The Sierra Madre Tattler!

Mod: The following article is front page news in this week's Arcadia Weekly, and it is a pretty good indication of the effect The Tattler is having on election coverage there. I can't imagine the Roger Chandler campaign is quite as excited about all of this freedom of the press as we are, though. Thanks to Terry Miller for bringing it all home.

Arcadia Election Mailer Pokes Fun At Opposition As Election Tactics Run The Gamut - At the Eleventh Hour, Humor Has Thrown Some Residents a Curve Ball (Arcadia Weekly link): April’s municipal election in Arcadia has turned ugly and humorous at the same time. This is nothing new in politics, however. While candidates exchange jabs at one another and residents decry the advent of "districting," which leaves over 11,000 residents without a voice, campaign mailers and complaints are flying in to the Fair Political Practices Commission.

The Epoch Times, a Chinese language newspaper, is the latest to splash another, potentially illegal, political photo, where an Arcadia police officer’s badge is clearly shown in a direct endorsement for candidates Harbicht and Chandler. Arcadia City Hall is not amused.

More recently, Deborah Priester, a resident of District 5, has had enough of the attacks and put out a mailer that encourages voters to select ANYONE but Roger Chandler. The mailer depicts Roger Chandler as the McMansion Monopoly man.

You might remember two weeks ago, ‘Arcadia’ Best’ – a conservative blog run by Mayor Pro Tem Sho Tay– ran the same photo of the APOA endorsing the two pro-development, or ‘property rights,’ candidates for Arcadia’s election next month. They, too, got their wrists slapped by election officials, who do take these matters very seriously.

Here’s how our friends over at Sierra Madre Tattler described the latest attempt to coerce the few voters that can actually vote in this year’s election:

“It seems that the ARPAs are now back for Round 2, but they’re trying a completely different tact as their 2016 graphic masterpieces didn’t get Harbicht elected. April Verlato was successfully voted onto the City Council while Bulldozer Bobby suffered an extremely embarrassing defeat. One that he is still whining about, and blaming everyone but himself ... Now it is 2018, and their chosen target this time is the mild mannered and politically positive Tom Beck, who is currently on the City Council and running for re-election. They are also targeting any candidate that dares to run against the timeless Roger Chandler, who has been sitting on the City Council since back when Fred Flintstone was still in diapers."

The always politically astute Tattler also added this regarding another mailed sent out in Chinese. After a careful translation, The Tattler made this observation:

“What I especially like here is the description of Beck being a mob leader causing crime to increase, property values to decrease and taxpayer money to be wasted, all at his direction. Joyce Platt is apparently a “puppet” of Tom Beck, and Jolly Wu is selfish because she wants to keep the Arcadia Dial A Ride for seniors and the disabled, herself being wheelchair bound. Your only hope, according to this group, is to elect the venerable Bob Harbicht and Roger Chandler."

We contacted Tom Beck for comment on this story and the advent of the dueling mailers. "I am most concerned about all of the lies, misstatements, and plays to fear that Harbicht is sending out at me. He said he would run a clean campaign. His ethics certainly are different from mine,” said Tom.

Mayor Pro Tem Sho Tay, who is not actually running for office (he was appointed), has allegedly opened a campaign committee and may be receiving contributions from local real estate interests.

According to sources familiar with the campaign, Sho Tay is allegedly paying from his committee for the mailers being sent in support of Harbicht and Chandler. However, in an email to this office, Tay denies any responsibility.

Mod: A second Arcadia Weekly article from this week's action packed edition deals with an FPPC complaint filed by an annoyed resident. Apparently the FPPC now agrees that this Arcadia resident does have a valid complaint, and has launched an investigation of ARPA.

Arcadia Resident Files FPPC Complaint Against PAC (Arcadia Weeklylink): A 35-year Arcadia resident, Roger Nemrava, recently filed an FPPC complaint regarding the Arcadian's Rights Protection Association (ARPA): (FPPC complaint COM-03052018-00262: Arcadian's Rights Protection Association.) ARPA, which is not based in Arcadia but Alhambra, has sent out mailers supporting Bob Harbicht and Roger Chandler, candidates for Arcadia City Council, allegedly without the required disclaimers. Not a good thing to do.

The first mailer sent was in support of Bob Harbicht. Nemrava complained to the Arcadia's City Clerk's office. The Chief Deputy City Clerk for Elections, Lisa Mussenden, contacted ARPA to stop.

Shortly thereafter, another mailer from ARPA was mailed in support of Roger Chandler. Again, Nemrava complained to the Arcadia City Clerk's office, and then decided to file a complaint with the FPPC.

The Arcadia Rights Protection Association is being investigated by the FPPC for violating campaign finance disclosure laws. “ARPA doesn’t comply because it is attempting to hide where the money is coming from for the mailers. This is a major violation,” Nemrava told Arcadia Weekly.

Nemrava belives ARPA, Harbicht and Chandler are breaking the rules.

Mod: Bulldozer Bob and the Artful Roger continue to run absurdly dirty campaigns, while their alleged financial bagman, peacock proud Arcadia Mayor Pro Tem Sho Tay, denies knowledge of any of it. Something everyone should find completely laughable.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

View video here.

Mod: I've been writing columns for the Sierra Madre Weekly, which also run in its sister paper the Pasadena Independent. Here is what appeared there this week.

The Night Sierra Madre's Civility Party Died (link): Once upon a time there was a slate of candidates who ran for Sierra Madre City Council seats that called themselves "The Civility Party." They claimed to be much nicer and more polite than the other candidates, and a lot of people bought into that. Then, in November of 2014, all of it blew up, and in truly spectacular fashion.

I am not sure anyone had ever made such a journey before. To go from being this city's Mayor to by far its most egregious and frankly cracked offender at public comment, and in just a relative few months, was a pretty dramatic trip.

I had never seen this kind of thing happen to any other Mayors in the area. Yet here in Sierra Madre the person who had been The Civility Party's spokeswoman and Mayor, for whatever the reason, went deep and very dark.

Nancy Walsh's disturbing and profanity laced address to the City Council on November 13 of 2014 was a radical departure. Yet only a relative few actually saw her say any of those things at the time. However, on YouTube the video of her speech has been viewed thousands of times, and all across the country. At the top of this article I have posted a link so you can see it all for yourself.

To call her use of the words "child predator" as a metaphor to describe the actions of certain elected officials interested in governmental reform "inappropriate" hardly does justice to that somewhat fussy word. That she should then go on to cite these officials by name, and in this very same ugly and disparaging context, was not the act of a civil, or even reasonable, person.

Many of the people I discussed this with at the time believed what she said that evening represented actionable libel, and should two City Councilmembers have decided to take former Mayor Walsh to court over what she said in this video, they probably would have won.

It also begged this question: Whatever happened to the Civility Party? Perhaps Nancy's fellow members, John Buchanan, Josh Moran and Joe Mosca, might have wanted to share their views about this. Clearly her talk did not reflect well on those who had supported and elected her to office in 2010.

And after all, this woman really was elected to the City Council. People believed they were voting for her because she represented a kinder and gentler way of doing political business in town.

Clearly that had all gone out the window. It was the night Sierra Madre's Civility Party died. It has never been heard from since.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

'Vote them out': Hundreds of thousands march for gun control across the nation (Chicago Tribunelink): In a historic groundswell of youth activism, hundreds of thousands of teenagers and their supporters rallied across the U.S. against gun violence Saturday, vowing to transform fear and grief into a "vote-them-out" movement and tougher laws against weapons and ammo. They took to the streets of the nation's capital and such cities as Boston, New York, Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Oakland, California, in the kind of numbers seen during the Vietnam era, sweeping up activists long frustrated by stalemate in the gun debate and bringing in lots of new, young voices.

