Let's Gather Beneath the Community Holiday Tree and Sing Songs About Holidays

A tree with an identity problem.

Here is an important question for you. Exactly which holiday is being commemorated by the Community Holiday Tree currently on display at Kersting Court? Is it Arbor Day? I am sure that would be the tree's personal choice. Columbus Day? Well, then don't expect Councilmember Haribedian's support. Indigenous Peoples Day, perhaps. But no, nothing about 1492 and sailing the ocean blue. Not if you want to get your dubious building permit appeals approved.

What about the always popular Halloween? That could be too scary, and recent. Groundhog Day? No, they'll eat the shrubbery. Pharmacist Day? They do work very hard to bring us the medicines we need. Guy Fawkes Day? That could be kind of interesting. Boxing Day? No, far too British. National Hat Day? Zane Grey Day? Maybe Beer Can Appreciation Day?

Beer cans dangling from the Community Holiday Tree would get some attention, but I'm not sure that is what people are really looking for this season. Far too downbeat.

It is all so very confusing.

Here is something else that is confusing about the Community Holiday Tree. You're supposed to decorate it. Not just decorate it, but do so by spending a lot of money to buy only specially authorized ornaments. And from a liquor store no less. Even if you don't exactly know which holiday the Community Holiday Tree is actually representing.

So what is the deal here? Well, there is this:


Needless to say, I have some questions. You should have some as well. I mean, if you are going to spend your hard earned cash buying an unspecified though official holiday ornament for the Community Holiday Tree, and do so to "help raise funds for civic improvements" no less, shouldn't you be at least a little curious about what those civic improvements might be?

Right? There have been a lot of things passed off here as "civic improvements" over the years, many of which turned out to be anything but.

So I did what any good citizen would do. I went to the Googler and looked up the Sierra Madre Community Foundation. And here is what I found.


Bountiful goodness in a goat pen, it's none other than Rob Stockley himself. The interest only payments Water Bonds guy. A reigning supreme Mac Daddy of the One Carter development and environmental disaster, plus the quite remarkably deleterious Downtown Specific Plan. A town warping stack and pack development scheme so universally detested by residents at the time that they put together a ballot measure and voted it into oblivion.

Not exactly someone you'd automatically associate with the term "civic improvement."

So which civic improvements might Rob Stockley be raising funds for in 2017? Well, here's an educated guess. Perhaps it is to obtain some funding to help move the Sierra Madre Library, while also selling off some very valuable city owned real estate?

Rob does want to do that, you know. In a large, leadership role sort of a way. And who knows, it could very well have been his idea. Despite what you might have heard. It certainly does fit a pattern.

Just in case you want to know where your Community Holiday Tree ornament money might be going this year.

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