Mountain Views News          Saturday, October 9, 2010

MONROVIA (from page 4)

Obligation Bonds (POBs). The POBs provide 
the City with a flat annual payment (vis-
à-vis the debt service, versus the annual 
and increasing payment to PERS) and, by 
"frontloading" the City's pension obligation, 
save the City $2.4 million over the 18-year 
life of the bonds. The sale of these bonds took 
place in July 2010. 

 The POBs are a contract between the City and 
the bondholder. The security for the bonds 
is the revenue stream from the property tax 
override, which can only be used to pay for 
retirement costs. Eliminating this revenue 
stream would have a real and meaningful 
impact on the City's ability to honor the bonds. 
Indeed, the 6.5% interest rate (and, thus, the 
City's savings) is a reflection of this secure 
revenue stream.

 Still, this argument was short-circuited 
because, on Thursday, September 30, City 
Clerk Alice Atkins rejected the petitions 
as incomplete and inconsistent with the 
requirements contained in the California 
Elections Code.

 The Elections Code clearly spells out that 
petitions must contain specific elements 
for the benefit of the registered voter who is 
being asked to sign their name. One of these 
elements is the "Notice of Intent to Circulate", 
which basically says who is sponsoring the 
proposed measure and why. In short, the 
Notice of Intent was missing.

 On the advice of the City Attorney, citing a 
case called Myers v. Patterson that mirrors the 
circumstances of this situation, the City Clerk 
rejected the petition and returned it to Kemp 
and Jogminas.

 As you might suspect, the petitioners were 
indignant. One, they view the rejection as 
based on a "technicality;" and two, they feel 
duped because they had previously asked both 
the City Clerk and City Attorney to review and 
essentially pre-approve their petition. (Once 
again, I have attached the press release by the 
City because the newspaper simply could not 
provide an appropriate context.)

 The issue of this being a "technicality" is 
misplaced and inappropriate. The City Clerk 
is sworn to uphold the law; by law, she is 
compelled to reject an incomplete or incorrect 
petition. The petitioners basically want to have 
it both ways - if the City doesn't follow the 
letter of law, they would claim that Monrovia 
is cutting corners; yet as the City follows the 
very clear parameters of the law, they are now 
claiming the City is being "bureaucratic". As 
the old saying goes, "Where you stand depends 
on where you sit."

 Alas, the City of Monrovia must adhere to 
one objective and professional standard; that 
the petitioners do not appreciate it when they 
are held accountable to that standard is not 
surprising.

 The issue of "pre-approval" by the City Clerk 
and City Attorney is equally inappropriate. In 
reviewing the news brief from the Pasadena 
Star News (which was initially posted on 
the paper's website without comment, or the 
opportunity to comment, from the City), Mr. 
Jogminas characterizes the rejection of his 
petition as unfair. "It's like giving you the go-
ahead to build a house, but not telling you the 
building code," he was quoted as saying.

 In fact, Mr. Jogminas received two separate 
letters from the City Clerk and City Attorney 
on May 18, 2010 and June 7, 2010, respectively, 
advising him that neither of them would 
review nor approve the petitions prior to 
their submission. Indeed, City Clerk Alice 
Atkins' letter specifically directed him to 
the California Election Code to review the 
relevant requirements, and City Attorney 
Craig Steele quoted from the California 
Municipal Law Handbook, which flatly states 
that compliance with statutory requirements 
is the responsibility of the initiative proponent.

 This proposed ballot measure was not good 
public policy; but that is not why it was 
rejected. It was rejected because it was not 
carefully and correctly crafted.

Obviously, Monrovia is not immune to the 
political cynicism and divisiveness that 
exists in America today. Coupled with the 
scandal in Bell and the lingering effects of 
the recession, there exists - even in Monrovia 
- the opportunity for resentment, anger and 
frustration to blindly damage and/or destroy 
the progress of the last 40 years.

In this state and in this political climate, we 
can and should expect more of the same from 
more of the same. Thus, we must understand 
and accept that the trajectory of success that 
Monrovia has enjoyed is not assured - it can be 
derailed by poor community decision-making 
and short-term focus.

 But, our prosperous future can be secured 
through common sense, community 
involvement, and a focus on the common 
good. 