They were called to action by a brand-new corps of leaders: student survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead Feb. 14.

"If you listen real close, you can hear the people in power shaking,"Parkland survivor David Hogg said to roars from the protesters packing Pennsylvania Avenue from the stage near the Capitol many blocks back toward the White House. "We're going to take this to every election, to every state and every city. We're going to make sure the best people get in our elections to run, not as politicians but as Americans.

"Because this," he said, pointing behind him to the Capitol dome, "this is not cutting it."

Some of the young voices were very young. Yolanda Renee King, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 9-year-old granddaughter, drew from the civil rights leader's most famous words in declaring from the stage: "I have a dream that enough is enough. That this should be a gun-free world. Period."

187,000 students have been exposed to gun violence at school since Columbine. Many are never the same.

The National Rifle Association went silent on Twitter as the protests unfolded, in contrast to its reaction to the nationwide school walkouts against gun violence March 14, when it tweeted a photo of an assault rifle and the message "I'll control my own guns, thank you."

President Donald Trump was in Florida for the weekend and did not weigh in on Twitter either.

Stormy Daniels's lawyer posts photo of mystery disc in a safe (The Hilllink): Stormy Daniels's attorney hinted on Thursday that he may have hard evidence that the adult-film actress had an affair with President Trump, posting a photo on Twitter of what appeared to be a compact disc in a safe.

"If 'a picture is worth a thousand words,' how many words is this worth?????"Michael Avenatti tweeted.

While not explicitly stated, Avenatti appeared to suggest that the disc may contain photographic or video evidence of Daniels's alleged affair with the president. Avenatti has previously declined comment on whether such evidence exists.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is currently suing to void a nondisclosure agreement that she says blocks her from speaking publicly about the alleged affair with Trump more than a decade ago.

She was paid $130,000 by Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, in 2016, just weeks before the presidential election. That payment, she has said, was intended to buy her silence in the alleged affair.

Trump's motorcade in Florida yesterday

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Above is the "flip/flop" portion of Andy Bencosme's most recent campaign mailing. To go from being a leader in the effort to move the Library to the YAC as the head of an influential city commission, to the candidate now claiming that he wants to keep it just where it is now, is truly a quantum leap. But then some people will say or do anything to get elected.

You do know what the irony is here, right? Had Andy, as Community Services Commission Chair, opposed the process for moving the Library to the YAC a few months earlier, none of this would have happened.

However, and at the insistence of Andy, the Community Services Commission voted unanimously to further explore the option of moving the library. Which is why those survey cards went out, community outreach meetings were held, plus other unnecessary and costly things happened.

Arcadia Andy

That was then. Now, because of his City Council campaign, Andy has emerged from his City Hall commission cocoon to mingle amongst the residents of Sierra Madre, people he had never really met before. And, quite suddenly, he has flip/flopped on a process that he himself bears a lot of the responsibility. If Andy had actually talked to real Sierra Madreans earlier, he would have known how unpopular this Library move scheme had always been, and perhaps none of this would have ever gone down.

This is what happens when you put people who are new to town, and don't really know very much, into important positions like Chair of the Community Services Commission. Bad and unnecessary things happen. Plus it ends up costing the taxpayers a lot more money than was really needed.

However, there is also a chance that Andy did not discover his sudden opposition to the Library move by actually talking to real Sierra Madre residents. Andy is mostly running a Facebook and mailer campaign, and has not spoken with as many residents as perhaps he should. As an example, at this year's fairly well attended Wistaria Festival outsider candidate Andy spent very little face time at the candidates' booth, while his three opponents hung out there for hours. Perhaps people are not really his thing.

I exchanged emails with City Manager Gabe Engeland about the possibility of Library survey data having leaked. I respect Gabe, and I do not envy him the job he has trying to keep this very challenging city moving forward. But he is someone who trusts people perhaps more than he should, and I believe Gabe may have missed something important.

Here is our question, and his answer.

The Tattler: Is there any possible way Andy Bencosme could have known what the state of the groove is on the Library survey card results? Did somebody give him an early peek at some results? Does anybody know anything yet? Was there a leak? Would a leak have even been possible? What he says on his latest post card is the polar opposite of what he was aggressively pushing for as Chair of the Community Services Commission. It seems out of character for him to take such a position without having at least some foreknowledge of what is coming down.

City Manager Engeland: It is not possible that any Council Member or any Council Candidate has seen the preliminary results. The research company is still finalizing their review and analysis. My guess is this is just one of the topics residents are asking council candidates to state their position on as they campaign.

Gabe might be mistaken here. This is just a theory at the moment, so nobody should jump to any conclusions just yet. But this wouldn't be anything we haven't seen in Sierra Madre before, and do remember we are talking both politics and the possibility for developers to make big money should a predatory development candidate like Andy Bencosme get elected. You know how that goes.

It is true that the company hired to do this postcard survey, the National Research Center (NRC) out of Colorado Springs, has yet to put together their final findings on the desire of Sierra Madreans to move their Library into a gymnasium. The graphs haven't been designed yet, the final phraseology hasn't been curated, data hasn't been analyzed, the fine report book stapled, none of the stuff you'd expect when you shell out $18,000 for a research project of this kind.

But numbers apparently have been run, and as of March 6th actual raw data exists. Here is a memo from March 19 showing Sierra Madre's library survey cards were likely run though a tabulating machine by the NRC nearly three weeks ago.

If Andy Bencosme did have this raw data from the NRC, it would give him certain political advantages. While the other three candidates still dutifully waited for the results, and therefore could make no conclusive statements about the fate of the Library, Andy would have been able to come out and take a position he already knew was in line with what the residents really want. Why? Because he saw the numbers. Even if it contradicted all he had done and said before.

I guess we now need to find out how many people at City Hall have been in communication with the NRC, and who might have leaked this information to the Bencosme campaign. Let's face it, City Hall is hardly the FBI, and I doubt anyone there discussed making Library survey tabulations a high security matter.

Maybe they should have, right? And look at it this way, now we know that most folks don't want to move the Library. We too might have the results. Just remember where you read it first.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

(Former Housing Authority Police Chief, link.)

Over the weekend District 2 and District 5 residents of Arcadia were graced with yet another atrocity of political acrimony from the ARCADIAN'S RIGHTS PROTECTION ASSOCIATION. This time, they decided they should really spell out what's wrong with the other candidates running against Bulldozer Bob and Cha-Ching Chandler. And let's set the record straight, Bulldozer got his name because he voted to bulldoze everything and Chandler, well, he is just a sell-out.

The mailer for District 5 tries to pit the candidates' donors against each other. Poor Jolly Wu is penalized for being self-funded, meaning she won't accept money from anyone because she doesn't want to be beholden to anyone, and she's got the money to back that up.

Joyce Platt is picked on for being supported by those horrid monsters in District 2. You know, the ones that try to fight off developers and real estate agents and keep Arcadia the charming, tasteful neighborhood that has helped increase their desirability and property values. Sources close to candidate Platt tell me that actually many of those donors were the parents of the children Ms. Platt taught in the elementary school which is located in District 2. Go figure, the parents of Ms. Platt's students think that she would make a great leader of the City of Arcadia. The nerve of them.

