CLAREMONT/ PAGE 3 T Claremont Ourier Friday, February 2, 2018 U $1.50 C Claremont-Courier.Com
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CPUC MAKES A QUICK STOP TO CLAREMONT/ PAGE 3 t Claremont ourier Friday, February 2, 2018 u $1.50 C claremont-courier.com City leaders Girls basketball aim high/PAGE 12 meet with democrats to discuss bond t PAGE 3 Claremont Police Chief Shelly Vander Veen makes her case for the new po- lice station during the Democratic Club of Claremont meeting Monday night at Pilgrim Place. City leaders joined Ms. Vander Veen in an effort to build sup- port for the general obligation bond, which will fund the new station if passed by voters in June. Planners estimate tens of thousands to attend CicLAvia bicycle event/PAGE 5 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/ PAGE 14 COURIER photos/Steven Felschundneff Claremont senior Camille Troncone shoots during the Pack’s 60-49 win over visiting South Hills on Tuesday. With the victory, CHS is now 3-4 in league—their best season in several years. t Have a super Sunday, folks. LETTERS/PAGE 2, 7 COLUMN/PAGE 6 Visit claremont-courier.com. OBITS/PAGE 9, 11 CLASSIFIEDS/PAGE 20 t Claremont COURIER/Friday, February 2, 2018 2 Another drought looms after winter 114 Olive Street Claremont, CA 91711 by Peter Weinberger (909) 621-4761 Office hours Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m. fails to show up to 5 p.m.; Friday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. t wasn’t that long ago when Claremont, like oth- Publisher and Owner Peter Weinberger er cities in Southern California, made drastic [email protected] Iplans to cut water consumption because of a Editor lengthy drought across the state. At that time we were Kathryn Dunn [email protected] dealing with water restrictions, brown parks and ex- treme fire danger from parched land in every di- Newsroom rection. City Reporter Now in 2018, with no winter weather in sight, we are in for a huge Matthew Bramlett [email protected] case of déjà vu, as summer-like high temperatures have almost be- come the norm. Sports Reporter Even with significant rain and snow last winter, just drive around Steven Felschundneff [email protected] to see how the drought impacted Mother Earth. The Thomas Fire— COURIER photo/Peter Weinberger the largest in California history—destroyed more than 273,000 acres About 20 miles from the south entrance of Yosemite, Bass Photo Editor/Staff Photographer and 1,000 homes in December. But the damage didn’t stop there. Lake has long been a destination for boating and vacationing. Steven Felschundneff During a recent trip north to Yosemite Valley, I saw damage from This season water levels are below normal from lack of rain [email protected] brush fires and drought all along the 250-mile journey to the na- and mountain runoff. Portions of the south part of the lake are Arts & Entertainment tional park. Believe it or not, there were more than 9,000 fires in dry, with slow moving streams reaching out to feed the lake. Mick Rhodes California in 2017, burning 1.38 million acres. month, has been frustrating for this publisher, because it’s so dif- [email protected] [email protected] These staggering numbers pale in comparison to tree damage south ficult to predict. Payments each month continue to vary, regardless of Yosemite, where more than 110 million trees have been eaten from of sales in previous years. Obituaries Mick Rhodes the inside out by pine beetles. Years of drought conditions allowed Given the fact it’s harder each year to maintain paid circulation, [email protected] these beetles to live the good life, because so many trees were weak the COURIER is rapidly becoming an anomaly in the newspaper from lack of water. These insects are extremely difficult to fend off, industry. Many community newspapers have changed to free dis- Editorial Intern with as many as 25,000 beetles inhabiting just one tree. tribution in an effort to keep readership numbers up. Yet a couple Kellen Browning Since many of the damaged trees are located in remote, high el- of weeks ago, we received payment for nearly 100 annual sub- Production evation locations, it’s nearly impossible to treat or even dispose of scriptions in a single day! That’s a figure the Los Angeles Times would the millions of dead trees. So they sit and rot until they fall over. be happy with. Ad Design/Real Estate pages Grace Felschundneff At more accessible areas, tree stumps can be seen everywhere. This Our staff thinks there may be two reasons for this sudden surge even includes Yosemite Valley, where work crews are cutting thou- in popularity. One, with all the news of layoffs, cries of fake news, Page Design sands of rotting trees in an effort to save healthy ones. accuracy and