Column: Complaints about flooded streets rain down on Chino

I attended Tuesday’s Chino council meeting and learned that more than three dozen residents had pelted City Hall with letters about impacts of the recent rains in south Chino, which is only partly developed. Officials urged patience, explaining that further development will provide money to improve streets and drainage. Also: a clutch of Culture Corner items and a Valley Vignette, all in Friday’s column.

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Farewell, mayors

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Goodbye events took place last Thursday for the mayors of Upland and Chino. The former, for Ray Musser, was at the Carnegie Building. Above, he gets a plaque and is applauded by council members, with his wife, Fern, to the right.

Dennis Yates’ more formal event was at Chino’s Planes of Fame Museum, a unique setting. For the speeches, Yates was sat in a rocking chair, not his usual position of authority, as speakers praised and mocked.

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Column: He’s still a champion for Chino

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He arrived in Chino in 1956 to buy the city’s weekly newspaper. Sixty years later, Al McCombs still owns the Champion and goes into the office daily. Of his newspaper, he says: “I think it makes a difference.” Wednesday’s column tells his story. Above, McCombs is seen in his office; below, he’s looking at  a 1949 photo of himself, among the memorabilia in the Champion’s conference room.

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Arrow Creamery, Chino

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Driving along Riverside Drive in Chino recently, I was struck by this abandoned building east of Euclid Avenue; on my return trip, I pulled over for a photo. The painted-on sign is perhaps at just that stage of decay — faded but mostly legible — to make the scene picturesque. Arrow Creamer, or Creamery, was the name of the business, and the motto reads “Quality Always.”

I’m not the only one to have found the scene memorable. A Google search turns up a similar photo by Gregory Dyer, for sale as an art print.

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