The best part of the mailer, though, is when ARPA claims that Chandler receives campaign donations from "people like you and me." That's if you're a developer, real estate agent or police officer. Someone must have gotten too close to the printer's ink and breathed deep when they wrote that sentence. A look at Chandler's Campaign Finance disclosure statements shows the Cha-Chingaroo received thousands from special interest groups over the years. He carried forward a balance of over $8,000 to his 2018 campaign from his 2014 campaign.

The Chandolopy mailer previously posted on this blog itemizes the entire list of developer money Chandler is utilizing (link). And in an all out effort to keep the identity of donors anonymous, Chandler has claimed that over $8,000 of his campaign contributions in 2018 have been less than $99 per single source. Whoever believes that, I have a bridge to sell you.

Urban Dictionary link.

But the real hypocrisy is in the details. Check out ARPA's campaign finance disclosure: ARPA's sole donation is $6,000 from a company called CYL Transportation. A quick check to the Secretary of State reveals this enigmatic contributor is not even a corporation located in Arcadia. It's in Rosemead. And it was dissolved in a puff of smoke just 6 days after it made this lavish gift.

"CYou Later" indeed.

So how is that a donation from people like "you and me?"

Tattler Rule #1: It's Always About the Money

By the way, the address for ARPA is now in El Monte. It's a moving target. But since they are now under investigation by the FPPC for campaign law violations (link), maybe they have no choice.

What other outside interests are at play in Arcadia politics?

Oh, and one more question. Didn't crime actually go up on Roger Chandler's watch? According to the Chandler and Harbicht campaigns, it did.
________________________________________________________

Harbicht Continues To Defy Logic and the Law

This mailer went to District 2 residents of Arcadia and again Bulldozer Bob is thumbing his nose at the law. Even though the City Attorney of Arcadia asked the APOA and Harbicht himself to remove the words of the Arcadia Police Department from the photos of the APOA endorsement, Harbicht flagrantly rubs the nose of the City in his complete defiance of this directive.

This is your crime fighter? A man who won't even follow the law himself?

Please forward your complaints to the City Attorney and City Manager:

Stephen Deitsch stephen.deitsch@bbklaw.com

Dominic Lazzarettodomlazz@arcadiaca.gov

Good luck getting them to do anything.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

I just looked up my Facebook data, you know, to see the kinds of information about me that could have been mined. Wow. Just about everything is there, I think. The photo, the groups you participate in, your posts, your private messages, your profile, etc. Think of it as an intimate trip through your past. 50 million people were data-mined by Cambridge Analytica for the Trump campaign, and chances are pretty good they knew all about you. And if they knew, so does every other corporate marketing and government intelligence service on the planet that cares.

Or so the theory goes. It is one I have personally bought into, and unless you are a technological flat-earther, you probably should as well. If you ever put something on Facebook, it is still there somewhere for you, and everyone else who wants to know.

I have never really liked Facebook. I think it is the Internet dumbed down to a lowest common denominator level in order to suck in as many credulous people as possible. You might not agree with me about that. But in order to run this blog I kind of need it. It helps me reach people, plus it is a useful source for information.

People who would never reveal things to you personally for some reason have no problem sharing their information on Mark Zuckerberg's website. And by extension whoever he wants to sell it to for cash. That is how he makes his money, you know. Lots and lots of it.

Despite Facebook's famous official policy about only using your own name, I have never once posted there with the one my mother gave me. I never considered it any of their business. Facebook is useful if you run a blog like mine, but if I ever want to communicate with someone personally I send an email or a text. Or pick up the phone, a bad habit of mine. Publicly exhibiting my private information for complete strangers on Mark's website never really did much for me. It is kind of like electronic pole dancing. You either need to do it, or you don't. And at least the real dancers get paid.

But you don't have to take my word on any of this. Here is a portion of an article that ran on CNN Tech recently. The author was quite surprised by what was there once she decided to take a look.

I downloaded 14 years of my Facebook data and here's what happened (CNN Techlink): After downloading my stored data on the site — I've been a member since 2004 — I was presented with an enormous amount of personal details that have been collected about me over the years. It had the phone number of my late grandmother who never had a Facebook account, or even an email address. It preserved the conversations I had with an ex-- someone with whom I thought I had deleted my digital ties.

It even recalled times I was "poked," a feature I had forgotten about. I also learned that Kate Spade New York and MetLife have me on their advertiser lists. Staring at the data was not only creepy but it drudged up painful memories.

After the news broke last week that data firm Cambridge Analytica accessed information from 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge, I wanted to know more about what information Facebook has on me.

The rest of the article is available at the link. It details how the author was able to dig up all of the information Facebook had on her, and what they had done with some of it.

But enough about them. So how can you find out what Mark Zuckerberg and all of his special corporate and governmental Facebook friends out there in the vast ether-sphere have on you? You can begin your journey right here:

Here's the link. Follow the prompts. Just don't tell them who sent you.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Sho Tay: Not talking to the press.

Mod: The Arcadia Weekly's Galen Patterson has a few questions about Arcadia Mayor Pro Tem Sho Tay's murky money today, and comes up with some interesting answers.

Why Is Sho Tay Spending Campaign Money After Being Appointed? (Arcadia Weeklylink): Mayor Pro Tempore Sho Tay was appointed by the City for an extended second term in office specifically because he was the only candidate from the 3rd district. One other 3rd district Arcadian had drawn papers, but had not submitted them. With the lack of any prospective write-in candidates, Tay had his second term locked down on January 25th, 2018.

The final deadline for any candidate to file the papers was January 12, 2018, which means that Tay was officially running unopposed after that day. On January 15th, Tay’s committee, “Sho Tay for Arcadia City Council 2018” received two separate contributions from two development-related companies.

The first contribution was from Tony Chen, owner of Candet properties. Chen gave Tay’s committee $1,000.

The second contribution came from James Chou, listed as the owner of Concord Property Management. Chou gave Tay’s committee $2,500.

What makes these donations interesting is the fact that both Chen and Chou would have known about Tay running unopposed and would therefore not have an obvious reason to donate to him. While Chen lives in Arcadia’s 2nd district, not Tay’s 3rd district, Chou does not live in Arcadia and Concord Property Management may not even be a real company.

More perplexing still is that both Chen and Chou have declined to comment on their contributions, and perhaps one of the most puzzling features of this mystery is Mayor Pro Tem Tay using their money to pay for mailers in both districts 2 and 5 to support candidates Bob Harbicht and Roger Chandler.

The mailers, paid for by Tay’s committee, call for urgency to protect people from home invasions, suggesting the current council has not adequately handled the task. However, since both Chandler and Tay are currently serving on the council, the mailer furtively suggests that electing candidate Bob Harbicht, thereby ousting incumbent candidate Tom Beck, will change the crime rate in the city, even though all councilmembers have a proven track record of giving the Arcadia Police Department what they need to effectively do their job.

These mailers circulated amidst a mailer whirlwind of information aimed at almost every candidate. However unflattering and opinionated some of these mailers were, one organization was steadfast in circulating mailers with false information written only in Mandarin and attacking candidates Tom Beck, Jolly Wu and Joyce Platt. The Arcadian’s Rights Protection Association, registered under a non-Arcadia lawyer named Karlfeldt Su, has been reported to the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC).

Arcadia made the choice to switch from at-large elections to district elections because of the misrepresentation of demographics on City Council. Arcadia is nearly 60 percent Asian and only has a single Asian Councilmember.

Yet candidate Jolly Wu has been denigrated by Tay in several forms including social and Chinese media, and by door-to-door campaigners, some of which were recruited from Tay’s WeChat boards. Meanwhile Tay openly supports Councilman Roger Chandler.

