The Importance Of Community Activism

"Downtown development decisions that could deviate from our long-standing goals should be made by the entire city after a public debate and an election, and not by a few city hall insiders." - Measure V

I do like to live for the moment. And since I write posts here nearly every day you can see why. It's always day to day here at The Tattler. And yesterday we had a little celebration over the very real possibility that the first ever Measure V vote to approve a development project will be held this November. It was a big moment in the seemingly endless fight to preserve our little town.

The residents will be asked to use their vote and decide if the Assisted Living Facility (also known as The Kensington) is worthy enough of gracing downtown Sierra Madre. Since this will be the same day as the Presidential election there should be a fairly impressive turnout of voters here. I suspect that those casting ballots will vote to approve, and the ALF will be built. The other option, leaving the decrepit Skilled Nursing Facility in place as is, being too much for most Sierra Madreans to bear.

But what will actually be put up for voter sanction is still very much up in the air. This project has only just begun its approval process, and there is much work to be done. Planning Commission meetings, General Plan Update meetings, City Council meetings, these are the places where the ALF will first take shape. And what you will see put up for voter approval this November will have been crafted during these meetings. Without your input and advocacy what will be approved and built might not be to your liking. And if you were not involved, then there will be nobody to blame but yourself.

Yesterday Kurt Zimmerman and I had a conversation on yesterday's topic. He made what I thought were some good points, very close in spirit to what some people had posted in the comments to this blog. I asked him if he would write a little about Measure V and the November 2012 vote, something that I could share here on The Tattler. Here is what he sent in:

This is an enormously positive development. Councilmember MaryAnn MacGillivray, blogger extraordinaire John Crawford and the residents who spoke out in favor of Measure V deserve a great round of applause for making the developer see reason.

That having been said, I won't be celebrating until a majority of the City Council acknowledges that Measure V actually applies to the proposed Assisted Living Facility project. I am concerned that the Council will either reject the developer's request to put the project on the November, 2012 ballot, or authorize an "advisory vote," taking the position that Measure V doesn't apply.

Recall that former Councilmember Joe Mosca proposed just such an "advisory vote" on the proposed Downtown Specific Plan with the full support of then Councilmember John Buchanan.

Because an advisory vote is non-binding the Council is free to "greenlight" the project even if a majority of the voters say NO. Of course, that would violate both the letter and spirit of Measure V. The fight for Measure V is far from over, and the supporters of 2-30-13 must remain ever vigilant.

We all know that Measure V has powerful and well-financed enemies. Enough power to control the votes of 75% of our current City Council, anyway. And as we might soon see, there could be some new ploys designed to steal that vote from the residents of Sierra Madre. The issue here for them isn't so much the ALF, it is stopping Measure V from ever being used as part of any development approval process. The last thing these folks want to see is you participating in something that they believe belongs exclusively to them.

Your kind participation is needed now more than ever. Things are only just getting started.

More on the SGVCOG

Yesterday our friends over at the Walnut Tattler dropped some pointed comments about the woeful state of affairs at the SGVCOG on Tuesday's Tattler post dealing with just that topic. You may recall that Tricky Nick Conway and his little operation got hit by Caltrans with a semi's worth of accusations regarding a serious conflict of interest situation there.

So angry was this state public transportation agency that they were demanding their $240,000 back, accusing Conway of funneling much of that money through a third party company - Arroyo Seco - for his own personal profit. Arroyo Seco, which supposedly had handled a lot of the administrative work involved in what was purportedly Gold Line work, being the personal property of, you got it, Nick Conway.

This being the SGVCOG and all, Nick and his bobbleheads are now on board with a novel solution to their problem. What if instead of being a contracted employee brought on board to act as the Executive Director of The COG, Nick Conway was instead hired as an official state employee? And what if the folks who work at Nick's honey pot, Arroyo Seco, were also hired by the state and brought as employees? Then there wouldn't be a conflict of interest any more, right?

As outrageous as this sounds, that is where the SGVCOG sees itself going. And what could make this even more absurd then it already is? According to our posting friends, Nick could then qualify for a PERS Pension for all of his years of service at The COG. And after retirement he would be living on the taxpayers dime, happily ever after. All brought on because CALTRANS busted him on a conflict of interest rap.

The company that cooked up this strategy, Citygate, brought in by the SGVCOG in order to conduct an audit of their own regarding Caltrans' conflict of interest charges, wrote it up this way. This from the SGV Tribune (click here):

"In order to eliminate Caltrans' objection to contracting for staff from the private sector through a (contract with Arroyo), Citygate believes that the most straightforward solution is to directly employ that same staff as SGVCOG employees," according to the management audit.

Citygate is apparently pushing the meme that the real issue here is the practice of hiring outside help, and not the Caltrans assertion that the person who hired Arroyo Seco to work on a state transportation project funded with public money is also its owner. A wee small matter in Citygate's collective mind, I suppose.

What the Walnut Tattler folks are proposing for us is something similar to what Tom King is pushing in Walnut. King, a two term former Mayor of the City of Walnut and one time President of the SGVCOG, is pushing hard there to make certain that his City in no way contributes funds to Conway's proposed PERS Pension.

Here is their proposed Resolution for the City of Sierra Madre:

The City of Sierra Madre is committed to a high quality of life and the financial security of the community. Therefire it is resolved:

1. Sierra Madre will not accept the responsibility of a PERS Pension for the Executive Director of the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, a Joint Powers Authority.

2. Sierra Madre will not participate in any grants, programs or other activities with the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, a Joint Powers Authority.

3. Sierra Madre hereby suspends membership and payment of dues, or other liabilities to the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, a Joint Powers Authority.

4. The City of Sierra Madre resolves it will not financially support or participate in any joint powers authority which has been determined to be a high risk agency by any government reviewing authority.

What we need to do is put this before our City Council and see how it responds. In the past MaryAnn MacGillivray had questioned our continued financial support for The COG given all the strange shenanigans there. And as the SGV Tribune article we linked to above suggests, there will be a State investigation coming down soon for the SGVCOG and its wily Executive Director. One can only imagine what will come of that. It would be a shame if we'd have to give back any State money funneled to us through The COG. That would certainly be an unfortunate result, I'd think.

I guess we'll get to see where Mayor Buchanan and Mayor Pro Tem Moran stand on important ethics issues such as this one.

There is one other point of interest posted yesterday by people associated with the Walnut Tattler. According to them, 5 elected officials who had served with The COG were busted for various legal improprieties recently. They are:

1. Shannon Martinez SGVCOG Vice President Monterey Park

2. Former Mayor Kathe Wilson of Temple City

3. Former City Councilwoman Judy Wong of Temple City

4. Former Mayor John Tran of Rosemead

5. Former Mayor Louis Lejan of La Puente

Quite a little organization that COG. It really does attract an interesting class of people.

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