Library privatization not so bad in Ventura County

The Signal article today on the Calabassas and Moorpark libraries that seceded from the Ventura County Library system is interesting and well-timed. It basically says that those two communities had and continue to have good experiences with LSSI, the private library contractor that’s under consideration for our town. Then again, if you ask a city administrator if he likes a program he planned and implemented, what do you think he will say?

Also interesting is a caption in the paper today: “The Santa Clarita City Council is expected tonight to approve seceding from the Los Angeles County Library System and entering into a contract with a private library management firm to run the city’s three libraries.” The Signal evidently thinks this is a done deal- do you?

Ventura City Manager blogs on future of libraries

A smart and timely post from Ventura City Manager Rick Cole, who says that VECO Library cutbacks forced one library in Ventura to close and Camarillo is thinking of ditching the County’s library because it subsidizes the rest of the County’s system with more than a half million dollars each year. Sound familiar?

He then writes about how libraries have and are continuing to change in America. Good read.

An alternate theory on the genesis of the library takeover

I have an intriguing theory to share with you on why the City has appeared so hasty in its desire to takeover the library system (remember they are planning to do this by July 1, 2011). The official line is that the City just wants to provide us better service, to expand hours, reduce costs and give us local control over our libraries.

Like most things in Santa Clarita, this theory revolves around Newhall, the bedrock of the SCV, the SCV’s soul if you will. In planning for the brand-spanking new Newhall Library, which is designed to anchor Old Town Newhall redevelopment and be a centerpiece of the City’s efforts there, the City of Santa Clarita has learned or inferred that the COLA Library system can not or will not properly resource the new 20,000+ sq. ft. library.

Think about that for a second. According to a reliable source, COLA spends $1 million a year to resource and run Newhall’s tiny library, currently on 8th Street. Projections for the cost of running the new, much larger library are around $3.5 million a year (indeed the City’s LSSI proposal snippet shows that number for FY 2011-2012), and, the theory goes, the County can’t properly resource and staff such a large facility in an era of budget cuts, reduced library hours and $20 billion state deficits.

The City is justifiably nervous about opening a brand new library in 2012 that will be under-resourced and therefore under-utilized by its residents due to COLA’s problems that are entirely out of its control. Ergo, the city decides that the solution is to takeover all three libraries, hire a private company that’s more cost effective than public employees and all their (from the City’s point of view) baggage.

When I first heard this theory, I felt that, if true, it represented a spectacular failure on the part of the City in that they simply haven’t communicated this reality adequately. They’ve been selling this as a service enhancement when they should have been telling us that if we don’t takeover our libraries, the new Newhall library will sit vacant and under-utilized for many hours of the day due to COLA’s problems.

And no one wants that. We have many expectations for the new Newhall library. It is designed as an integral part of Old Town Newhall redevelopment, the City hopes it will draw foot traffic to the area that will then step over onto Main Street, which will be great for the businesses there.

I have no proof for this theory, but it has hit my email inbox several times this weekend and, it makes sense. If it’s true, would it change your mind on the library takeover matter? It would change mine; I want the new Newhall library (and all of Old Town) to be a raging success for the City.

Alternatively, could this entire thing be a kabuki theater production designed to bluff the County into adequately funding the new Newhall library? Our City staff is pretty sharp; are they that sharp?

Protests Planned for Tuesday night

Lynne Plambeck has email blasted her list, telling her sympathizers to show up at Tuesday’s Council meeting with protest signs. She’s taking the traditional Democratic line that privatization of government services is, well, not  desirable, a line that I admit, I’m sympathetic to. Take it away Lynne!

As you are all probably well aware, free public libraries have been around in the US since the 1800s and have long been considered one of the great American democratic institutions.

1. a private corporation’s profit motive will not ensure that the public interest is served.  Certain materials may not be made available because they would cut into the profit margin, the content of library material may be controlled to align with the view points of the corporation.