District elections were designed to bring representatives of cultural populations into local politics. What it has done instead is create hostility between candidates and council members, regardless of race.

Mayor Pro Tem Tay could not be reached for comment.

Mod: So much for community leadership.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

In case you do not live in the same Arcadia voting district as Roger Chandler, here is the latest mailer from the Committee to Oppose Chandler for Arcadia City Council. It makes for some enlightening reading, and it is pretty much an article all by itself. Of course, there are a few left who might not want anyone reading something like this, but you know what? Do you still know anyone who actually cares about what they think?

Where is Bob Harbicht campaigning today?

While Bulldozer Bob's hardworking volunteers are on the streets pounding on doors, passing out his situational funny papers and tirelessly manning the phones, you might want to know where the candidate himself is campaigning right now. Well, according to this social media communique, that would be somewhere in Hawaii.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Mod: One of my favorite local blogs here in Lo Cal is called Encinitas Undercover (link). Like the one you are reading now, it attempts to portray what is going on in its community in the most realistic and unvarnished ways possible. Something that often stands in vivid contrast to the feel good happy talk and politically mandated bromides you find in most other so-called news outlets.

Such bold reporting can often upset certain local worthies and the assorted tedious individuals who admire them. Think of it as a kind of a bonus. However, this is an acquired taste, and not for everyone.

That said, it is a thankless job and certainly not a skill set likely to enrich EU's unnamed publisher. As we are fond of saying here at The Tattler, the real money is in lying, truth is for volunteers. Though, now that I think about it, it doesn't look like they're getting rich these days, either.

So what is Encinitas Undercover struggling with today? Would you believe it is something called the Spring Egg Hunt? Here is how that is referred to in a recent email blast from Encinitas Deputy Mayor Joe Mosca, formerly of Sierra Madre.

Calling all kids!: Spring Egg Hunt! Saturday, March 31st, 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM, Encinitas Community Park. Bring your own basket for eggs. Limited parking on site, extra parking available at Scripps Hospital, lower parking lots off of Devonshire Drive.

According to the City of Encinitas website, there will be 20,000 eggs to hunt. A diabolical figure that I find mind boggling. That is a lot of chickens who will never see the light of day, or enjoy scratching up a little corn.

So you know, I am also struggling with the metaphysical implications of Easter and April Fools Day falling on the same date this year. It could finally mean the end of all we know. You really should try to get out and enjoy the day. The weather is quite nice.

No word yet if the Spring Rabbit is going to be there for the Spring Egg Hunt. Then again, what else is he going to do?

Mod: As long as we're dealing with topics of a religious nature today (or the complete lack thereof), I thought we should all try and ponder the following.

Does Hell Exist? And Did the Pope Give an Answer? (The New York Timeslink): The Vatican felt obliged this week to reaffirm that Pope Francis believes in a central tenet of Catholicism, that there is a hell.

That odd declaration came after the newspaper La Repubblica published a front-page article on Thursday by an atheist, left-wing and anticlerical giant of Italian journalism, who reported that during a recent meeting the pope had said that hell did not exist.

Bad souls are “not punished,” the journalist, Eugenio Scalfari, 93, reported the pope as saying. “A hell doesn’t exist.” Nor, for Mr. Scalfari, does a tape recorder or notebook or the orthodoxy of quotation marks.

The Vatican characterized the remarks as misquotations.

In the past, Mr. Scalfari, the founder of La Repubblica, a bible of the Italian left that he edited for decades, has admitted to sometimes putting words in the papal mouth.

But the infernal remarks, especially as the pope prepared for Easter Sunday celebrations, proved too tempting for international tabloids, conservative websites antagonistic to the pope and many others to let go.

“Pope Declares No Hell,” read a screaming headline across the Drudge Report website.

“Does the Pope Believe in Hell?” asked Patrick J. Buchanan in an online column.

“Vatican literally falls apart after Pope Francis says ‘Hell doesn’t exist,’” read a headline in Metro UK, a British newspaper.

The pope, in fact, has often talked about hell as a very real final destination for the wicked, and the Vatican made clear that the “literal words pronounced by the pope are not quoted” and that “no quotation of the article should be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father.”

Mod: Personally, I have no doubts about the reality of hell. Those who would deny its existence are merely lacking in the ability to properly observe.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Mod: I was sent the following by a real estate friend who has a client that was induced to return to China for some reason and was arrested at the airport. The apparent crime was taking money out of the country. That person remains in prison there today.

Intelligence officials fear China's global 'kidnapping' program has reached America (The Weeklink): Some U.S. intelligence officials fear that the Chinese government is conducting sophisticated "kidnapping" programs in the United States in order to spirit their nationals back to the mainland, where they face arrest and imprisonment on political and corruption charges.

Beijing has openly admitted to repatriating more than 3,000 people "who had escaped overseas" since late 2012, Xinhua reports, although the U.S. intelligence community believes China's strategies in Western nations often involves pushing the definitions of coercion and kidnapping.

In one example cited in the report by Foreign Policy, a Chinese-Canadian billionaire was snatched from his hotel in Hong Kong in 2017 and was loaded — likely sedated — into a wheelchair and rolled out through the lobby with a sheet covering his head. Similar stories have also come out of Australia, a U.S. intelligence partner, including one about a man who was allegedly drugged by Chinese security forces and transported back to the mainland on a state-owned shipping vessel.

Chinese nationals living in the United States have also begun to disappear under suspicious circumstances, although unlike previous targets, "they were not high-profile folks," said one former U.S. intelligence official.

"There were multiple reports of people observing Chinese intelligence operatives materializing around the schools or residences of the missing people," the intelligence official went on. "One theory was that they were strong-arming them in person, saying, 'We're here. Your flight back to China is tomorrow.'"

The official stressed that there is still a difference between "kicking in a door and taking a guy forcefully away and saying, 'Come with us or we'll kill your family in Inner Mongolia.'" Still, in one case involving a Chinese graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, there was "evidence of this person being taken against their will."

The fear is that just because China has not brazenly kidnapped anyone in the United States yet, it "doesn't mean they won't eventually."

Mod: Here is additional coverage from the magazineForeign Policy.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

If the City Council election in Sierra Madre was being discussed at an adult and rational level, there would be different topics for people to talk about. And at the top of that list would be the extraordinary increase in property values here over the last few years, and how that happened. It is a remarkable story, and in many ways a unique one. It certainly hasn't happened everywhere.

Below is a chart from Zillow (link) that shows just how radical and relentlessly consistent property value increases have been in Sierra Madre since 2012.

Here is a little additional information from Zillow shedding some light on what has been going down.

The median home value in Sierra Madre is $1,008,000. Sierra Madre home values have gone up 6.5% over the past year and Zillow predicts they will rise 2.3% within the next year. The median list price per square foot in Sierra Madre is $576, which is much higher than the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim Metro average of $420.

There has been nothing quite like Sierra Madre's success story anywhere else. But how did this happen? What has made the good fortune of Sierra Madre homeowners so much better than that of their fellow residents living in the San Gabriel Valley?

There have been a number of factors. But perhaps the leading cause for the rapid and dramatic increase of home values here has been community preservation. Unlike neighboring towns that succumbed to such scourges as mansionization, or a stack and pack mixed use style of development, Sierra Madre remained what it had always been. A wonderfully eclectic mix of traditional, and at times even idiosyncratic, homes.

The people of Sierra Madre, or at least some of them, made a conscious decision to prevent the town from changing too much. In many ways Sierra Madre has remained the place that time forgot. And because it did many hopeful homebuyers are now willing to pay stunning amounts of cash to live here.