 -Monrovia City Manager, Scott Ochoa

10

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, October 9,, 2010 

My Turn

HAIL Hamilton

Thinking Out Of The Box - Afghanistan, Iraq, Ron 
Paul and Dennis Kucinich

Mountain Views

News

Publisher/ Editor

Susan Henderson

City Editor

Dean Lee 

Sales

Patricia Colonello

626-355-2737 

626-818-2698

Art Director

Allison Kirkham

Production Assistant

Richard Garcia

Photography

Jacqueline Truong

Lina Johnson

Contributors

Teresa Baxter

Pat Birdsall

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Stuart Tolchin

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Hail Hamilton 

Rich Johnson

Chris Bertrand

Mary Carney

La Quetta Shamblee

Glenn Lambdin

Greg Wellborn

Ralph McKnight

Trish Collins

Pat Ostrye

Editorial Cartoonist

Ann Cleaves

Webmaster

John Aveny 

 
Why does 
everyone talk 
about our 
mission in 
Afghanistan 
in such lofty 
terms as 
our mission 
“to support 
a fledgling democracy” or “to bring 
democracy where it is most needed’? 
I think the real reason we are there is 
mineral wealth. Afghanistan might be 
one of the poorest countries in the world 
after 23 years of devastating war, but its 
rugged terrain still houses some of the 
most precious wealth on Earth. 

 Afghanistan has huge oil and gas 
reserves in its northern provinces and 
large deposits of ferrous and non-ferrous 
metals, including iron, copper and other 
strategically important rare elements 
widely used in the air and space industry. 
The iron ore reserves in the central 
province of Bamyan are conservatively 
estimated at over 110 mm tons with 
extraordinarily high quality. There are 
also significant deposits of gold and 
silver.

 It is also known that Afghanistan has 
top-quality deposits of uranium in the 
southern province of Helmand and the 
Pamir plateau in the north, an essential 
material for nuclear power plants and 
nuclear weapons.

 The US government just doesn’t want to 
tell us the real reasons we’re there, reasons 
such as $500 Billion worth of heroin to 
be shipped all over the world, reasons 
such as Billions of dollars in oil and gas 
from the Caspian sea to pass through a 
pipeline to be built through the country 
down to the Indian ocean, reasons such 
as Billions of dollars in armament for 
all these weapons manufacturers and 
reasons such as Billions of dollars to 
all the independent contractors for the 
wonderful services they provide.

 Ever wonder where the Anti-War Left 
went after their Saviour de jour buried 
that big old knife in their back following 
his election? Might I remind people that 
there were only two candidates in the 
whole two-Party Charade we had back 
in 2008 that unequivocally opposed both 
Afghanistan and Iraq wars: Rep. Ron 
Paul (R-TX) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich 
(D-OH). Everyone else, from Obama, 
Clinton to Huckabee and McCain were 
ALL for sending more Americans to die. 
As it is, now nearly 2 years in to President 
Obama’s term, we’re helping the local 
Afghanis grow poppies!

 Kucinich and Paul should abandon 
their party affiliations and run together 
on an independent ticket. Both men have 
a devoted following and I think their 
contrasting policies would naturally 
complement one another and result in 
something that would really be of benefit 
to ordinary Americans. Together they 
could help destroy the partisan loyalties 
that are destroying the country and it 
would be much harder for the media to 
marginalize their campaign.

 They are complete opposites 
domestically. Just because they agree on 
the wars and overseas military bases does 
not mean they agree on anything else. 
I’m sure both of them view each other as 
living examples of “even a broken clock 
is right twice a day.” That said, both of 
them have proven themselves, over their 
time in congress, to hold ideals and 
values and stick with them instead of 
taking the politically easy route, which is 
commendable.

 This is why I think they would make 
such a good team. Something needs to 
break us free of the environment of “my 
way or no way” that pervades politics. 
Real progress is only found through 
compromise and accommodation. 
Despite their differences I think there is 
a common ground that could be found 
between them; all that would be required 
is an honest effort to find it and I think, 
more than any others, these two men are 
honest and fair enough to do so.

 Who needs the wars in Afghanistan and 
Iraq, anyway? Paul and Kucinich will tell 
you the answer is both the governments 
we put in place and those who oppose 
them need the money we are pouring 
in. The truth is, war is great for both 
sides, especially when the money man is 
willing to pay off everyone, rebuild what 
the other side blows up and refuses to 
take oil in trade for his costs of the war.

 The really scary thought is that a 
month after we withdraw our troops 
from Afghanistan and Iraq, the current 
leaders will be living in Paris - each with 
a few hundred million in a Swiss bank. 
Civil war between tribal, ethnic and 
religious factions will break out in both 
countries, followed by three to five years 
of massive internecine Arab fighting. 
The west will then face an army of three 
hundred million angry Jihadists, with 
enough weapons to support them, all 
paid for by valuable minerals and high-
priced oil and natural gas. 

