimately offered up an obvious solution, one that would have been an excellent compromise. Her second motion, which died for lack of a second, was to accept the Steering Committee's work plan, ask for a time line, accept the Outreach Program, and leave the Technical Committee appointments on the table. In doing so, the Council could have allowed the Steering Committee to begin its outreach program and show the council just how inclusive it would be, and if the Council felt it was being inclusive enough, they could repeal them at a later date. If they didn't feel it was being inclusive enough, they could just appoint the Technical Committees."

And I think that's partly a political tactic on MacGillivray's part. If she brings up ideas that are shot down by the others, she's seen by her supporters as a hero fighting for the people against overwhelming opposition. Her attempt to repeal the General Plan compromise was doomed to fail, but her fall back position, had she discussed it in advance with her colleagues, might very well have been accepted. By the time she brought it up though, they had their hackles up from her first proposal, and didn't give her second idea the time and consideration it needed. I think she might accomplish more for the people if she stopped the tactics and tried more to work behind the scenes instead of bringing these ideas forward without giving her colleagues some time to consider them. That being said, there are enough differences in ideology that there will be issues that we just won't see agreement on between all five members of the Council. But don't stop trying before you even start.

But I think we also see a lack of willingness on the part of the other Council members to bring MacGillivray "back into the fold". They are not being inclusive, as the Council member I heard back in April said was needed. I suggest that not only should they be trying harder to get her to work with them, they should put a little more effort into trying to work with her..

City Council Gives Direction to Staff re: Water Rates, Approves Strategic Plan, Creates New UUT Committee

At Tuesday night's Council meeting, City Council gave direction to Staff regarding the Water Dept.'s proposed Water Rate increase. Staff had asked for direction on seven different items. Those items were: 1) Should the City comply with the bond obligation to achieve 120% net revenues ratio, achieved after operations, capital expenditures and debt service, and by when? 2) Should the Water Utility Fund be self-supporting, meaning should the City General Fund subsidize the Water Utility? 3) Over the five year period of the proposed increase, what dollar amount if any should be set-aside or accumulated toward capital projects? 4) What dollar amount of cash reserves should be available to meet contingencies and emergencies? 5) Should the Water Utililty have a tiered consumption rate structure? If yes, what is the preferred differential between the tiers? What is the preferred number of tiers? 6) Should the Water Utility continue to maintain different meter charges, based upon the size of the meter? 7) Should the Water Utility continue to maintain the same rate structure for all customers? Or should rates be based upon types of use, i.e., commercial, single-family, multi-family or agricultural?

Council Member Maryann MacGillivray proposed creation of a ratepayers' oversight committee to solicit input from the ratepayers to determine what rate they are willing to pay. Several members of the community spoke in favor of such a committee. However, the Council decided against the creation of such a committee. Ultimately, it was decided that the City should comply with its bond obligations, the tiered structure should remain as it stands, different meter charges would remain, and the same rate structure would be used for all customers. Council member MacGillivray noted that multi-family dwellings were less likely to conserve based on tiered rate structures since the end user frequently does not pay the bill, and Mayor pro tem Buchanan said that perhaps there might be a need to look at different rates for single family vs. multiple family in the future, but not now. Council member Moran proposed looking at different rates for commercial ratepayers to ensure that desired businesses were not so adversely affected by a rate increase that they could not continue to do business here, but in the future, not now.

It should be noted that changes to the structure such as these, or changes to the tiered system had the potential to re-initiate the Prop. 218 notice requirement, which would have allowed ratepayers to protest the rate increase. In addition, there is a possibility a Citizen oversight committee would return a proposed increase that would have triggered the Prop. 218 protest notification. In July, the Council voted not to continue with its proposed rate hike because 1700+ protest letters had been received. While that was not enough to legally stop the hike, the Council decided it was enough that they needed to revisit the subject. City Attorney Sandra Levin pointed out, however, that because there had not been sufficient protests to overrule the increase, the Council still had the authority to move ahead with an increase so long as it did not exceed what had been proposed. Tuesday, Council member MacGillivray suggested that even though the Council was not legally required to initiate Prop. 218 notification, it would be the right thing to do. Since there was no actual proposal for the Council, though, no decision was made on that issue. Direction was given to staff to bring back three separate proposals that maintained the current level of reserves, but allotted $0, $500,000 and $1,000,000 for capital improvements.

The Council also approved the Strategic Plans, Goals and Objectives that they had developed at their October 14th Strategic Planning Session. City Manager Elaine Aguilar pointed out that the Goals remained the same from the April Planning Session, but the objectives were new and were on the agenda for approval. To view a copy of the objectives, click here.

Also Tuesday evening, the City Council authorized the creation of another UUT Oversight Committee. When Measure U was passed to fund emergency services in April, 2008, it required the creation of a six member committee, with each Council member appointing one member of the public, and the City Treasurer serving as the sixth member. Tuesday night, the following five people were appointed to the Committee to serve with City Treasurer George Enyedi:

Larry David, appointed by Mayor Mosca, Jeff Bohn, appointed by Mayor Pro Tem Buchanan, Anna Laws, appointed by Council member MacGillivray, Tom Denison, appointed by Council member Moran, and Kevin Brennan, appointed by Council member Walsh.

Council Gets One Thing Right, The Other, Not at All

This editorial is the opinion of Bill Coburn, publisher of Sierra Madre News Net and 15 year Sierra Madre resident. It is not intended to reflect the views of any other person or entity with whom I am associated.

The City Council approved Dr. Sami's appeal of the Planning Commission's rejection of his proposed expansion project. That was the right thing to do. They had no grounds not to. The only real issue was the parking, and since Dr. Sami agreed to use the "In Lieu Parking" provision of the City Code, that issue became a non-issue. The City Council now needs to call a moratorium on "In Lieu Parking" while a parking study is done, and a Parking Master Plan is developed. Hopefully, it will include the "In Lieu Parking" provision, but at a more realistic rate of $10,000 per space.

So they did a good job of getting something right when there was really no other way to get it. But man, did they screw up on the General Plan issue. When it started out, it seemed like only one Council member, Nancy Walsh, was really leaning toward expanding the General Plan Steering Committee, yet somehow it ended up that the Council voted 4 to 1 to do just that.

Council Member Maryann MacGillivray, in my opinion, came on a little too strong at the beginning by asking her colleagues to repeal what had been approved as a compromise at a previous meeting, the authority to appoint technical advisory committees to assist the General Plan Steering Committee. I think she asked for too much, too soon. But she ultimately offered up an obvious solution, one that would have been an excellent compromise. Her second motion, which died for lack of a second, was to accept the Steering Committee's work plan, ask for a time line, accept the Outreach Program, and leave the Technical Committee appointments on the table. In doing so, the Council could have allowed the Steering Committee to begin its outreach program and show the council just how inclusive it would be, and if the Council felt it was being inclusive enough, they could repeal them at a later date. If they didn't feel it was being inclusive enough, they could just appoint the Technical Committees.

Instead, they decided to expand the Committee to nine members. I think that was a monumental error. And they compounded it by then tasking the Committee with a job that they had just made it impossible to do. How can the Committee come up with a timeline, when they have no idea how long it's going to take to find out who is on the Committee?

I hope that Committee Chair Denise Delmar doesn't become so frustrated that she quits. She and the Committee did a great job on the work program and the outreach program, and I think they were off to a good start. If Delmar leaves, the Council (except Maryann MacGillivray) owes an apology to all the residents in this town.

I'm sure there's more that I will think I should have said or that I think I could have said more effectively or in a more cogent manner. But it's late, and I'm tired, so that's all I have to say on the matter. For now. It won't surprise me if I'm still so upset about this an hour from now that I get back up out of bed and amend it. We'll see. Denise - if you are reading this - hang in there. Many of us think you are doing a great job and are a critical piece of this puzzle. I hope this blunder by the Council doesn't overwhelm your desire to finish the job you've started.

Council Gets Some Things Right, But Not All

This editorial is the opinion of Bill Coburn, publisher of Sierra Madre News Net and 15 year Sierra Madre resident. It is not intended to reflect the views of any other person or entity with whom I am associated.

At Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, the City Council did the right thing by setting the proposed water rate increase aside. Not only was it the right thing, it was actually an extraordinary thing. To respond to the will of the people of the community in this manner, when the consequences to the City for doing so could be, shall we say, problematic, even when not legally required to do so, was an extraordinary action by this Council, and one that their critics are not giving them enough credit for. Of course, part of the reason they are not being given the credit is because they then turned around and did the wrong thing.