Sierra Madre never underwent the wrenching development disasters places like Arcadia and Pasadena experienced. Rather this town has succeeded greatly by changing as little as possible, despite intense pressure from predatory development and real estate interests.

The purchase of a home in Sierra Madre is the best investment many of the hard working people living here ever made. But can that last?

The 2018 City Council Election

The sad irony is only a relative few of those who have benefited greatly by the preservation of Sierra Madre understand that such things could quickly unravel, and this month's city council election could be where it all begins to go south.

The one non-incumbent candidate in this race, Andy Bencosme, has been running an issue-free campaign designed to appeal to people who don't know anything, and feel uncomfortable around those that do. He is having some success as few here care enough to grapple with the real issues.

As an example, a volunteer campaigning for a preservationist incumbent has been having some fairly unsettling conversations. Here is one she shared with The Tattler.

Just sat in Kersting Court for 2 hours, and had a number of conversations. Distressing to learn that one mother of an 8 or 9 year old had already voted, and she voted for Andy because “he has kids here.” Andy is working the parent angle. She also said she wasn’t opposed to all development, and inferred that it was unreasonable to keep a good father off the council.

Astonishing voting criteria, right? Then there is this:

Two different people have told me about Andy’s stance on the library, approvingly. He did himself a lot of good with his damn mailer. Don't they understand his word is useless, and that he completely flip-flopped on the library issue?

No, of course they don't. And even if they somehow did care enough to learn the real story, where would they turn to find out? The information-free Mountain Views News?

That modest amount of people in Sierra Madre who actually know something are aware that Andy Bencosme is a former two-time president of the Arcadia Association of Realtors, a highly financed development pressure group that bears direct responsibility for many of the ugly mansionization disasters causing so much controversy in Arcadia.

The AAR also pushed fiercely for a project here that would have leveled much of Sierra Madre's classic downtown area and replaced it with the kind of generic piles found most everywhere else in the SGV. The only thing that stopped them was Measure V.

Which is why Sierra Madre is different today from much of the rest of northern Los Angeles County, and potential homebuyers are so willing to pay crazy money to live here.

But look, people vote against their own interests all the time. Whether because they're poorly informed, irrationally resentful over something, or just fools. It hardly matters which.

There is a ton of money to be made in Sierra Madre should the barriers to predatory development crumble. But not by you. Development and real estate interests are spending a ton of dough on Andy Bencosme hoping to make it happen, all while keeping that property values thing on the down low.

It really could happen. There likely are enough clueless people willing to cast the necessary votes to bring all of that crashing down.

And who knows, maybe they already have.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

There have been some complaints about racial insensitivity. These coming from people who are supporting the campaigns of Bob Harbicht and Roger Chandler. Which is kind of odd if you think about it since these are two of the most caucasian looking dudes I have ever seen. Maybe it is a form of white on white animosity that I wasn't aware had fallen into disfavor. Maybe not. We are talking about Arcadia politics here, so I guess that anything goes. Whether you like it or you don't.

So in the spirit of the hyper-racial sensitivity that consumes so much of our political discourse in these troubled times, I thought I would discuss a fairly recent mailer sent out on the behalf of Roger Chandler's current City Council campaign. I have reproduced the full thing here in two parts for easy reference. I am also including this translation for you to review as well, which I have lightly edited for brevity. Trust me, it's for your own good.

Dear Arcadia Neighbors: One year has passed very smoothly. For many years things have gone smoothly. But now, Arcadia housing is getting worse, burglaries are getting worse. Hopefully things can change this year.

The reason our housing prices are down and burglaries are increasing is because of the group with Tom Beck as its leader. This group is specifically suppressing the Chinese community. The friend of the Chinese, Roger Chandler, is in the minority and Tom Beck is in the majority. Every time Roger Chandler wants to increase police and Sho Tay votes for it, the majority led by Tom suppresses it.

Now Roger Chandler is running for re-election. People have to vote for him. Only if we vote him back in will we be able to increase the police force and protect property.

The other 2 candidates, they are not real competitors. The 1st Joyce Platt has 30 years as a teacher. She wants historic preservation, does not want to increase police and wants HOAs.

Jolly Wu is disabled and a selfish person. She is working hard only for her own good. She took the right of the students to take dial a ride away from the students. She did this because she is disabled and wants the dial a ride for herself. Those 2 people don't have management experience. They are very suspicious. Some organization put Joyce and Jolly in District 5. They are not what our city needs. They will not protect our city.

Jolly Wu is controlled by a special group. She is a puppet meant to divide the Asians.

Many of these charges are untrue and we have dismissed them before. As an example, the Dial-A-Ride situation described here was actually the doings of Roger Chandler himself. Clickhere for a Pasadena Star News articles that shares all the unhappy details.

But here is my question for you today, thoughtful people who read my blog. Is it really proper for Roger Chandler's campaign to be issuing such troubling and derogatory commentary regarding both Jolly Wu's ethnicity and her disability? I thought we were well past that kind of ugly discourse.

Bulldozer Bob is pitching a fit over the theft of his campaign signs

Apparently Mr. Harbicht is back from campaigning in Hawaii and is ready to take on what for him is a big issue. That being the theft of his campaign signs. Now stealing lawn signs is kind of dumb, and it really does make you look like an idiot. Especially if you are videotaped doing it. But that being said, here is The Bulldozer venting in a fierce sort of way on his Facebook page.

A little on the dramatic side, but I think you get his point. Besides, when you really don't have very much else to say, you might as well get your Bobby Blowhard on about lawn signs and the sacred foundations of American democracy. Or some such thing.

This caused several people to comment, including Arcadia City Councilwoman April Verlato. She had experienced something similar in 2016, back when she was beating Harbicht like a pair of bongos in that election. Here is how her remarks went.

In case you were not aware, this is what Councilwoman Verlato was referring to here.

So how did Bob Harbicht, that clarion of liberty and defender of campaign lawn signs, react to April's comment? He deleted her post from his Facebook page, of course.

So let's see if I have this straight. Stealing lawn signs is an assault on our American freedom of speech, but deleting related commentary you don't like from your campaign Facebook page is just super fine and dandy?

Maybe Bob should have stayed in Hawaii and practiced his hypocrisy on the Manta Rays instead.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Mod: So you know that Arcadia Association of Realtors in-kind contribution has yet to be reported by the Bencosme campaign. I guess Andy would prefer that you vote first.

____________________________________________________________________

Mod: One of my favorite writers on all things development related is Dick Platkin. Here is something he recently wrote for the news site LA City Watch. What I am posting here is edited. The entire article is available at the link.

LA’s Politicians and Academics: Shills for Real Estate Speculators(City Watchlink): The urban growth machine, including its enablers in public office and academia, dish out endless cover stories to camouflage their hidden agenda of priming the pumps of real estate speculation. When one of their self-serving theories bites the dust, they quickly advance another one, knowing they can depend on the corporate media and “business-friendly” policy experts to quickly pickup the beat.

Greenwashing: The best know version of this ploy is greenwashing, such as Exxon’s and Chevron’s public service announcements trumpeting their restoration of ponds, shorelines, and meadows. Meanwhile, these and similar energy companies continue to extract fossil fuels, often with immediate pollution, followed by the huge generation of the Green House Gases responsible for climate change.

Now, the density hawks, whether hob-knobbing with San Francisco’s Scott Wiener in Sacramento, or hunkering down at LA’s City Hall, maintain that increased residential density achieved through the accelerated construction of new, market rate apartment buildings reduces the generation of these same Green Houses Gases.

