A new chief?

I just spotted this under the closed session portion of the Baldwin Park City Council meeting agenda. The little asterisk tells us the item wasn’t added until Tuesday, one day before the actual meeting, which is tonight.

I haven’t been able to get any officials on the phone yet, but not too long ago Chief Executive Officer Vijay Singhal said it would be a few weeks before the city got background checks back on the two final candidates they were considering. Is this just a status update? Or is someone getting the green light?


*2. PUBLIC EMPLOYEE APPOINTMENT (GC 54957)
Title: Chief of Police
*Agenda amended 4/15 to include Item #2

See the full agenda here.

Blog schedule…

So I’m taking a weekend gig here at the paper, which means I’ll be off on Mondays and Tuesdays from here on out. Jennifer will be blogging like a mad woman on those days, when our blog staff is down to just one lonely soul.

As for me, since I’ll be here on the weekends, that will give me an opportunity to blog from the office, which should make for some better content on the weekends.

Is an NFL stadium right around the corner in Industry?

Is the City of Industry closer to getting an NFL stadium than we know about? I got a call today from an anonymous resident who said he’s heard it through the grapevine that they are making preparations for an NFL stadium in Industry. And he heard the team that would be coming here are the Buffalo Bills.

Another source told me that mock designs were spotted in the offices of Ed Roski, the billionaire land developer who would be finacially backing this project. Roski is owner of Majestic Realty, which is based out of Industry and also owns a lot of property there. He is also the one who was behind the Staples Center.

I can’t get any confirmation yet, other than what I’ve written months ago about Roski pitching the idea to NFL execs.

All this could be total BS. But if the project is moving forward, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to keep it under the radar as much as possible.

Advertorial allegiances

I’ve heard comments from readers that are convinced that the Tribune won’t do certain stories because it could make one of our advertisers look bad. Each time I hear that comment, I respond the same way: “Look, when I was hired I wasn’t sat down and given a list of our top advertisers. I don’t know who gives what to Tribune, and I don’t care. All I know is that my job is to report the news.”

I don’t think they buy into my little speech.

This issue came up today. I was sitting in a meeting at the San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority, and board member Al Contreras, who is the director of the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, asked just how much the authority pays to the Tribune and its affiliated papers in advertisements. That number is $77,000 a year.

“That’s a lot less than other water agencies pay,” said the authority’s director, Greg Nordbak.

He’s right. Directors Contreras and Bill Robinson, who also sits on the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, have both previously said that their district buys about $150,000 a year in ads.

I still don’t care who gives what to the Tribune, and still know that my content is not influenced by our advertisers. But after their brief discussion about what public agencies take out ads in the Tribune, I got to thinking: That is one story I won’t do.

State Assembly candidate gets ‘a very public boot’

If I could only be so lucky as to stumble on a story like this:

SACRAMENTO (AP) The mayor of West Sacramento a candidate for a state Assembly
seat got a very public boot.

Mayor Christopher Cabaldon emerged from a downtown Sacramento coffee shop on Monday to find
an orange boot attached to a rim of his Nissan 350Z, preventing him from driving off. It was the penalty for too many unpaid parking tickets.

Unfortunately for Cabaldon, the campaign manager for his political rival just happened to be
driving by. The campaign manager called an associate to bring a camera and then alerted the
media.

Cabaldon and Yolo County Supervisor Mariko Yamada are competing for the 8th Assembly
District seat in the June 3 Democratic primary.

While Cabaldon went to City Hall to pay the $567 in fines, Yamadas campaign made the most
of the incident.

Her campaign manager said Cabaldons failure to pay his parking tickets was evidence that
the West Sacramento mayor believes he does not have to play by the same rules as everyone
else.

Antonovich calls for more sweeps targeting illegal immigrants

I just found this off of our fax machine, sent from the office of Supervisor Michael Antonovich. With such language like, taking jobs from our legal residents and terrorizing our communities in gang warfare, I wonder where he falls in the whole illegal immigration debate.

April 11, 2008

Honorable Michael Chertoff
Secretary
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528

Dear Director Chertoff,

Re: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWNS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

As a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, representing 10.3 million people in 88 cities and 134 unincorporated communities, I urge you to aggressively continue sweeps of employers who hire illegal immigrants — as well as those illegals who are terrorizing our communities in gang warfare.