STUART Tolchin..........On LIFE 

 


STUART’S TRAVEL REFLECTIONS

Maybe it’s true that 
in Sierra Madre we 
are a little too far 
from the pain of reail 
life. Of course there’s 
pain in Sierra Madre. 
There are divorces 
and job losses, and 
illnesses. Right now our beautiful little 
neighbor up the street is undergoing 
another operation designed to save her 
remaining kidney. 

 This morning, here in New York, my 
wife lit a candle for little Lorelai in Saint 
Patrick’s Cathedral. As we walked 
through the Cathedral I thought of 
Teddy Kennedy, whose funeral was 
celebrated here and I thought of the 
Kennedy family. 

 A few days ago my wife and I had 
gone to Arlington National Cemetery 
and observed the eternal flame at the 
gravesite of President Kennedy which 
contains the burial place of two of his 
young children, one of whom died not 
very long before the assasination. The 
next day, during our White House visit, 
I observed a portrait of an obviously 
pained and troubled President Kennedy. 
In another room there was a similar 
portrait of a troubled, reflective 
President Abraham Lnicoln. I learned 
that in addition to having to conduct a 
brutal Civil War, President Lincoln had 
endured the death of a young child just 
shortly before his own assisination. 

 As I saw the picture, I thought of the 
lively children of our own young, but 
I’m afraid rapidly aging, President. 
I worried about him, his wife, his 
children, and even his dog.

 After the White House, my wife and 
I started back toward the Capitol Mall 
and found ourselves in the midst of a 
march demonstrating for more jobs 
and job protection. The energy of the 
demonstrators was positive but I cannot 
really say hopeful. There is a feeling I 
think that the security of the middle 
class, my security and your security, has 
probably been illusory for many years 
and that a differenet kind of reality has 
already begun.

 Anyway, I think this realization had 
something to do with the urgent need 
I felt to visit the Holocaust Museum. 
Uncharacteristically, I told my wife that 
I needed to go to the museum right 
now and that we had to abandon the 
march. More embarrasingly I decided 
to take a pedi-cab; that’s right, a bicycle 
peddled by a young person forced to tow 
the anything but very slim Tolchins to 
the museum. The motivation for this is 
difficult to understand, for the moment 
I felt we could afford the $15 dollar fare 
rather than walk 2 miles and given our 
other experiences, it seemed strangely 
appropriate. Usually, I walk a mile to 
avoid high parking fees around the 
courts.

 Anyhow we were dropped off at 
the museum. Immediately we were 
immersed in a kind of known but 
ignored reality. We walked through 
freight cars like the ones that had carried 
the condemmed to the concentration 
camps. Probably much like many of 
those confined, we had little idea of 
what we were about to experience.

 We found ourselves in dormitory 
rooms much like the rooms that housed 
the victims. We heard recordings of 
survivors describing their experiences. 
We saw the piles of watches and 
eyeglasses that had been confiscated. 
Next we saw the gold that had been 
pulled rom the teeth of corpses; then we 
saw thousands and thousands of shoes. 
Shoes that gave a living testimony to 
the existence of the murdered millions. 
Then we saw the bails and bails of 
human hair that had been shorn and 
saved for the purpose of stuffing pillows 
and furniture.

 Somewhere along the way there were 
pictures of the slopes of Baba Yar. This 
a big hole near the city of Kiev where 
thousands of Jews, some my own blood 
relatives, were complelled to dig a huge 
pit into which they fell after being shot. 

Going through the museum I, like many 
others, experienced a powerful physical 
nausea and kind of mental numbness.

 The next morning we caught the bus 
to New York City and I seemed to be my 
regular self, chatting with people on the 
bus and in restaurants.

 My wife and I discovered Rockerfeller 
Center, and Times Square, and a place to 
buy discount tickets for Broadway shows. 
Before you knew it, we were settled in 
an upstairs balcony experiencing the 
spectacle of the musical Billy Elliot. 
The show depicts the British miners 
who, after years of back-breaking labor 
are suddenly without jobs. At this very 
difficult time, Billy Elliot, just 10 or 11 
years old discovers his affinity for the 
ballet. He tries to keep his lessons secret 
from his non-supportive father and 
equally not understanding family. He is 
caught in the middle as his own dreams 
conflicts with the harshbess of reality.

 Yes, he prevails, and yet the dancing is 
absolutely astonishing and the evening 
as entertainment is beyond anything I 
imagined. Still there is the concern of 
the jobless laborers who never are re-
hired and seem lost to the world.

 Today in New York City, after visitig 
St. Patrick’s Cathedral, my wife and 
I spent the day at the Museum of 
Modern Art. There is a connection here 
with the Project created by Yoko Ono 
which consisted of inscribing wishes 
on paper labels which are then tied to 
trees and later collected. For a month 
or so this project was carried out One 
Colorado Street in Pasadena and my 
wife and I imagined that our personally 
documented wishes were now contained 
in the huge vat containing wishes which 
had been gathered from all over the 
country. Hooray for Yoko Ono and 
hooray for my wife and I because our 
wrtten wishes may now have made it to 
the Museum of Modern Art!