transparency, residents see the importance of having Kathryn Dunn The snow pack this year in the High Sierra is only a fraction of a high-quality community newspaper/website in their hometown. Website the levels reached in 2016-17. Given this is the source of half our There seems to be a growing understanding for the value of accu- Peter Weinberger water each year, there’s increased cause for concern. Although the rate reporting. A strong community newspaper can also bring peo- beautiful waterfalls in Yosemite still flow, the runoff is so light ar- ple together—something the current administration in Washington eas like Bass Lake—20 miles south of Yosemite—continue to shrink works against. Advertising as water flow is slowed to a trickle. Second, we changed our billing timing by not sending subscription Advertising Director As global warming continues to heat up the earth, drought con- invoices as early. Now your bill is mailed the month a subscription Mary Rose ditions will seriously impact California’s geography for decades to ends. This seems to have created more sense of urgency to pay and [email protected] come. This means the landscape, from the largest lakes to the dense avoid missed editions. Of course we have received a few more calls Classified Editor untouched forests, will be changed forever. from readers who let their subscription lapse, but it all works out Rachel Fagg Subscription boom in the end. Especially for one gent who was in hot water with his [email protected] There’s something strange happening. As newspaper companies wife because he didn’t pay their COURIER bill. We gave him copies endure more layoffs in 2018, cutting staffing to all-time lows, Jan- of those missed editions to keep things copacetic at home. uary has actually been a record month for subscription payments We do strive to keep our readers informed…and, in some cas- Business Administration at the COURIER. Tracking subscriptions year-to-year, month-to- es, out of trouble. Office Manager/Legal Notices Vickie Rosenberg [email protected] Super blue Billing/Accounting Manager Dee Proffitt blood moon Distribution/Publications Manager Tom Smith The moon is just past [email protected] being fully eclipsed as it sets Wednesday morning in north Circulation/Subscriptions Claremont. The event was a [email protected] trifecta for stargazers as it was a super moon, a blue The Claremont COURIER (United States Postal moon and a lunar eclipse all Service 115-180) is published once weekly by the Courier Graphics Corporation at 114 Olive Street, in one. Claremont, California 91711-5003. The COURIER is a newspaper of general circulation as defined by the political code of the state of California, entered as pe- COURIER photo/ riodicals matter September 17, 1908 at the post office Steven Felschundneff at Claremont, California under the act of March 3, 1879. Periodicals postage is paid at Claremont, Cali- fornia 91711. Single copy: $1.50. Annual subscrip- tion: $56. Send all remittances and correspondence about subscriptions, undelivered copies and changes of address to the COURIER, 114 Olive Street, Clare- mont, CA 91711. Telephone: 909-621-4761. Copy- right © 2018 Claremont COURIER one hundred and tenth year, number 5 CITY NEWS Claremont COURIER/Friday, February 2, 2018 3 Receptive audience hears latest plan for bond measure he police station bond measure campaign is in full swing, and it Tmade its debut to a receptive crowd at the Democratic Club of Clare- mont meeting Monday evening. Claremont Police Chief Shelly Vander Veen, Mayor Larry Schroeder, Finance Director Adam Pirrie and campaign co-chair Ed Reece spoke to the group about the city’s need for a new police station and the intrica- cies of the bond. Chief Vander Veen told the audience at Pilgrim Place the current station was woefully inadequate. It was built in 1972 and made for an all-male department with half the current force’s size—female officers change in a locker room in a separate portable building. The facility can’t withstand current technology, she said. “To put it simply, our dispatchers can’t turn on a portable heater because they’ll blow the circuit, so we have to be very careful on things that we add to our ex- isting electrical system because it just can’t hold any more,” the chief said. The construction plan, if it passes, is to build the new facility just west of the current station, move the de- partment into the new building once its completed and COURIER photos/Steven Felschundneff tear down the old station in favor of a parking lot. Mayor Larry Schroeder answers an audience member’s question about the bond to fund the police station Chief Vander Veen noted the cost and size of the cur- on Monday during the monthly meeting of the Democratic Club of Claremont.