2. Trained and degreed librarians are likely to be cut, since this is a way of reducing costs.

3. Library contracts will become one more political football.  What promises will be made to Council members to obtain a contract? What controls will be placed on content?

4. We will not have access to the huge volume of County library materials without an added fee.

5.  We are all paying property taxes to support our library.  Do you want your taxes used by a private corporation?

So if you plan to attend Tuesday’s Council meeting, expect to see some protesters out front with signs supporting traditional, unionized, government labor & services.

Myers weighs in

Tim Myers, columnist and SCVTalk contributor, says the City just doesn’t understand how SCVers like himself use the library:

I humbly assert that Hernandez and other proponents of a city takeover do not really understand how those of us who actually use the library rely on the entire county system. They instead visualize library usage that seems more akin to the 1950s, with parents taking their children to brick and mortar facilities to check out volumes of “The Cat in the Hat.” I really don’t think they understand the actual usage model now, and do not currently use or plan to use the library in any meaningful way.

This brings back a point I made way back in July. The claims that the City puts more money into COLA than it gets out are unpersuasive to me. Why? Because we city residents have true access to the entirety of COLA’s 7 million item collection. So, in other words, if we’re sending $400k+ south every year, I still feel it’s not bad because we can, ultimately, access those resources. It’s not like we’re sending excess money to the County to build roads in some other city; we’re sending excess money to the County to continue its library operation, which ultimately benefits us due to the intra-library loan system, which Myers harps on in his piece. Call this socialism if you must, but it’s socialism that works.

NotaFerryFan Confused

The conservative anti-city video blogger can’t see past his hate for the city and decides he’s against the takeover and privatization of the library, even though the County is a much bigger bureaucracy. Oh well. At least he includes a shot of SCVTalk’s headquarters.

PS: No Daily Brief today.

I totally missed a really neat (and very appropos) story in the Daily News (hat tip: Jim Farley) about a new Sheriff’s Department device that is meant to control crowd and prison disturbances by making their guts unbearably hot. It’s a truly frightening non-lethal weapon.

And wouldn’t you know that we had a huge prison disturbance just last weekend?

Well intrepid Signal reporter Jonathan Randles -who’s been targeted by Roger Gitlin’s fanatical goons in the past yet still survived- totally took one for Team SCV and for journalism in general by volunteering to be subjected to the device before the prison riot happened. Here’s the picture of him in PAIN:

For his courage in taking an LASD shock/prisoner device in the interests of journalism, Signal journo Jonathan Randles wins SCVTalk’s coveted Kick Ass Journalist of the Year Award, equal in respect and dignity to my own Forty under 40 Award.

We salute you Randles!

Equally impressive are the red helicopters of the Los Angeles City Fire Department, which occasionally dart up to the SCV to lend a hand. I saw at least one of those last Sunday.

That’s not to sell the ground responders short. Check out this amazing video from LACO Fire Department shot during the Crown Fire last month:

We’ve come to expect excellent fire incident response precisely because our firefighting resources in this region are so well-practiced in responding. They -the LACO Fire Department, LA City Fire, the Forest Service, the Hot Shots and California Department of Forestry-could teach the federal government a thing or two about not letting jurisdiction and territorial contests get in the way of accomplishing the task.

We in the SCV salute you!

On another note: I’ve been really impressed with SCVTV’s news coverage lately. They break stories faster than anyone else and they follow up with good video reports later. I’ve come to checking with them often before updating SCVTalk.

It’s too bad they don’t have more of a web-based text reporting presence (I think this is the reason why). Sure their videos are all online, but they are difficult to search and aren’t served out on RSS. I realize they have 5,000 followers on Facebook, but that just means their good reports get equal billing with Farmville updates.

View more news videos at: http://www.nbclosangeles.com/video.

This is junk journalism. NBC cites no statistics, interviews no City officials, LASD Santa Clarita Deputies (COBRA or VICE in particular), school officials or any other community stakeholders. They also don’t mention that Councilman Bob Kellar asked the Sheriff’s station to report on this matter at the Council meeting two weeks ago.