I understand why the Council remained silent on the issue of whether or not they would allow the people to protest the next rate increase proposal. One of the first rules of business is to not close off options unless you absolutely have to. I don’t have any law training, but I’m guessing that rule is one that is pressed even harder in that profession, so with two attorneys on the Council, this was probably not the direction they wanted to go. Kind of like in sales, you should never negotiate against yourself, and never negotiate the price you will receive to a lower amount. But in this case, I think the Council made a mistake in not recognizing that closing off an option (by allowing a Prop. 218 protest on the next proposal) was something they HAD to do. They couldn’t vote on it at the meeting, because it wasn’t on the agenda, but they could have all said "that’s our intent."

As much distrust as their has been of this council, and as much anger as has been stirred up by this increase and the way it was handled, this Council should have stated collectively that they would allow the ratepayers and parcel owners of this town the opportunity to protest the proposal they come back with. It would have gone a long way toward opening up the lines of communication and toward helping to build up some trust. And after all, having already taken the extraordinary action of listening to the protestors even though they weren’t legally required to do so, this would have just been an extension of that action. And if this protest failed, which it legally did, and they trust their outreach program to explain to the people why the next proposed increase is necessary, they should expect that they will be able to get the next proposal passed, too. So on that Agenda item, I think they got one right, one wrong.

On the outreach program item, I think they got it right. Taking the time to talk to the people of this town, and more importantly to listen, is the only way they stand a chance of getting the people to approve a water hike in the future. Well, not the only way, they can send it through by using the option I think they should have given up. They can, legally, send an increase through without the approval of the people, as long as it is lower than the plan they just decided to scuttle, but they shouldn’t.

Unlike former Mayor Kurt Zimmerman, I don’t think that the outreach program is predicated on the idea that the Council thinks the residents are stupid, I think it’s predicated on the idea that the Council thinks the residents are uninformed. And they are, although nowhere nearly as uninformed as they were two months ago. I’ve heard some criticism that the issue of the bonds was brought up late, though I don’t know for sure when it was first cited as one of the reasons for the hike. If, as the City Attorney implied at the July 13th meeting, the bond company has the right to accelerate payment of the debt to pay it immediately, it may not be in the best interests of the City to send up flares saying hey, we’re not conforming to the terms of our contract. Maybe, that’s why they didn’t talk about it in the beginning. Whatever the reason, it is being perceived by some as sneakiness and conspiracy. There’s no conspiracy folks, just a bunch of people trying to do their job. But it will be easier for them to do their jobs if, as Council member MacGillivray suggested, we are told what projects need to be done, where they stand in urgency, how much they will cost, and how much the people will benefit from the projects. Projects that we end up paying only a portion of because we are able to get funding from others might be worth it in the long run. But I think the residents of this town want to learn a little bit more about what’s being proposed before giving it their blessing.

The other thing the Council got right was the General Plan item. I haven’t been following that too much, but it now has my attention. Kudos to City Attorney Levin for providing the City with a solution they didn’t really ask for, by suggesting that a list of volunteers be created to implement an outreach program created by the Steering Committee, rather than creating a Brown Act committee. Bringing in a bunch of volunteers that are not restricted by the Brown Act to work on this plan could jump start this process, and the Council will still have the option, if I understood it correctly, of having more say in the creation of the advisory committees down the road. The General Plan should have as much resident participation as possible, and this seems like a good way to go about it.

All Valid Protest Letters Should Count, Not Just Some

Editorial by Bill Coburn
This editorial is the opinion of Bill Coburn, publisher of Sierra Madre News Net and 15 year Sierra Madre resident. It is not intended to reflect the views of any other person or entity with whom I am associated

The results of the verification of resident protest letters regarding the water rate increase is to be reported to the City Council at Tuesday night’s meeting. That verification was to consist of eliminating any duplicate letters, then cross-checking the names/addresses on the protest letters against the City’s water billing list. If the name listed for an address in a protest was not the name on the City’s water billing list, the name was then to be checked against the Assessor’s Parcel database to see if the name the County Assessor has listed as the parcel owner was the same as the name on the protest. If the name and address of a protestor could not be matched with either the City’s water billing list or the County Assessor database, it was to be disqualified. Only one name was to be allowed per parcel, though, either the rate payer or the parcel owner, not both.

The City Clerk was charged with verifying the signatures. Again, verification was to include both the City’s water list and the County Assessor’s Parcel database. Verifying against just one list or the other means that only half the job was done. Checking just the water bill would mean that a protesting property owner whose tenant pays the water bill might be wrongfully disqualified, because their name is not on the water bill. Checking just the Parcel list would mean that protesting tenants who pay for their own water might be wrongfully disqualified, because the Assessor doesn’t show their name as the property owner. So it is imperative that both lists be checked, to make sure everyone that has a legal right to protest is given their right to do so.

Last weekend, more than a week before the presentation of the report to the City Council was scheduled to take place, City Clerk Nancy Shollenberger announced in a press release that she had “tabulated and determined the validity of the written protests to the City's proposed water fee increase. I hereby find and give notice that there were 1,898 written protests. Accordingly, a majority of parcel owners, who would have been impacted by the proposed fee increase, have submitted written protests.” The press release stated that there were 1,898 written protests, plus 151 duplicates (2,049 total).

She added the following post script:
“P.S. The City Clerk did not have access to the Assessor's Parcel Numbers List/Owner's Names. If this list is made available to her, she will be happy to check the list again.”

Let’s look at this statement. Ms. Shollenberger states that a majority of parcel owners, who would have been impacted by the proposed fee increase, have submitted written protests. A) It’s not just parcel owners that are to be counted, it’s rate payers as well, hence the need to verify against both the water bill list and the Parcel Owner’s database. Why weren’t the rate payers referenced in her statement? B) How can she find and give notice that a majority of parcel owners have protested, when she, by her own admission, hasn’t accessed the database of Parcel Owners?

In addition, the first sentence of this post script is just flat out not true. Anybody that goes to the Assessor’s Office and asks for it has access to that list (our City staff did just that in order to double check signatures, see below). Also, anybody with online access to MLS has access to that list, and I’m sure there are many Sierra Madreans that have access to MLS that would have been happy to help with this task.

What Ms. Shollenberger was really trying to say was that she was denied access by the City to that list, a claim the City has denied. The City doesn’t have a parcel owner's “list,” however, it does have software that provides them access to the County Assessor's database, so that specific addresses/parcels can be looked up to verify ownership. According to City Manager Elaine Aguilar, our City Clerk, on three different occasions, was offered access to that database, and access to a staff member to make sure that if the City Clerk had problems with the software, there was someone there that was familiar enough with the software that any issues might be resolved. She declined the offer each time.

According to Ms. Aguilar, Nancy told her she intended instead to be at City Hall during the part of the City staff’s review of the protest letters when staff was using the Assessor’s database to cross-check any letters that did not match the water bill names. In fact, according to Ms. Shollenberger herself, she intended to be there. To quote the City Clerk from an e-mail I received from her on Tuesday: “I have asked her (Ms. Aguilar) to let me know when they will start and I will be there.” That was originally scheduled to begin on Tuesday. However, cross-checking the water bill names against the protest letters took longer than anticipated and so the second phase didn’t begin until Wednesday morning. According to the City Manager, verification against the Assessor’s Parcel list took place both Wednesday and Thursday. Yet for some reason, the City Clerk decided not to go. According to the City Manager, Ms. Shollenberger instead sent a “deputy” to observe on Wednesday, but just a few minutes before staff began checking the names, the deputy announced that she had to run home for a few minutes. She never came back, and so even though staff was checking names against the Assessor’s database for two full days, no one from the City Clerk’s office was on hand to take note of their findings. Part of the reason that aspect of the verification took two full days is that City staff, knowing there is the possibility of delay in updating the online database, after checking online, physically went to the Assessor’s office and double checked any names that had not matched up during their online verification attempt.

I expect that Ms. Shollenberger’s report to the City Council will differ from the report in her press release. After all, she has publicly issued two different numbers for the number of protests she has received (the figure of 1,941 that she stated at the July 13th City Council meeting was different than the 1,898/2,049 figures she provided in her press release), and in an e-mail to me on Tuesday the 20th, she stated she had 1,959, a third number. In addition, her press release clearly states that she had failed to perform the assigned task of verifying signatures against the Assessor’s Parcel list, which leaves the possibility that some qualified protestors had not, at that time, had their protests allowed. One wonders why she would even issue such a press release, since it clearly states that she hadn’t completed her job at the time it was issued.