While their claim that higher densities can reduce individual and cumulative carbon footprints is true for highly selective urban environments, especially New York City, their real estate proposals are the antithesis of the New York City model. They simply want to layer dense, energy-intensive apartment buildings on top of a generally low-density city, Los Angeles, whose infrastructure and public services are already severely taxed and predicted to fail.

Population boom-washing: Since their greenwashing claims failed to gain serious traction, the density hawks turned to population-washing, repeatedly claiming that Los Angeles was on the verge of an imminent population boom. To, therefore, plan for the future, the city needed to build new, high density apartment buildings so these new Angelenos would have a decent place to live.

More specifically, the density hawks called for a deregulated housing market based on weak zoning laws, with a wink and a nod to weak code enforcement, to greet the population boom with move-in specials. Well, poor code enforcement and zoning deregulation were right on cue, but the much-ballyhooed population boom failed to materialize.

As previously reported, the 1996 General Plan Framework’s population forecast for 2010 was 4,300,000 people. This figure, though, turned out to be 500,000 people higher than the actual 2010 US Census. Since then, according to demographer Wendel Cox, the boosters have four times claimed that Los Angeles finally exceeded the 4,000,000 mark. But, each time they had to walked back these claims because Los Angeles still has not broken surpassed the 4 million barrier.

Transit-washing: Since more people are leaving than coming to LA and SF, the real estate industry and their lieutenants have already contrived another whopper to justify zoning deregulation: it will increase the number of people living near mass transit stations ridership, and therefore reverse a long-term trend of declining transit ridership. This is because they believe – despite contradictory evidence -- that anyone who lives near transit will use it.

The fallacy of this “build more market housing near transit” argument was revealed by recent research from UCLA. In the Los Angeles metropolitan an increasing number of low income tenants own and drive cars, and no longer use transit.

This is why the gentrification of neighborhoods close to transit services would not increase transit ridership. It replaces existing low income transit users, whose numbers are already declining, with affluent newcomers who drive cars and seldom or never use transit, even when they live close to it.

Housing-washing: The final justification for the build-more-market-housing business model is that it will increase the supply of desperately needed affordable housing. How so? The claim is that the more market housing constructed in Los Angeles, the more affordable housing will eventually appear through filtering, also known as long-term trickle down. Since there is zero evidence of expensive housing trickling down to become affordable housing in Los Angeles, the density hawks then invoke another out-of-context economic theory: supply-and-demand.

They imagine that a glut of expensive housing forces the price of housing down to the point that it becomes affordable and apartments that rent for $2000-3,000 per month will be discounted to $600 a month because of high vacancy rates. Again, there is zero evidence of this happening in Los Angeles for two very good reasons. First, investors don’t like to go bankrupt, which happens when they charge affordable rents. Second, landlords can easily fill empty houses and apartments throughhighly lucrative Airbnb short-term rentals when they are faced with money-losing high vacancy rates.

If the filtering and the supply-and-demand arguments do not pass the smell test, you are right.And, in the Los Angeles Times, Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal explained why. Gentrification reduces transit ridership. In order to assemble building sites for new, market-oriented apartments; builders must evict current residents, most of whom are low income and the most likely demographic category to use transit.

In contrast, the new residents of new market housing are much better off. Almost all of them own cars, which they use for most trips. According to Rosenthal, the more LA gentrifies, which is the program of the density hawks, the more transit ridership will decline, a finding confirmed by the previously mentioned UCLA transit ridership study.

Mod: There is a lot more to this article, and should you wish go to City Watch and read the rest. It pretty much nails the many specious arguments you will hear from those who want to build, no matter what the real costs to the community or its residents.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Mod: Why is this shady out of town organization supporting Roger Chandler? Why are they attempting to promote Chandler's campaign by spending thousands of dollars on dishonest and at times even racist political material? Obviously we have to regard such efforts as corrupt politics at its worst. You need to recognize this for what it is.

Was Sho Tay a Bullet Short of being Deputy Barney Fife?

Back in April of 2010 then City Council candidate Sho Tay made a claim that has raised eyebrows over the years. That being he was a former Police Officer. Sho uncorked some of that on the Arcadia's Best website (link).

I am very honored to announce that the Arcadia Police Officers Association and Arcadia Firefighters Association have chosen to endorse me as a candidate for Arcadia City Council.

As a council candidate and concerned Arcadia resident, I am devoted to maintaining safe streets and neighborhoods. The men and women of our police and fire department put their lives on the line to keep our communities safe.

An endorsement by both the APOA and AFD means that they have chosen me as a candidate they believe they can best work with. With my prior background as a police officer, I know that I will be able to not only relate but also communicate and work efficiently with our police and fire. Together we’ll keep Arcadia safe!

When Sho Tay ran again in 2014, that cop angle also came up. Here he hyped his experience as a former Police Officer in a campaign biography that appeared on the website Smart Voter (link).

Due to the sudden passing of my father, I started my own business at 19 in order to help support my family. I have since owned and operated several businesses. I also graduated from the Rio Hondo Police Academy and served as an Alhambra PD reserve.

So what exactly were the duties of Sho Tay as a member of the Alhambra PD reserve? Here is how that job is described on the City of Alhambra website (link).

RESERVE POLICE OFFICERS UNIT: The Alhambra Police Department's Reserve Police Officers are a group of highly trained and motivated volunteers, who meet the State of California's Peace Officer Standards and Training. They must meet stringent standards to act as police officers. Their responsibilities are to supplement patrol deployment, police special events, provide special services, and serve the public. They are on call for emergencies and details as needed.

So Sho Tay, who throughout his political career has claimed that he is a former police officer, was actually only a volunteer cop. This means he was not paid, did not have the power to make an arrest, or was ever even allowed to carry a gun.

Which put him one bullet (and a gun) short of being Deputy Barney Fife.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Why hold your kickoff event at an Arcadia Realtor office?

According to the legally mandated California FPPC Form 460 Recipient Committee Campaign Disclosure Statement on file at Sierra Madre City Hall, Andy Bencosme has received contributions of $100 or more from the following people:

Larry Kallis– Real Estate Agent with Century 21 in Arcadia
Margaret Garmore– Real Estate Agent with Podley Properties in Pasadena
Thomas O. Berge– Real Estate Agent with Berge Co in Alhambra
Greg Astorian– Real Estate Agent with Remax in Glendale
West De Young– Real Estate Agent with Compass in LA
Kristine Mathison– Real Estate Agent with K & M Real Estate in Arcadia
James Maceo– Real Estate Agent with Keller Williams in Pasadena
Barry Storch– Real Estate Agent with Dilbeck in Pasadena
Alex Velasco– Real Estate Agent with Podley Properties in Pasadena
Suzanne Dunjel-Soto– Real Estate Agent with Keller Williams in Arcadia
James Pai– Real Estate Agent with Coldwell Banker in San Gabriel
Andy Bencosme – Real Estate Agent with Century 21 in Sierra Madre

QUESTION: Why has Andy Bencosme sent out three city-wide mailings and failed each time to mention that he is a Real Estate Agent working for Century 21?

QUESTION: Why did Andy Bencosme hold his campaign kick-off party at the Arcadia Association of Realtors rather than in the city of Sierra Madre?

QUESTION: Do you really believe that real estate agents from other cities want to preserve the small-town charm and character of our “Village of the Foothills”?

Follow the money and ask questions. A vote for Andy Bencosme is a vote supported by real estate agents in Arcadia, Alhambra, Glendale, Pasadena and Los Angeles.