As we have seen by the actions of our neighboring state, Arizona, the crackdown on employers violating the law has experienced a reduction of illegals taking jobs from our legal residents.

Sincerely,

Michael D. Antonovich
Supervisor

Not in my backyard

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Melissa Pamer  reports a classic case of, ‘Not in my backyard.’

DUARTE – In an exclusive neighborhood high in the city’s foothills, Pam Gomez has a vision: She wants to open the French doors of her proposed second-story master bedroom onto a view that encompasses most of the San Gabriel Valley.

It’s a vista she may never see if some of her neighbors get their way. So far, they have.

After outcry and a 60-signature petition from residents of Duarte Mesa – the 1950s- and 1960s-era development of about 100 hillside homes where Gomez lives – the City Council last week denied for a second time Gomez’s plans to expand her house to two stories.

The possibility of having a better view and more room for their two young children still tempts Gomez and her husband, Garrett Gomez, one of the nation’s leading jockeys.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t give it up,” Pam Gomez said Monday, standing in her pine-shaded driveway beneath the two-story addition of her neighbor’s home up the hill.

When I was covering the affluent Bay Area town of Los Gatos, which backs up to the Santa Cruz Moutains, these types of issues came up often. I could always relate to what both sides were saying. On the one hand, as a property owner, you should have the right to build your dream home. But on the other hand, as a neighbor, you moved into your property thinking it was one way, and then all of the sudden you feel like your quality of life is threatened.

The bottom line is compromise. In this story, it sounds like there is room for both sides to give-and-take.

In Walnut, it’s out with the old

In Walnut, it’s official, Claudia Palma reports.

It took a few days to get the final count, but Nancy Renne Tragarz beat Mayor Tom Sykes, who has served on the city commissions and the council for 25 years.

Councilmen Joaquin Lim and Tony Cartagena still held the top votes, while Tragarz edged out Mayor Tom Sykes by a final 47 votes.

Tragarz, 45, a part-time lawyer and temporary judge, grabbed 1,170 votes, while Sykes received 1,123, Palma reports.

 

Covina’s newest problem

Is it just me, or does it sound like Covina has got some serious set of issues? Recently, the Tribune has reported that Covina declared a fiscal crisis, a city-driven utility tax will be going in front of voters again – only this time without an argument opposing the measure — and three top executives recently left the city. Now, Amanda Baumfeld is reporting that the city could pay another $35,000 in consultant fees to help come up with a contract between the city and the police officer’s union.

And just where will the money be coming from? City Manager Paul Philips told Baumfeld, “We don’t have the money but we’ll take it from reserves.”

When police union representative attributed the departure of department heads to mis-management of the city, the city manager had this response:

“I don’t have any real response to that,” Philips said in an interview Monday.

But if there’s one thing the city does have is an ice cream truck that plays Kenny G.

La Habra Heights and fire services

I spotted this on Whittier Daily News, with a couple of interesting comments to follow about the budget decisions made by Councilman Stan Carroll.

LA HABRA HEIGHTS Councilman Stan Carroll has been elected mayor, succeeding Brian Bergman. This is his second time as mayor.

Councilman Howard Vipperman was elected mayor pro tem.

Carroll said the council will face a number of issues in the next year.

“We need to select a permanent city manager,” Carroll said. “We need to deal with fire protection service, including balancing the fiscal 2008-09 Fire Department budget.”

The city also needs to find money to construct a new fire station as well as continue the discussion about protection for the east side of the city.

Here are what a couple of readers had to say:

Reader 1:

Mayor Carroll, was it not Council Person Tela Milsap and yourself who sit on the budget committee and approved the record 21 percent increase in the fire department budget in the first place? I sure do hope the city council does not plan on balancing the fire department budget mess by raising taxes and finance bond’s on the good people of La Habra Heights?

We already pay record high prices for fuel, food and soon water. Now you want us to pay for your mistakes. We elected you to oversee our local government and provide for it’s well being. Not to try to force your New City Hall plan down our throats at a cost now approaching $1,300,000. And with nothing to show for it but a contaminated piece of dirt.

How about the city go after the employees that are alleged of moving and hiding city funds for personal gain? The city has seen 4 employees resign in the past 5 months, does that not seem suspicious to anyone?

NO MORE NEW TAXES!

Reader 2:

2. Maybe if the City had not done away with their Resident Firefighters they would not be over budget? Seems simple and straightforward to me.