So it is important that she now follow through with the verification against the Assessor’s database, and issue a final report in which the verification process is completed, not done half way. Ms. Shollenberger has (erroneously) claimed she doesn’t have access to the Assessor’s database, and didn’t have anybody on hand taking notes when the City was accessing the database. Since the City Clerk has chosen not to be involved when the City Staff was checking the Assessor’s Parcel database, it is critical that the City Clerk’s office now access the Assessor’s Parcel list on its own to verify the names, before issuing its report on Tuesday. It’s the only way to ensure that ALL protests that SHOULD be counted, ARE counted.

The sad part in all this is how unnecessary the controversy is. Council stated at the last meeting that the water rate increase was not moving forward, and directed staff to develop an outreach program to do a better job of informing residents why it feels a water rate increase is required. So this whole verification process is a formality, albeit a necessary one. If I remember correctly, and I could be wrong, memory occasionally fails, but I believe Joe Mosca asked if it was even necessary to count the protests since the increase was dead, and Council Member MacGillivray (correctly) stated that it was necessary. But this should be a non-issue: a quick look for duplicates, followed by a comparison of names/addresses against the water bill, and then a cross check of parcel lot owners, culminating in a 30 second reading of the final count on Tuesday. Instead, we have three different numbers from the City Clerk, which calls everything into question. We have accusations by the City Clerk that the City has refused to provide access to the very list the City directed her to use (what sense would that make?) which only adds to the problem. And we have unsubstantiated allegations that the City Manager is trying to make her own list so she can force the water rate increase through, when all she’s trying to do is ensure that the City is protected by making sure the signature verification is done the proper way. Which, by the way, is her job, the City Council directed staff to work on these numbers, too. She’s conducting her own analysis. In theory, since she’s working from the same list the City Clerk is, and they are operating under the same guidelines, the numbers should be exactly the same in the City Manager's report as they are in the City Clerk’s.

City staff should be concentrating on trying to figure out a way to get some money to the water department in a manner that is acceptable to the rate payers, not concerning themselves with a ridiculous controversy over what should be a non-issue.

What Are The Real Numbers? Who Cares? I Do, NOW

This editorial is the opinion of Bill Coburn, publisher of Sierra Madre News Net and 15 year Sierra Madre resident. It is not intended to reflect the views of any other person or entity with whom I am associated

Last Tuesday night at City Hall, City Clerk Nancy Shollenberger announced at the beginning of the meeting that she had 1829 letters of protest against the City's proposed water rate increase. When the Council was discussing the water rate agenda item, she updated everyone that she had received 112 protest letters during the meeting. I understood that when discussion of that agenda item closed, that was the end of when protest letters were to be accepted, so it was my understanding that 1941 protest letters had been received, and that those signatures were to be verified by the City Clerk and by City staff.

Then the City Clerk issued a press release, see below. That release had different numbers. So I sent Ms. Shollenberger an e-mail, asking her: :"...at the City Council meeting on Tuesday, you stated that there were 1829 protest letters at the beginning of the meeting, and that you received 112 during the meeting, which made a total of 1941 protest letters, which you stated at the time had not yet been verified. Yet your press release says that there are actually 1898 protest letters and 151 rejections. That means 2,049 protest letters. Can you account for this discrepancy in the numbers?"

I have now received her response: "I will check with the volunteers that did the vetting of signatures. I trusted their final report. I have 1959 protest letters." (emphasis mine)

The Mayor has already stated that whether there were enough protest letters to meet the legal requirements or not, the City has heard the protest and the water rate increase as proposed is dead. In other words, at this point, the count is just a formality that crosses the Ts and dots the Is. Interesting information for some, but more or less meaningless, since the decision has already been made to scuttle the increase. We all know that the people have spoken and the City has to back down. What SHOULD be foremost on everybody's minds now is how we move forward, how we get more money into the water department to pay for the aging system, build up the reserves and satisfy our obligations to the bond holder in a way that is acceptable to the people of the town of Sierra Madre.

But we have a little hitch in the gitalong, having to do with inconsistencies in the numbers being provided by the office of the City Clerk, which leads to other questions. What I can't figure out is this. Why are there now THREE different numbers? Which is it? 1941 from Tuesday night? 1898/2049 from Friday's press release? 1959 from today's e-mail? Why didn't the City Clerk notice that the numbers were different and ask the volunteers without me having to ask about it? Why does she have to ask the volunteers, instead of knowing the answer before the question is asked? And why does her press release never mention the number 1959, yet her e-mail to me says that's what she has today?
Why are we getting a final report from volunteers and NOT from the City Clerk, who is the person actually charged with issuing the report? She herself calls it THEIR final report. Why are volunteers doing the vetting of signatures instead of the City Clerk? The City Clerk has claimed ownership of this process, not allowing the originals to be left with the City Manager because "the people" wanted the originals left with her. Yet she apparently felt no responsibility to the people to check the numbers that were provided to her by a group of volunteers, and compare them to her own numbers from Tuesday night.

News Net Recommendations on Ballot Initiatives

This editorial is the opinion of Bill Coburn, publisher of Sierra Madre News Net and 15 year Sierra Madre resident. It is not intended to reflect the views of any other person or entity with whom I am associated.
Prop. 13 - LIMITS ON PROPERTY TAX ASSESSMENT. SEISMIC RETROFITTING OF EXISTING BUILDINGS. LEGISLATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT - Support. Seems like a good way to encourage building owners to retrofit buildings that are in need of seismic upgrades.
Prop. 14 - ELECTIONS. INCREASES RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN PRIMARY ELECTIONS. Support. Hopefully, this will increase voter participation, which is lacking.
Prop. 15 - CALIFORNIA FAIR ELECTIONS ACT Support. I like the idea of taking politicians out of the constant fundraising cycle. This pilot program might lead to more extensive voluntary public funding, reducing the need for our elected officials to leave their work in Sacramento to hit the fundraising trail.
Prop. 16 - IMPOSES NEW TWO-THIRDS VOTER APPROVAL REQUIREMENT FOR LOCAL PUBLIC ELECTRICITY PROVIDERS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT Oppose. Cal Chamber got this one wrong. This is just an attempt at a monopoly grab by PG & E. If a City wants to create its own utility, it should be able to based on the votes of the elected officials, who were put in office by the residents to represent them.
Prop. 17 - ALLOWS AUTO INSURANCE COMPANIES TO BASE THEIR PRICES IN PART ON A DRIVER'S HISTORY OF INSURANCE COVERAGE. INITIATIVE STATUTE Oppose. If the insurance companies are behind it as much as Mercury is behind this one, I'm thinking it's probably in THEIR best interests, not mine.

Post-Election, 2010

Post-Election, 2010
By Bill Coburn
This editorial is the opinion of Bill Coburn, publisher of Sierra Madre News Net and 15 year Sierra Madre resident. It is not intended to reflect the views of any other person or entity with whom I am associated.

Okay, it’s been a couple days. Frankly, I think what I posted on my blog more or less said it all: Yes, Yes and YES! Congratulations to our next Mayor, Joe Mosca, and to new council members Josh Moran and Nancy Walsh. The good people of Sierra Madre have spoken, and I think what they've said is: Enough is Enough!

Thirty-nine words pretty much covered it. But I’ve had people contacting me asking when I was going to put my take on the election up on the website. As I said, I thought I did. But one of the people in particular who contacted me, a long-time resident (for whom I have a great deal of respect) that no longer lives in town, e-mailed me that she was “eager to see your election report.” And the more I thought about it, I realized, if anybody can turn 39 words into 2,000, it’s me, and if that’s what people want, I’m okay with that. Besides, in a year and a half, and then again in three and a half, as the election year campaigns pick up, I may want something a little more detailed to refer back to than the thirty-nine words I’ve already posted.

Add to that the fact that my silence was not matched by the other guy in town that writes more than he should, and I decided to put a couple things down to say what I think about the election.

Obviously, I’m happy with the outcome, having endorsed the three candidates that will be seated on the council a week from this coming Tuesday night. Last Tuesday, when people asked me what I predicted the outcome would be, I told them frankly that I didn’t have a clue. I was concerned, in fact. While I don’t think I told anybody this specifically, I kind of thought that we were going to see Mosca, Crawford and Watts seated, though I did think it possible that I might be underestimating the power of Josh’s having grown up here in town.