What is in it for them?

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

The Ubiquitous Tony Chen: Buying a Little Influence Perhaps?

Tony Chen has become a familiar name in this election. He contributed $1,000 to Sho Tay's campaign on January 15, 2018 after the filing period closed and no one had committed to oppose him in the election. It was disclosed that Tony Chen was located in Alhambra and had a business called Candet Properties. He was a real estate agent.

Then, is was discovered that Tony Chen had contributed $1,000 to Bob Harbicht's campaign in 2016 listing his home address in Arcadia. So one would think that Tony was just a real estate agent with ties to developers who lives in Arcadia.

But the plot thickens, as they say. Tony Chen contributed to Bob Harbicht's campaign again in 2018. This time, Tony Chen is listed as the "owner" of The Hub Shopping Center at 733 W. Naomi, Arcadia. That's the Von's/Burlington Coat Factory shopping center at the corner of Duarte and Baldwin. But the property title shows a different owner for that location. So "owner" is not the right word. So what could it be?

The Tattler has found the document that reveals the true story.

On November 14, 2017, Tony Chen appeared before the Arcadia Planning Commission requesting a conditional use permit for a tenant at 733 W. Naomi for a Karaoke Bar over the objections of neighboring residents.

Tony Chen appeared as the PROPERTY MANAGER. You know, the real estate manager who gets a cut of the rents for each tenant's occupancy. It's no surprise a donor to both Sho Tay and Harbicht's campaigns has a vested interest in who sits on City Council in the City of Arcadia.

In other words, Tony Chen does business that goes before the City Council and his income depends on always having the decision makers on his side.

Rule #1 of The Tattler: It is always about the money. Here are the docs.

Wait! Bob Harbicht is STILL in Hawaii?

This bit of must see Bob Harbicht excitement was posted on his Facebook page Wednesday, which leaves the impression that he is not campaigning for Arcadia City Council quite as hard as you might have thought.

But I guess all that grubby door to door pavement pounding stuff is for his hard working campaign volunteers, and not that fabulous jet-setting and very happening haole Bulldozer Bob.

I hope Bob is occasionally texting them an Aloha. I'm sure they at least deserve that.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Sierra Madre: People involved in this election have been sending in their notes from the campaign trail, and at times these dispatches from the front would be funny if they just weren't so sad. Here is one I received yesterday.

Talked to two older men that had already voted for Andy. They voted for him because HE WANTED TO KEEP THE LIBRARY WHERE IT IS. If he wins, it might be because of that single issue. Also heard from a number of people that they were in favor of Measure D.

Can you believe that there are people living in Sierra Madre who are quite that clueless? Well, OK, maybe that isn't so hard a thing to believe. But even in the grand scheme of all things possible in life that kind of uniformed vote is world class obtuse.

As people qualified to describe themselves as sentient can tell you, one of the City Hall people most responsible for the entire "Move the Library" process going forward in the first place was Andy Bencosme.

As Chair of the Community Services Commission, Bencosme dragooned the members of that august body of key decision makers into voting unanimously to push that misguided Library idea onto the public.

Without Bencosme's support the City Council would never have approved spending $18,000 for that Library Survey Postcard now the object of such derision in town. The sheer cynicism and dishonesty it took for Andy to send out a postcard now proclaiming that he is against moving the Library is mind-bending.

But look, it convinced the two fools our correspondent discussed above. If either if them are reading this, you really do need to look ashamed. No fish was ever so completely hooked. The capacity of some people to vote against their own interests is endless.

Bencosme is playing both sides of the street

Here is another Bencosme postcard rating a "10" on the cynicism and dishonesty scale.

Now there are some who might actually believe that those who are supporting Measure D would think that Andy is a pretty awful guy for taking a stand against getting rid of Sierra Madre's utility taxes entirely, right? And if you do, well, Arcadia Andy has fooled you once again.

Amongst the Tea Party element in town Andy is actually their favorite in this election. Not because of his opposition to Measure D, of course. Something even they realize won't win. No, they like Slick Andy because of his so-called "Property Rights" stand.

You see, the same people who are opposed to there being any utility taxes in town are also not all that crazy about building and development standards, either. In their fevered minds mansionization and other such acts of crapping all over your neighbors is some form of sacred human right.

They neither want to fund or preserve Sierra Madre. And of the four candidates running, Andy is actually their favorite, and will get much of the pro-Measure D vote.

Our boy Andy is playing to both sides. He stands for nothing but getting elected.

Arcadia: Just to show you that Sierra Madre does not have a monopoly on political mailers aimed at the sucker vote, here is another postcard that goes to the very top levels of the overly credulous scale.

Sho Tay, who is not famed in Arcadia for being the sharpest tack in the nail keg, has been on the City Council all during the recent crime wave there. As has Roger Chandler. And Bulldozer Bob Harbicht had, up until fairly recently, been on the City Council for decades. Yet now all you need to do is return these three losers to office as one and all that crime stuff is suddenly going to stop?

If you believe that elected politicians are accountable for what happens on their watch, then these windbags are the guys actually responsible for the crime wave there. Putting them back on the City Council to fight crime is like appointing Johnny Walker, Jack Daniels and Jim Beam to the President's Council on Fighting Alcoholism.

Sho Tay, or at least his handlers, must think you are as clueless as he is. Actually, judging by this latest postcard, they actually do.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Mod: With community preservation and the architectural legacy of Sierra Madre being such a big issue in this election season, which by the way ends tomorrow, I thought it would be a good moment to step back and take a little tour of something you might not have noticed all that much before. This comes to us from a notable local blog that deals with architectural issues called Industrious Lily (link). The article, written in 2012, is called Irving Gill’sLewis Courts, which are found right here in Sierra Madre.

Irving Gill's Lewis Courts - Growing up in San Diego, I have had the pleasure of seeing much of Irving Gill’s architecture in person. From various residences to the Women’s Club and my middle/high school in La Jolla, his work is so reflective of the tenants of simple, modern design.

Moving to Sierra Madre, I loved to drive around and one day drove up Mountain Trail and saw a row of buildings that looked very Gill-like to me….. Run home, google, and yes! The Lewis Courts, one of his first “social architecture” projects (built in 1910) still stands here in our small town.

Sadly, as is the case with so much historic architecture, the courtyard-style apartments are only a small reflection of what they once were. The courtyard, around which the complex was designed and oriented, is now filled with a large post-war apartment building that is incongruous in both style and scale. Peeling paint and cracking stucco also tell of the years of wear and tear that the buildings have endured.

But there is life there still - good bones, great lines, good light …. and people are still living and using the buildings every day. That is significant, and comforting. Also impressive, these apartments were designed and built before our 1912 bungalow, and yet they look modern, current and timeless. Interesting.

If you are ever in this neck of the woods, drive up Mountain Trail, almost to the top, and you will see them on your right…best seen in the early more or dusk, in my opinion. Worth the drive.

Mod: There is an interesting Facebook page called So Cal Historic Architecture (link) that also discusses Sierra Madre's Lewis Courts. Here is what site owner Linda Hammonds has to say about this interesting slice of local legacy.

Irving J. Gill saw such small houses as the embodiment of economic democracy. While he had no control over the cost of the land, he did control the cost of construction. Gill believed modern materials and building techniques would lead to affordability, and he experimented with different variations of this approach through the early 1900s.

Lewis Court in Sierra Madre is one of his most notable examples from this period. Built with concrete floors and terracotta walls, each of the small cottages featured a private terraced garden and projecting porch for lounging or outdoor sleeping.