 Moving to the next exhibit, I thought 
of Yoko Ono and the senseless killing 
of her husband John Lennon. I walked 
into the next room and observed what 
I thought was a painting of a huge 
grass field within which the tall blades 
were actually blowing in the wind. I 
was wrong. It was not a picture but 
instead was the beginning of a 9 minute 
video. The video introduced now aged 
Vietnnamese villagers who had hidden 
among these same grasses as they 
tried to avoid the bombings of giant 
helicopters which were compared to 
monstrous dragonflies. 

 The actual villagers described the 
horrors of attempting to avoid the 
bombings as they ran among the grasses. 
The helicopters themselves were seen 
as evil and the artist had attempted to 
come to terms with the past by salvaging 
helicopter parts and reconstructing an 
actual helicopter. This helicopter was 
actually present in the next room and 
had been used for decades in assisting 
in medical transportation. The project, 
I guess, was intended to deonstrate that 
there exists a positive way to deal with 
even the most painful event.

 We continued through the museum 
which contained astounding 
masterpieces and exhibits which 
described the heroic efforts of individual 
artists to deal with the turmoils of 
war and displacement. These artists 
were relentless in their struggle to 
find freedom and create a personally 
understood meaning. They did not hide 
from life, they incorporated its pain and 
made it part of their own art.

 Maybe our idylic existence in peaceful 
far-removed Sierra Madre is a kind of 
an avoidance of life’s harsher realities. I 
don’t know if there is any benefit in going 
out to the “real world” to encounter its 
horror. I guess I’m just not one of those 
people who like the thrill of rides or 
action movies. Painful body piercings 
make no sense to me and I have never 
played those ubiquitous,horrifying 
video games. I hope that’s okay with 
whomever’s in charge but for the 
moment I feel very fortunate to have 
lived the life that I live in the place that 
I have lived it. 

Maybe that’s what travelling is for.

Mountain Views News 
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County of Los Angeles 
in Court Case number 
GS004724: for the City 
of Sierra Madre; in Court 
Case GS005940 and for 
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Court Case No. GS006989 
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City of Sierra Madre

PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE

To: Citywide

From: The City of Sierra Madre

Subject: PROPOSED RESIDENTIAL CANYON ZONE 
ORDINANCE

Applicant: City of Sierra Madre

Project Location: Properties within the proposed Residential Canyon Zone 
of the City of Sierra Madre, County of Los Angeles, State 
of California 

The City of Sierra Madre gives notice, pursuant to State of California law, that the City 
Council will conduct a public hearing to consider a text amendment to the City’s Zoning 
Code (Title 17), and corresponding Zone Change and General Plan Amendment 
for the proposed Residential Canyon (RC) Zone. The difficulties inherent in applying 
citywide R-1 Zoning standards to the Canyon area of Sierra Madre prompts the need to 
adopt zoning standards that allow reasonable development of properties located therein 
while preserving the unique character and natural environment of this area, as well as 
preserving the overall quality of life for its residents. The purpose of the new Ordinance 
is to 1) facilitate residential canyon preservation through single-family development 
standards; 2) maintain the environmental equilibrium unique to the residential canyon 
consistent with the aesthetic of its rustic and historic character; and 3) establish dwelling 
size, lot coverage, building massing, and floor area ratios which are consistent with 
the smaller homes and lots in the canyon area. Adoption of the Ordinance includes 
amendments to the City’s Zoning Map, Land Use Map and amendment to Title 17 
(Zoning Code) of the City of Sierra Madre Municipal Code.

DATE AND TIME OF HEARING PLACE OF HEARING

City of Sierra Madre City of Sierra Madre

City Council meeting City Council Chambers

Tuesday, October 12, 2010 232 W. Sierra Madre Blvd.

(Hearing begins at 6:30 p.m.) Sierra Madre, CA 

All interested persons may attend this meeting and the City Council will hear them 
with respect thereto.

ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINATION: The project qualifies for a Negative 
Declaration pursuant to the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act 
(CEQA). 

APPEAL: If in the future anyone wishes to challenge the decision of the City Council 
in court, one may be limited to raising the issues that were raised or presented in written 
correspondence delivered to the City Council at, or before, the scheduled public hearing. 
For further information on this subject, please contact the Development Services 
Department at (626) 355-7135.

By Order of the City Council

Danny Castro, 

Development Services Director

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