But I had another underlying feeling that made me a little more hopeful. I’ve heard the last couple of elections that there’s a silent majority in town, folks who don’t necessarily get out and beat the drums, but a majority that includes people whose opinions are respected and who have some influence with their fellow residents. It was my feeling that those folks had been a little complacent the last couple elections, and I kind of had a feeling that the tone of this campaign had been such that these folks might just have been roused out of their complacency, and that we might just see their influence in the outcome. I think I mentioned this to a couple of people. But I think most people that I talked about it with, I expressed concern, because I really thought there was a good possibility that Maryann, Don and John were going to have a majority for the next two, if not four years, and I frankly thought we’d be better off if that didn’t happen. And even though I had the underlying hope I discussed earlier, I was afraid I’d jinx it by actually expecting it.

In 1974, Garry Trudeau and Doonesbury were at the height of their popularity. During this time frame, there were a series of cartoons in which blocks were being added to a wall in front of the White House, with the block wall eventually completely obscuring the White House. After Nixon resigned, if I remember correctly, the cartoon showed the White House, wall removed, with birds flying by, a rainbow, sun shining, a brand new day. I feel like that’s how many Sierra Madreans felt Wednesday, based on my conversations with people. And before the critics start posting, no, I’m not saying a City Council election was comparable to the President of the most powerful country in the world resigning, I’m saying the feelings some people had Wednesday reminded me of feelings people might have had in 1974, as represented in a comic strip. See the difference?

Why did the election go the way it went?

I think there were a few reasons. First of all, I think the winners deserved to win. I think there are a lot of people in town who have respect for Mosca, Moran and Walsh. Even though Joe pissed some people off in town right after he was elected, there ARE some people in town who have actually gotten over it. They recognize Joe for who he is, a hard working, good guy, who really likes this town and wants to give back. Josh grew up here, and has a lot of family, and that familiarity coupled with the support group that is his family and friends, had a substantial influence. He also has worked for the City, and volunteered for several years on commissions and committees. Nancy is not as well known, but she has been a volunteer in this town for a few years, sitting on and chairing the Senior Community Commission. And while I don’t know if she would have won the seat running individually, she was aligned with a slate that, it turns out, had the most support.

Secondly, I think that people didn’t like seeing people they perceive as good people, as givers, people who volunteer and work hard for the community, being maligned in the manner that they were. The derisive comments on Crawford’s blog were a little too much for some people. Calling Nancy “What’s her name”, turning Josh’s surname into moron instead of Moran, and the out and out verbal attacks on Joe, just weren’t smart moves when you’re trying to get people to support you. And I’m not saying that John Crawford did those things, for the most part it was his supporters that did it. As I said in one of my editorials, you’re judged by the company you keep, and I think (actually I know) people judged John by the things his supporters said. But it wasn’t just people judging John by the company he keeps. I think a lot of people didn’t want to align THEMSELVES with the people that were supporting John in that manner, they didn’t want people judging THEM as people that were willing to act in the manner that some (not all) of John’s supporters were acting.

Which brings me to a tactical mistake that I think was a major contributor to the Crawford/Alcorn/Watts slate losing the election. John should not have campaigned as a blog. I know that if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to editorialize in the way that I did. First of all, much of the opinion on his site, even in the articles he posts, are actually other people’s opinions, supplemented by his own. A lot of John’s articles cite other blogs, paragraphs at a time of his articles are pulled directly from other websites, blogs or print media, and then he throws in a few lines of why he thinks the people are right (or wrong). Secondly, John’s careful to use implication and conjecture as tools, and that leads to much of what he is criticized for. He doesn’t come out and attack people anywhere near as much as he is accused of doing it. He’ll frequently say things that will incite others to post things. He’s kind of like a shock jock, to a degree. He says things for a reaction, and his supporters are generally willing to oblige. And it was those posts by his supporters, sometimes in reaction to John’s articles, sometimes not, that I think really hurt John with voters.

Another thing that hurt the C/A/W camp was unsubstantiated allegations. To hear that Mosca was in the back pocket of the developers and just dancing at the ends of the strings of Sacramento’s marionettists, that Josh was a puppet of the real estate industry out to enrich his real estate industry family members, that Nancy was handpicked by John Buchanan to further his pro-development agenda, and that all three candidates, were, along with Buchanan, pro-development fiends, without anything anywhere to back it up, I think, left a sour taste in some folks mouth. It just didn’t ring true. All of the candidates made it quite clear that they were against four-story buildings downtown, yet we still kept hearing that that’s what we were going to get if we elected them into office.

I think that the Mayor’s letter asking residents to elect the C/A/W slate to help her stay the course and move forward her agenda, backfired. And while there were some who perceived it as problematic on its own merits, it became a bigger problem after the City Council meeting of March 23rd. There were many people who felt the Mayor bullied Joe to further her own political agenda at that meeting, and who felt that if this was the course that was going to be stayed, it might be better to set sail in another direction. I sent a letter to the editor of the Mountain Views News about that meeting, but never discussed that meeting on my site, I don’t think. So for those who didn’t read my letter, here’s my take: The Mayor has to walk a fine line between allowing people their right to free speech, and ensuring that meetings don’t get out of hand due to personal attacks. It’s a difficult task, and in this case, I think only one person really crossed that line. And I think she REALLY crossed that line. I think Mr. Mosca should have yielded the floor when asked to do so, and the Mayor was right to gavel him down and warn him that he might be removed if he didn’t respond to her requests for order. That said, I think that if I were Mr. Mosca, I’d have done the same thing he did, as I think the Mayor should have been more pro-active in limiting that speaker’s attack, and I think she also should have allowed Mosca to speak with the City Attorney to determine if he had the right to respond, even though Public Comment is generally a one way conversation. If I felt I had a legal right to respond to someone I felt was personally attacking me verbally, and that right was being taken from me, I’d have been vocal about it too.

But that’s just my take. Even though I think the Mayor was within her rights to gavel over Mr. Mosca and to threaten him with removal from the Chambers, there were many people who didn’t feel that way. And I think it’s highly ironic that after numerous calls on the Tattler and at City Council meetings by people that supported Crawford’s candidacy for more regular replays of the Council meetings on Channel 3, it was, to a degree, repeated replays of the Mayor’s actions that contributed to some folks choosing to vote against his slate. And I know that it happened, I’ve had people tell me that it changed their vote. I had one person, a senior, tell me that she would NEVER vote for anyone that Mayor MacGillivray told her she should vote for.

How did John Crawford get 1,000 votes? Well, actually, it’s probably not surprising. I was of the opinion that Crawford “won” the candidate forum sponsored by the Chamber. Why? Because for a lot of people, that was their first exposure to him, and the people who’d heard from his critics how awful he was were most likely favorably impressed when he came off as quite reasonable at that forum. And I think that many of the people that voted for him were people who’s homes he visited during the campaign, and who heard him say that he was responsible for the eminent domain being on the ballot, and who were told that thanks to him, there was an ordinance in place that was going to bring the Skilled Nursing Facility folks to justice for allowing their property to go downhill while it sits empty. Both of these are issues that resonated with folks in town, but many of these people had no idea what was happening on his blog. I think Crawford’s vote tally would have been significantly lower if more people perceived him as the blogger, and fewer as the guy who helped make SNF and ED issues in this campaign. Credit where credit is due, though, he was instrumental on both these issues.

I was glad to see that Pat Alcorn fared well, even though she didn’t win a seat on the Council. She conducted herself with class, was knowledgeable on the issues, and frankly, might have done even better had she not been part of a slate which I believe dragged her down. Of the non-winning candidates, she was behind only Don Watts, the incumbent, and by fewer than 150 votes. Incumbents generally have a distinct advantage due to name recognition, and Pat was right there with him. And I think she did a great job on that mailer we received days before the election. It would be nice to see something like that come out from sitting Council members a couple times a year, as Pat told me she planned to do if she had been elected.

Where do we go from here?