The Lewis Courts, one of his first “social architecture” projects, built in 1910. If you are ever in Sierra Madre, drive up Mountain Trail, almost to the top, and you will see them on your right.

Mod: Interesting, right? Small homes versus those massive mausoleum looking things certain people think should be allowed here. Let's call that anti-social architecture. Today's post was put here in case you don't think there is something to lose tomorrow.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Mod: This showed up in my electronic mail yesterday evening. Allegedly there has been a sudden population boom at disgraced former Arcadia Mayor John Wuo's domicile. This being Johnny Gemcoins Wuo, if you're into name-dropping.

Jennifer is his daughter, who is married and lives elsewhere. Jane Wuo is John’s wife. Jonathan is his son who is also seems to have moved out. His Facebook page indicates he now lives in Pasadena, not Arcadia. The other 2 are believed to be John Wuo’s parents who apparently don’t chill there with him, either. What this means is there are six votes total coming out of a house where only two people are living the empty nest lifestyle. Judging by the lawn sign outside, that means six votes for Roger Chandler.

One alert Arcadian picked up on this troubling voting anomaly and sent the following detailed e-mail to City Manager Dominic"Legal Lazer" Lazzaretto and City Clerk Lisa Mussenden.

Mod: It appears six votes were cast from a household of two. The count is as follows:

I can tell you one thing for certain. Not all of those votes are backed by amber mines.

The Sierra Madre Vote Count Betting Line

Every time an election rolls around a certain individual invariably leaves their detailed election prediction in the comments section of this blog. And he is usually pretty accurate.

So in the interest of filling up the remaining space on this page with something moderately interesting, here is how our comment section correspondent is calling today's Sierra Madre voting horserace. Check back this evening to see if he actually knew what he is talking about. And do remember, please bet responsibly.

Ballots returned through today indicate that turnout will be 10% lower than in 2016.

In 2016 3,000 people voted and this time we are on track for 2,700. Predicting that 1,200 absentee ballots will be counted tomorrow followed by 1,200 polling place votes followed by 300 or so absentee ballots counted next week that were mailed in tomorrow or turned in at the polls on election day.

Goss and Arizmendi are in a battle for first place (in 2014 Goss beat Arizmendi by 38 votes). Arizmendi will likely beat Goss this time around because the advantage he had in 2014 (he had name recognition from his failed run in 2012) is no longer a factor and Goss has been significantly out-mailed.

Bencosme needs to be beating Delmar by 75 votes when the absentee votes are reported sometime before 9 pm. Delmar will likely do better with poll voters than she will do with the absentee vote. If Bencosme loses the absentee vote he will lose the election.

Measure D will get only 23% of the vote and fail. Our long local nightmare will be over very soon.

Why Does Arcadia Andy Hate Commuters?

Mod: This was probably the weirdest postcard to go out this election. Because you commute to work you apparently are not to be trusted because of all the distractions. There must be a lot if untrustworthy people in town.

So a good reason for voting for Andy Bencosme is because he hangs around town day and night? What does he do with himself all that time, eat ice cream?

One other thing. Andy describes himself here on this postcard as being a "local businessman." What he actually does is run the local Century 21 real estate office downtown. Something that he never once cared to share with the voters. Why is that? Is he ashamed of what he does for a living?

Hopefully today the voters will send this latest carpetbagger candidate packing.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

In the end it wasn't even close. Andy Bencosme, the Century 21 Realtor who didn't want anyone to know what he does for a living, and outside of cynically flipping on the Library question had absolutely no campaign policy commitments whatsoever, got even fewer votes than when I ran for City Council in Sierra Madre.

When you also figure that Andy probably spent somewhere around $25,000 or more of somebody else's money to achieve this meagre a result, it becomes obvious that his was about as poorly run a campaign as this town has seen in quite some time.

The people of Sierra Madre are prospering thanks to preservation. The price of real estate in this town continues to soar, and folks are getting rich because of it. Fending off mansionization and generic stack and pack development has made The Foothill Village something other towns can only envy.

In the face of that quite astonishing fact nobody in their right mind was ready to buy into the so-called "property rights" nonsense being peddled by the candidate from the Arcadia Association of Realtors.

Speaking of "property rights" advocates, the Tea Party's Measure D truly gave new meaning to the words complete failure. We here at The Tattler were saying that the Tea Boyz would be lucky if they got even a quarter of the vote. Well, they weren't lucky. This one was dealt the worst defeat of any ballot initiative in Sierra Madre history.

I guess Michael Alexander and the rest of the Green Street Gang are going to have to find another way to butter up the Koch Brothers. This was the final round of their multi-town ballot initiatives to take down utility taxes, and not a single one of them passed.

Tea Time is now officially over in the SGV. Exit stage right for an uncomfortable eternal resting place in the celebrated dustbin of history.

Arcadia

Perhaps the combination of mail-in only voting and districting didn't have quite the positive effect some solons claimed it would. Well, OK, obviously it didn't because these are some extraordinarily low numbers. What were those people thinking? Yesterday voters in Arcadia were as rare as an Aloha Harbicht campaign appearance.

Check this out.

So it wasn't all bad news. Bob Harbicht lost and can now return to Hawaii and commune once again with his deep sea buddies the Manta Rays. And in District 5 it is close enough that the remaining votes still out there could possibly propel Joyce Platt to a win over the sorely in need of retirement RogerChandler.

The deal in Arcadia is votes received at City Hall through Friday will still be counted. And since this was a mail-in only election, there could conceivably be a decent amount of ballots still in need of counting.

Will it be enough to give Platt a come from behind victory? You won't really know until the end of your busy work week. And neither will I.

sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

Arcadia Weekly: Arcadia Election Mailer Pokes Fun At Opposition As Election Tactics Run The Gamut

Post Mortem: The Night Sierra Madre's Civility Party Died

'Vote them out': Hundreds of thousands march for gun control across the nation

Bencosme's Library Move Flip/Flop: Did Andy Have Privileged Information on Library Survey Card Results?

Arcadian's Rights Protection Association Back For More

How to look up your Facebook data (all of the stuff that was mined during the last election.)

Arcadia Weekly: Why Is Sho Tay Spending Campaign Money After Being Appointed?

A New Mailer from the Committee to Oppose Chandler - Plus: Where is Bob Harbicht Campaigning Today?

What is a Spring Egg? Encinitas Takes the Easter Bunny out of Easter

Intelligence officials fear China's global 'kidnapping' program has reached America

Preservation has put at least $200,000 into the pockets of every longtime Sierra Madre homeowner

Is Roger Chandler Running A Racially Divisive Campaign? Plus: Bob Harbicht is back from Hawaii and very upset about his campaign signs disappearing

An Election Flyer Making the Rounds in Sierra Madre Plus: Dick Platkin calls LA Politicians Shills for Real Estate Speculators

The Committee to Oppose Chandler for Arcadia City Council is Back ... Plus! Was "Police Officer" Sho Tay a Bullet Short of being Deputy Barney Fife?

Question: Real Estate Agents from other cities are Andy Bencosme’s biggest donors. Why are they investing in a candidate for the Sierra Madre City Council?

Have the Roger Chandler and Bob Harbicht Campaigns Become a Full Employment Act for the FPPC?

Sierra Madre & Arcadia Report: There Is Nothing Like An Election To Show You Just How Clueless Some People Are

Sierra Madre Architecture: Irving Gill’s Lewis Courts

Stop the Vote Count! Is There an Election Landslide Going On at Johnny Gemcoins' House?

Preservation Wins - Bottle Rocket Bencosme Fizzles