Well, I think Joe’s going to be mayor. I’m curious as to whether the Mayor will nominate him. It would be a good political move for her to say, since she will still have the gavel, that she recognizes the will of the people, that in the spirit of reconciliation, she congratulates him and the new council members on their win, and that in that spirit, she hereby nominates him. Some people with whom I’ve spoken about this just can’t see her doing that, saying they think it would be too much of a backpedal for her. I really don’t know. This would be a smart thing to do politically. She’d be perceived as doing the right thing, even if she actually isn’t doing the right thing because it’s the right thing (who knows her motivation but her?) But she’s a woman of convictions, and it will be interesting to see if she chooses to do the politically smart thing, or if she stands by her convictions. I personally would like to see John Buchanan have the opportunity to nominate his friend. But we’ll find that out in a couple weeks.

Crawford has, after a one day hiatus, brought the Tattler back, and has a “seriously, is there anything left to lose” attitude. He’s continuing to see things in his own unique way. For instance, his first day back, an article that said: “But when it came to the City Council, Sierra Madre voters soundly rejected the Tattler style - snarky, funny, eloquent, nasty - by giving the Tattler's author, John Crawford, the least votes of any major candidate.” generated this headline: “The Pasadena Star News Praises the Tattler.” Not how I think most people would have interpreted those words.

On election night, I heard one of the folks who will be sitting on the Council for the next four years telling someone that the Council’s job now is to bring Mayor MacGillivray back into the fold. In essence, this person said that rather than ostracize or criticize her, the Council needs to be inclusive, because if they can get her working WITH them, the council can only get even more accomplished. Of course, the other side of the coin on that is that if Ms. MacGillivray chooses not to work collaboratively with the other members of the Council when they have attempted to work with her, it will reflect poorly on her.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that four years from now, we’re not going to see 4-story buildings on Sierra Madre Blvd., or Baldwin. There won’t be a Walmart where the Skilled Nursing Facility is, we won’t have a MacDonald’s or a Jack in the Box, and we won’t have a stoplight either, barring a tragic accident that makes the City (and its residents) look at things with a different perspective. In short, I don’t think that the catastrophes predicted to happen if Mosca, Moran and Walsh get elected are going to happen. I think Sierra Madre will be pretty much the same as it is now.

But I hope there’s one change, and it’s going to take a lot of effort from both sides, which frankly, I don’t see happening. But I’ll hope for it anyway. Let’s tone down the rhetoric. Let’s try to stick to the facts. Let’s try to treat each other like we’re ALL worthy of respect (even if you don’t think so, TRY). Let’s be a village.

While there’s a lot of talk about the Tattler and the fact that even after being more or less rebuked by the residents of this town it’s come back out swinging, I’m also a little disappointed in the Weekly. In my opinion, the Sierra Madre Weekly has, in its election coverage, taken some unnecessary potshots. I think some of their election news coverage read like Opinion pieces. News coverage should be fact based coverage, Opinion should be clearly marked as Editorial. It’s one thing if opinion is offered in a columnist’s column, an editorial (marked editorial), or an Op-ed commentary (marked Op-ed). But when it is written into what should be “Just the Facts” news coverage, you’re crossing a line. And much of what I read in the paper this week wasn’t categorized as Opinion or Editorial, and could easily have been perceived as being news reporting, yet it was full of opinion. And frankly, some of the opinions in this week’s paper, to my mind, lacked the civility and respect that the candidates (and the paper itself) have been calling for as we approached the election. So here’s hoping that the Weekly will swing its pendulum back to its pre-election news approach.

Now I know I’m going to take some hits from people who will say that they feel it’s hypocritical for me to call for toning down the rhetoric and treating people with more respect, when, they will say, I was one of the people that was smearing their candidate. All I can say is go back and read my editorials again. The harshest thing I said was that statements that were being made were inaccurate, and that two of the candidates had, in my opinion misled voters. I don’t consider that smearing. You may, but I don’t.

And if you do, you’re entitled to your opinion. But in this case, and I’m not saying I agree with you, your opinion is about something that you perceive to have happened in the past. It’s okay if we disagree, different people perceive things in different ways, that’s life. I’m hoping that, as we move forward, we can try to be a little nicer to each other, even as we disagree. I will try. Will you?

Okay, I was wrong. I can turn thirty-nine words into thirty-two hundred, not two thousand…

Yes, Yes and YES!!

Congratulations to our next Mayor, Joe Mosca, and to new council members Josh Moran and Nancy Walsh. The good people of Sierra Madre have spoken, and I think what they've said is: Enough is Enough!

Crawford Turns Back on Supporters, Leaves FD Out in the Cold

Editorial by Bill Coburn
This editorial is the opinion of Bill Coburn, publisher of Sierra Madre News Net and 15 year Sierra Madre resident. It is not intended to reflect the views of any other person or entity with whom I am associated.
In a move that is being seen by many as an attempt at damage control, John Crawford yesterday announced that he is considering eliminating the comments section of his blog. He also changed the fundraising statement on his blog, removing the exhortation to “Send this blog to City Council” and replacing it with “Send John Crawford to City Council.”

Crawford posted the following statement on his site: ”Bill Coburn pointed out some comments left on this site regarding certain members of our Fire Department. He was right to do so as they were wrong. With over 12,000 comments having been left on this site, I am sure other unfortunate statements can be found as well. Recently the Pasadena Star News published an editorial lamenting some of the awful statements that get left in their public comments section. As has the Washington Post. Both are now considering doing away with the function altogether. I have always taken a very libertarian position on commenting to The Tattler. I never got into this to be anybody's net nanny, and I have only removed posts for obscenity or trolling. On the other hand, I might now be in a position where I might have to shut commenting down altogether. If you have a personal axe to grind with somebody, that is fine. But please, start a blog of your own and do it there. “

This statement was posted in direct response to an editorial that I wrote which I posted on my site last week and which was published in the Mountain Views News in last week’s edition, in which I posted statements that had appeared on Crawford’s blog that attacked the Sierra Madre Fire Department and the men and women that volunteer to staff the department. This was the second editorial I had written in which I pointed out that Crawford was requesting that voters send his blog to the City Council, which, in my mind, made the entire blog, not just Crawford, part of the election. In the article, I noted that Crawford had failed to say one word to defend our volunteers, and I questioned whether the election of the Crawford, Watts, Alcorn slate might lead to the end of our ninety-year old fire department.

Now Mr. Crawford has taken the unusual step of distancing himself from his supporters. Notable for me in Mr. Crawford’s statement are two things. One, the bulk of the statement deflects all blame for the issue as being standard operating procedure on blogs, by stating that the Tattler is no different than the Pasadena Star News (who Crawford has frequently berated on his site in the past, but with whom he now apparently feels a certain kinship), and the Washington Post, which have both expressed concern about the level of discourse in their comment section. It’s interesting to me that Mr. Crawford has not in the past, to my knowledge, expressed concern about the level of conversation on his blog. But as the election draws near, it appears he is concerned enough that his association with the comments on his site might impact the number of votes he receives, that he is willing to state that he “may” need to remove the comments, essentially turning his back on the views of the people that have supported him thus far in the race.

Of greater concern to me is the almost complete failure by Crawford to address the Fire Dept. issue. He said I was right to point out the comments “as they were wrong.” That’s it.

No apology to our volunteers for the statements that he allowed on his blog. No apology for failing to respond in the department’s/volunteer’s defense. No mention of whether or not he supports our Department, or wants to outsource Fire Suppression, an issue which will be taken up by the new Council within weeks of their being seated. We are still left to wonder whether Mr. Crawford supports our Department or wishes to see it end, bringing with it hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions) in budget expenses so that we will have a “professional” fire department, rather than volunteers.

Candidates Nancy Walsh, Josh Moran and incumbent Council member Joe Mosca have all assured me that A) they support our Fire Dept. in its current model; B) they wish to see the Dept. continue to maintain and improve upon its current level of expertise and professionalism, C) they are in support of doing whatever is necessary to make sure the Fire Department has the necessary equipment to maintain the standard of care now enjoyed by Sierra Madre residents, and D) short of the release of some unanticipated report that the Department is not living up to the public safety needs of the residents of Sierra Madre, they are against outsourcing Fire Suppression.

That (among other things) is why I will be voting for them.

SMFD Volunteers – Heroes or Hosers? Where Does Your Candidate Stand?

This editorial is the opinion of Bill Coburn, publisher of Sierra Madre News Net and 15 year Sierra Madre resident. It is not intended to reflect the views of any other person or entity with whom I am associated.

In the days following the Santa Anita Fire in April and May of 2008, the grateful residents of this town made no secret of their gratitude to the heroes who stood along the fire lines and fought back the flames that were destroying much of the hillside behind our village, manning fronts along the fire line, protecting their neighbors, and preventing the loss of even a single home, though the flames came within striking distance at multiple locations. Home made signs sprung up, letters to the editor were written, and Sierra Madreans stood up at local public meetings to express their undying gratitude to the volunteers of the Sierra Madre Fire Department.

Now, just two years later, some members of the community seem to have forgotten that it was these firefighting heroes, along with fire departments from all over California, that saved this town from destruction. Apparently for some, “gratitude” doesn’t have the shelf life it once did.

A few nights ago, bloggers posted comments on Sierra Madre Tattler, the blog operated by City Council candidate John Crawford, calling the Department “the laughing stock of the state.” Naturally, as often happens, the Department’s leader was the lightning rod. One blogger stated that SMFD Chief “Steve Heydorf (sic), who is currently getting paid over $120,000 a year to be our "volunteer" fire Chief does nothing except either sit on his fat butt all day in the Development Services department, or drive around in the shiny, brand new, command vehicle doing his personal errands.” Another poster said the department is “…just an 'elite' club of self-important windbags now, with questionable ability to battle a wastebasket fire.” Apparently, their ability to fight fires has undergone a rapid decline, having gone from a successful defense against walls of flame racing down hillsides toward our homes, to, according to this poster, an inability to extinguish a few burning pieces of paper.

It wasn’t just the Fire Department that took the hits, nearly half of your non-firefighting neighbors were accused of wanting their neighbors’ homes to burn: “I've heard the DIRTS say before, that they wish a huge fire would burn down every house in the canyon. No wonder why they had no problem with Lowe/Heydorf (sic)/Bamberger/Burnett taking Fire Dept. vehicles out of the city for personal use. Who needs a Fire Department when you're waiting for the whole city to burn up in flames.” For the unaware, DIRTS is the term used on Crawford’s blog to describe opponents of Measure V, the controversial ordinance limiting downtown development which in 2007 eked out a victory of fewer than 100 votes out of 3,500 votes cast. I’m not sure how disagreeing with someone over the methods used to limit growth downtown translates to a desire to see our historic canyon burn, but apparently, if this poster is to be believed, that’s what “the dirts” want.

But most of the negativity was directed at the Dept. itself: “For a long, long time they protected the city with a pair of 1950's era Crown fire engines just fine. There were a couple of 2nd or 3rd hand support vehicles. Now they have several late model engines, a ladder truck, ambulances, water tankers, suburbans, Tahoe, etc. etc. etc. All that's missing is a helicopter but I have a hunch they have tried to figure out how to get one!...Why do we give these guys any toy they want, whenever they want???” “The people in charge of the fire department are DIRTS, just like everyone in city Hall. They don't have a problem wasting our money because they would love to see Sierra Madre go bankrupt… If you're wondering why they're able to get away with it, it's because their boss, the city manager, is a died in the wool dirt, just like them.” The logic of that statement escapes me. Does this person really think it’s Elaine Aguilar’s goal to drive the city bankrupt, which would, of course, leave her without a job? But I digress. “Considering the sums of money that have been and are being wasted on that club, I would support contracting out fire services as well. For a few hundred thousand dollars more a year, we can get professional fire fighters, that can actually save lives and property, instead of a bunch of pictures of a burned out building and a death certificate.” Ouch.

The men and women of the Sierra Madre Fire Department spend long hours training WITH NO PAY so that they will be prepared to, WITH NO PAY, get up in the middle of the night to, WITH NO PAY, leave the warmth of their homes and the loving arms of their family and WITH NO PAY rush to your home and WITH NO PAY save our pets, our possessions, our property or in some cases, our lives. And they do this for false alarms and non-emergencies, as well. Did I mention that they do this, without pay? According to Salary.com, the median salary for a firefighter in the U.S. is in excess of $40,000/yr., significantly more than the $0 paid to all but three Sierra Madre firefighters.

One would expect that a City Council candidate in a town that has traditionally taken great pride in its fire department, which is now more than ninety years old, would say a few words in support of these brave men and women, if only to safeguard the votes of the members of the department and the residents who appreciate and support the department. Yet Crawford remained silent, allowing his supporters to denigrate the firefighters without a single word in their defense. Should his silence be interpreted as tacit agreement with the folks who would so willingly dishonor our hometown heroes? And by extension, the other members of the Crawford/Alcorn/Watts slate, since they “have like beliefs and ideas?”

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t feel that a person is responsible for things that other people say. However, in this election, Candidate John Crawford has asked voters to “Send this blog to the City Council” in his request for donations to fund his campaign. As such, I think it’s fair to consider the content of the entire blog, and not just Mr. Crawford’s personal observations on the blog, when considering whether or not to vote for Mr. Crawford, thereby sending “this blog to the City Council.”

Since Mr. Crawford chose to remain silent in the face of this criticism of one of Sierra Madre’s most revered institutions, I can’t say if that silence is agreement with his supporters, but it makes me wonder - should this slate become the majority on the City Council, will the Department survive to celebrate a centennial? A thought I hope Sierra Madre voters will consider when they cast their votes on April 13th. After all, the Council was considering proposals to possibly outsource fire suppression, but it was delayed until after the election, and while I didn’t see the meeting, I’m told that it was at the suggestion of one of the members of the slate, Council Member Don Watts.

In full disclosure, I have a personal stake in this discussion. My brother-in-law, Battalion Chief Bob Burnett, has been on the Department nearly twenty-five years. I also have a brother that is a paramedic and firefighter in another department. So maybe I’m a little overly-sensitive to unwarranted criticism of the people who invest so much of their lives in protecting ours.

I thought that in closing, it might be beneficial to talk a little about the Department. Perhaps the people who were so willing to berate our VOLUNTEERS just don’t know enough about the department, and would not have taken it to task if they knew a little more about it. So here’s a little history, and a few facts about our department.

According to an article written by then Fire Dept. Chief Jim Heasley in the June 9th, 1949 edition of the Sierra Madre News, SMFD was started after a disastrous fire in 1919, in which a bakery burned and “the fire could not be controlled by the local untrained men without proper equipment. Only a hand hose cart was then in use.” Monrovia Fire Dept. was called in, but the local business owners felt that more and better fire protection was needed. At its next meeting, the Board of Trade (precursor to the Chamber of Commerce), appointed two men to investigate the costs of Sierra Madre obtaining a fire engine and other equipment. During a demonstration of an engine, a local boy was “badly crippled by having his leg broken when the high pressure hose escaped the hands of the amateur fire fighters. This proved more than ever the necessity of a trained fire fighting force.” Shortly thereafter, the Sierra Madre Volunteer Fire Department was organized. According to Heasley, “There were so many men who wanted to join the fire department that it was necessary to organize a “Firemen’s Club” made up of men of all trades and businesses of the City.” Today, ninety years later, that tradition continues, with the addition of women to the ranks, and, in 2007, paramedics.

A few facts about Sierra Madre’s Volunteer Fire Department:

The Department currently is fully staffed, with 54 volunteers, three paid personnel and 27 paramedics. The Fire Chief oversees the administrative functions, daily operations, and response capabilities of the Sierra Madre Fire Department. The three Battalion Chiefs oversee fire prevention, training, personnel, and EMS training and quality assurance, as well as rotating the on duty battalion chief responsibilities. The six Fire Captains oversee crew training, station maintenance and equipment, and first in district pre-plans.

The Department currently has an ISO rating of 4, on a scale of 1 through 10. Class 1 generally represents superior property fire protection, and Class 10 indicates that the area's fire-suppression program doesn't meet ISO's minimum criteria. In my opinion, a Class four rating is hardly in the category of a “laughing stock of the state.” This rating is developed according to ISO’s Fire Suppression Rating Schedule (FSRS). The schedule measures the major elements of a community's fire-suppression system. Ten percent of the overall grading is based on how well the fire department receives fire alarms and dispatches its fire-fighting resources, i.e., communication center, dispatch, etc. Fifty percent of the overall grading is based on the number of engine companies and the amount of water a community needs to fight a fire. ISO reviews the distribution of fire companies throughout the area and checks that the fire department tests its pumps regularly and inventories each engine company's nozzles, hoses, breathing apparatus, and other equipment. Forty percent of the grading is based on the community's water supply. This part of the survey focuses on whether the community has sufficient water supply for fire suppression beyond daily maximum consumption. ISO surveys all components of the water supply system, including pumps, storage, and filtration.

The Sierra Madre Fire Department has a 1989 Mack Type 1 Engine, soon to be replaced, and a 2000 E-ONE; a 2,800 gallon Water Tender; one Chief’s vehicle; one Command Vehicle; an Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) trailer; a Utility truck; a Brush Patrol Truck; and two Rescue Ambulances. It should be noted that contrary to the blogger’s impression that we “give these guys any toy they want, whenever they want,” our newest engine is ten years old. The Water Tender truck is nearly 35 years old. We are all aware of the explosion that has taken place in technology in the last thirty years, fire suppression technology, too, has changed dramatically since much of the equipment that Sierra Madre’s Fire Department uses was manufactured. Public safety should be a top priority for our City officials – THAT’S why we should give these guys new toys.

Thanks to a generous gift from the Rotary Club last year, the trucks are now outfitted with state of the art radio communication systems. Prior to Rotary’s gift, some of the engines were operating with outdated equipment that did not adhere to the Homeland Security communication standards established after 9/11. Thank you Rotary!

During 2009, the Department responded to 28 fire calls, 590 medical calls (about 480 of which were Advanced Life Support Calls) and 200 service calls. 2009 was the third consecutive year in which the Department responded to more than 800 calls. The Department responds to all first alarm brush responses in the San Gabriel Mountains above the City of Sierra Madre with the Cities of Arcadia, Monrovia, Pasadena, the County of Los Angeles, and the United States Forest Service. The Department also participates in the California State-wide Mutual Aid Program by providing resources for the State of California Office of Emergency Services with the OES Engine.

Property damage in 2009 was less than $160,000, with structure fires at $130,000, vehicle fires at about $24,000, and miscellaneous fires just under $2000. There were 4 major OES calls, including the Station Fire, which totaled about 2,700 man hours. Personnel costs for those responses were just under $100,000, but the Department received more than $215,000 in state reimbursement, so revenue from OES was nearly $120,000. Additionally, the Emergency Medical Service calls generated $285,000. Total revenue from the department was nearly $400,000. Additionally, the department received a FEMA grant of $178,000.

Members of the Department accrued more than 11,000 hours of training in 2009, with more than 7,300 of that being standard training, and 4,200 hours of Academy training (14 shift firefighters undergoing more than 300 hours of Academy training). The average number of training hours per month per firefighter was eighteen. The training undertaken by our Fire Dept. was about a 110% increase from five years ago.

Nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, Euripedes said that you can judge a man by the company he keeps. This timeless axiom holds true today. If the John Crawford supporters who were so quick to disparage the men and women of our fire department are indicative of the kind of company he keeps, I think we’d be better off if he wasn’t on our City Council. That’s why I will show my support of the Fire Department by voting for Mosca, Moran and Walsh, and I urge all Sierra Madre voters to do the same.

2010 Election Candidate Endorsements - Joe Mosca for Mayor!

I doubt anyone is going to be particularly surprised by my endorsements, but you might be surprised to learn that I was inches away from endorsing four candidates for the three spots, or endorsing three with an honorable mention. But then the candidate in question, Pat Alcorn, sent me an e-mail that actually made me realize that the reasoning she was providing to me for endorsing the other members of her slate should actually be the reasoning I used in making my decision, and that cost her my endorsement. More on that a little later.

Okay, no surprise, Mosca, Moran and Walsh.

Joe Mosca should be the highest vote getter in this election, as he was in 2006, and should, based on his record, receive the support of the town’s residents. Unfortunately, a lot of misinformation has been spread, and there have been some very visible personal attacks by his opponents, which will mean Joe won’t generate as many votes this time around. The fact that Joe has chosen to de-emphasize defending himself but instead put the emphasis on the positive that has been done during his time on the Council is evidence of the kind of candidate he is (though he did screw up big time on his postcard mailer, which made it appear he was personally responsible for accomplishments when it was the entire council that accomplished things). You may have noticed at the Candidate Forum that he tried to correct that, by his repeated use (almost overuse) of the word “we” when discussing the council’s accomplishments. Hopefully, if he sends out another mailer, it will also correct that error.

Joe is the hardest working Council member I’ve seen in my 15 years in town. He also is the most knowledgeable candidate, though there have been a couple others that were close, including one current council member, John Buchanan. I’ve asked Joe about a whole bunch of different things relating to City business over the last four years, and he always knew the answer. And if he doesn’t know or understand something, he’s not afraid to ask about it. For example, I was watching the budget meeting from June of 2009 the other night. One PD position had been frozen, and Joe wanted to know whether/where in the budget the funding for that position had been allocated. None of the other council members thought to ask that question.

One more time – Joe didn’t decide not to put the DSP to a vote of the people, he in fact prepared a resolution that called for greater community input in the DSP process, and put in place a timeline for completion of the DSP, eventually putting it on the ballot for voter approval. That resolution was passed by the City Council. But his detractors conveniently forget that, because he didn’t vote to put the issue on the ballot per the time schedule they wanted, in the manner they wanted it on the ballot. Kind of reminds me of the kid in the neighborhood that takes the ball home, ending the game, if the rest of the team doesn’t play the game by his rules. And after all, why let the truth get in the way?

I spend a lot of time attending meetings with various regional organizations, and when Joe’s name has come up, the people that I have spoken with at these meetings all hold Joe in high regard. The same can’t be said for all the candidates, and I think we might be taking a step backwards in relationship building with other cities and other regional organizations if we elect the wrong people and they end up representing us poorly to other communities and regional organizations.

As to the complaint that Joe has brought partisan politics into a local election – it wasn’t Joe that brought up the fact that he received these endorsements, it was his opponents. Yes, he was endorsed, but find me some Mosca campaign literature somewhere that says that, or video from the forums where Joe discussed it. You can’t. The fact is that many of Joe’s biggest supporters are from the other party, and it would be counterproductive for Joe to brag about the endorsement locally. While it makes sense to seek the endorsement, so that the locals that are members of the organizations and who value that endorsement are aware he has received it, Joe never, to my knowledge, brought the endorsements into the campaign. Had his opponents kept their mouths shut, I don’t think there would have been any interjection of partisan politics into this campaign. I find it fascinating that his opponents complain so loudly that he brought partisan politics into the campaign, when in fact it was their complaints that did it.
The truly sad part is, that I’m spending so much time defending Joe, when his record as Council member should make him a lock, when what I should be doing is promoting the other candidates I’m endorsing. So the tactics of his opponents paid off, by drawing attention away from where it deserves to be.

Nancy Walsh worked in County government for nearly thirty years. Thanks to all that experience, she knows how local government works, and she also knows how regional government works. That’s how she managed to obtain some thirty thousand dollars through a recycling donation program that has benefited the City. She has also served this City well for several years, working on the Senior Master Plan, sitting on the Senior Community Commission, including serving as its Chair. I didn’t know Nancy well before this election, though we’d met a time or two. But I thought she acquitted herself well, for the most part, at the City Hall Candidate Forum, and though I was only at the Kiwanis forum for a short time, I thought she did well there, too (though I wasn’t impressed by the “I must be awesome” comment when she was asked about the Tattler’s article about her, seemed a little silly to me).

Anyway, I sat down and talked with Nancy to get to know her a little better, and to ask her about the things that concerned me. After talking with her for about an hour and a half, I came away more impressed than I thought I would. She has an open mind, she has experience, she is pretty sharp at analyzing things, and I trust her. Again, I can’t say that about all the candidates.

Josh Moran has lived in Sierra Madre most of his life. Don’t let his opponents mislead you, Josh didn’t move here two days before the filing deadline. Josh made it pretty clear at the Kiwanis meeting that he had moved back to town a year and a half ago, he just hadn’t updated his voter registration. But they won’t let a little thing like the truth get in the way of them telling you what they want you to believe.

Josh and I were part of the All-America City team that went down and made a presentation in 2007 when Sierra Madre won the award. Josh was enthusiastic, and it was very clear that he both loved and took pride in his home town. So much so, that he spent a lot of time practicing the program and then traveling to Anaheim to be there for the presentation to help this city win the prestigious award, and at the time, he didn’t even live here!

In addition to his time spent on the All-America City delegation, he was on the Mt. Wilson Trail Race committee, and Josh has a lot of experience working with the Community and Personnel Services Commission (though I think it was called the Parks and Rec. Commission most of the time that he was volunteering). He worked on the City’s Youth Master Plan (so by electing Walsh and Moran, we have experience with age groups at each end of the spectrum, with two of the people who created the Master Plan for youth and seniors on the Council, which to me seems like a good thing).

What this election seems to be boiling down to, in my opinion, is planning. The candidates above, whom I endorse, all seem to respect the existing planning processes, even when they disagree with individual aspects of those processes. They trust the system, and are prepared to work both locally and regionally to make sure Sierra Madre residents and Sierra Madre as a City are engaged in the planning process, and that the rights of the people and the City are properly protected.

The candidates below (with the possible exception of Mr. Tice), all seem to have a mistrust of the planning process and/or the regional organizations that are part of or in charge of the processes. While Pat Alcorn has told me that she believes we need to be involved, she also made it clear she is wary of the regional organizations, and both John Crawford and Don Watts have made it quite clear that they do not trust the processes and/or the organizations. Both seem to favor an adversarial approach, rather than a collaborative one. I think it’s in Sierra Madre’s best interests to collaborate, rather than butt heads.

For reasons I have begun spelling out in other editorials, and will spell out in further detail in upcoming editorials, I cannot endorse Watts or Crawford. Suffice to say for now that I don’t think it’s in the town’s best interests to be represented by people who I believe have misled voters, and who only represent their supporters, ignoring the rest of the residents of the town. I also want to endorse people that more closely reflect my positions/opinions, and there are many things on which I disagree with Mr. Watts and Mr. Crawford. Please be sure to check back in the next few days to see those editorials.

Because I don’t think he takes his candidacy seriously, and wouldn’t know what to do if he won, I can’t endorse Bill Tice, though I thank him for running. He does make a boring election a little more enjoyable.

I almost endorsed Pat Alcorn. She has attended most of the Commission meetings in the last couple years, and currently serves on two ad hoc committees. As such, she’s heard both sides of the arguments that have taken place at those meetings, and that awareness, in my opinion, would benefit the City. Unfortunately, there are many issues on which we disagree. I was prepared to overlook that based on my belief that Pat has the best interests of the City at heart. Pat and I sat down and had an extensive talk about my concerns, and I came away from our meeting feeling very conflicted, and not sure how I was going to handle her candidacy, endorsement-wise.

One of the issues we discussed was her desire to be independent of a slate, which she had expressed at the Kiwanis meeting. I appreciated that, and it was another reason I was giving her serious consideration. But after our meeting, I received an e-mail from Pat telling me that after consulting with her campaign manager, and after looking up the word “slate” in the dictionary, “in the strict sense of the word, I am on a "slate" or list of nominees running for an office. I don't want to mislead you, nor do I want to give the impression that I have separated myself from the other two.” She added that she was “endorsing Watts and Crawford because I want to see a majority remain on the council, and we have like beliefs and ideas.” She then stated that though she had enjoyed our meeting, she believed “people would be misled by an endorsement since I do need a majority with MaryAnn to "stay the course".” And so, in accordance with Ms. Alcorn’s reasoning, because I want to change the majority on the council, and because we have like beliefs and ideas, I’m endorsing Mosca, Moran and Walsh.

One last thing. Joe Mosca deserves to be Mayor. He was bypassed the last two times when he should have been elevated to Mayor, and it’s time to right that wrong. I urge Sierra Madre voters to elect Mosca, Moran and Walsh to City Council, so that we can have the best people that have stepped up to sit on the Council serving us. In doing so, we’ll ensure that we have a Mayor that we can respect and be proud of.

Editorial - These People Walk Among You

Editorial - These People Walk Among You
By Bill Coburn

This editorial is the opinion of Bill Coburn, publisher of Sierra Madre News Net and 15 year Sierra Madre resident. It is not intended to reflect the views of any other person or entity with whom I am associated.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t feel that a person is responsible for things that other people say. However, in this election, Candidate John Crawford has asked voters to “Send this blog to the City Council” in his request for donations to fund his campaign. As such, I think it’s fair to consider the content of the entire blog, and not just Mr. Crawford’s personal observations on the blog, when considering whether or not to vote for Mr. Crawford, thereby sending “this blog to the City Council.”

At the Kiwanis candidate forum, Mr. Crawford stated that he removes posts from the blog if they contain profanity, or personal attacks. I think perhaps it’s time for him to start paying a little closer attention to the things his readers are posting. Some of the things they write can only be described as personal attacks, yet they remain on the site. Coincidentally (?), these attacks are made against people whom Mr. Crawford has written pieces in opposition to. Perhaps Mr. Crawford should have described the blog’s policy as removing posts that are personal attacks against him or his supporters, because those whom he opposes seem to be fair game. This is just a very small, but representative, sampling of some of the thoughts posted on the blog Mr. Crawford is asking voters to consider sending to the City Council:

I don't know who is worse, (name withheld) or (name withheld). Both are diseases in this town, actually, any town. Bad people. – Anonymous, 1/25/10, 9:24am

(Name withheld) isn’t a disease to this town, she’s a plague. – Jerome Horwitz, 1:25/10, 1:43pm

Susan Henderson is a con artist. She falsifed (sic) expense reports with a previous employer and claims law degrees that she does not posess (sic). She is a brat. If anybody is a "liar" it's (Name withheld). (Name withheld) is a con artist. He claims actions that are not his and then attacks those who has (sic) the audacity to question his own statements. He has been a fraud since he moved into town. (Different name withheld) is a joke. He's a (first name withheld) clone. Anonymous, 2/24/10, 10:48am. It's interesting to note that the claim against Susan Henderson is one that has been made repeatedly by Crawford even though his own articles reference a San Francisco Chronicle news story in which the leader of the party that Henderson is alleged to have falsified reports to states that their audit cleared Henderson of having done so.

(Name withheld) is a grifter, a dishonest con artist who preys on the elderly in this town. She is pure trash. – Anonymous, 3/10/10, 10:51am

To paraphrase a favorite play, there is an unmistakable odor of mendacity in the room: coming from lies and liars, namely council candidates Joe Mosca, Nancy Walsh, Josh Moran and all of their downtown dirt supporters. We lived through and fell for the blatant obfuscation of political leanings during Mosca's original candidacy; I personally am not willing to do it again. Let's call a spade a spade; Walsh, Moran and Mosca are all toadies for the development industry and they should be exposed for what they are often and mercilessly right up to voting date. What a bunch of pricks. – Anonymous, 3/15/10, 12:31pm

Joe Mosca- lobbyist/liar/sociopath. John (sic) Moron (sic) - moral and intellectual deviant. Nancy Walsh-tap dancer puppet of Bart Doyle. – Anonymous, 3/24/10, 8:39am Ironically, this post was just 16 minutes after a post from someone calling themselves Panelist (presumably a blog moderator?) that said: Posts are removed for vulgar language and offensive content, of which there have been many lately. Slanderous attacks and accusations of a felonious nature are also removed. Slurs against family members and children are not tolerated. (emphasis mine).

And while all of the above posts are directed at specific individuals, some of the bloggers are happy to be more general when disparaging their neighbors, intimating that all those who oppose them have a drinking problem: I guess it's true that alcoholics are delusional. And considering their posts recently, also wake up in a bad mood every morning. Maybe they should have a little "hair of the dog" before they get on the internet. – Keep the Punch Lines Coming, 3/24/10, 4:03pm. But the willingness to make unfounded accusation of alcoholism isn’t limited to generalizations. Here’s one that’s specific from regular poster Old Kentucky: News flash.....11:23 dirt.....we don't need YOUR vote. We will win anyway. Go have some coffee, you're probably hungover....hope you feel better, have a great day.

And let’s not forget, that there is a derisive term used at the blog to describe anyone with opposing viewpoints, all of whom are called dirts. There is also a second term used, describing people with opposing viewpoints as members of the Downtown Investors Club (which creates what some would consider an offensive acronym).

I defend the right of everyone quoted above to say the things they said. But I personally don’t think it’s right to treat your neighbors in such a negative manner, nor do I think this is the kind of attitude we want our City Council to reflect. While a couple candidates have said they want to see a return of civility to the council, I have a somewhat less grandiose wish. I’d just be happy to see that the Council’s treatment of each other and others doesn’t spiral downward to the level displayed by Mr. Crawford’s supporters. To do that, I suggest that we encourage our friends and neighbors NOT to “send this blog to City Council.”