They do talk to the mother of Trae Daniel Allen, the young man who died of an overdose here in the SCV in March and who has spoken before the City council. Her testimony, if you will, helped push the City to pressure the Hart District to take a second look at its Zero Tolerance policy. But NBC didn’t report that. Because it doesn’t fit into their thesis that black tar heroin is “big” here.

They did, however, go out of their way to find two other unidentified SCV youths who smoke black tar heroin and who are currently recovering.

To take the sad case of Trae Daniel Allen and extrapolate that heroin is “Big” in the SCV is absurd.

Unfortunately we as a community lack the journalistic resources to really investigate this issue and learn whether this is a big problem or not. Until we get them, you can expect this story will get traction and the SCV will become synonymous with black tar heroin just like the Antelope Valley is synonymous with crystal meth.

PS: This also chafes me for another reason: just as we in the SCV have stereotypical views of the “big city,” so do Angelenos have stereotypical views of the suburbs. And one of those views is that all our youths do drugs. It’s a stereotype NBC is only too happy to exploit so as to construct a narrative about suburbs in general…imagine a movie trailer announcer voice and you’ve got the idea….”They thought they were safe in the suburbs. But they were wrong. DEAD WRONG!”

View Council Election 2010 – Incumbents in a larger map

All credit to SCVTalk reader Mike D. of Saugus, who painstakingly inputed data from election result PDFs and somehow created the beautiful map above.

How to Read the Map:

Purple precincts are ones in which a challenger such as David Gauny or TimBen Boydston got the most votes. Green districts are ones where incumbents placed first, and yellow districts were ones that I suppose we could call “battleground” precincts.

Some Observations:

• Boydston and Gauny were strong in the older parts of Newhall, Valencia, Canyon Country and Saugus. Areas around Seco Canyon, South of Lyons, and Sierra Highway/Soledad/14 Nexus, and McBean. What is the population like in these precincts? Older? Empty nesters? Long time residents?
• In contrast, the incumbents were quite strong in the newer areas of town like North Valencia, Plum Canyon, and deeper parts of Canyon Country. What are these voters like? New homeowners? Young children?
• It’s interesting to compare the results of adjacent precincts. For instance, look at the spread between Gauny and Ferry in Precinct 1 and 17 (roughly divided by Valencia Blvd). In Precinct 17, Ferry had 19.5% of the vote, the highest and Gauny scored 7 points behind that with 12.3%. Indeed, Gauny finished behind Boydston. But just down the street in Precinct 1, Gauny dominated with 23.4% of the vote, 10 points ahead of Ferry. Obviously this is the Summit neighborhood adjacent to the hospital, but why such a large difference?
• Looks like Bob Kellar’s support for Gauny wasn’t enough to put him into first place in the Sand Canyon neighborhood, but he certainly did well there anyway (finishing behind Weste).
• Boydston won two precincts: Old Orchard neighborhood and SoLy, the area bounded by I-5 on the west and Valley Street (roughly) on the east. He also tied with Gauny for first place in the Placerita Canyon/Circle J ranch precinct
• Look how strong Ferry was in North Valencia, Laurie Ender’s neck of the woods
• In the precincts where Ferry lost, he didn’t lose by that much. Only a few dozen votes in any of these precincts would have swung the election to Gauny
• Newhall, you disappoint me. Only 14.1% of registered voters turned out. On the other hand, check out the Summit neighborhood, the place where Gauny dominated. Only 15.2% turnout. In North Valencia, Ferry’s stronghold, there was 21.2% turnout
• Sand Canyon Precinct gets the “We’re not that Lazy!” award. Only 57% of you voted by mail, meaning 43% of you actually went to the trouble to get in your car (or mount your pony) and ride to the polling station like Normal Americans do. In other precincts Vote By Mail amounted to 70+ % of the vote!

What conclusions and/or observations do you draw from this excellent map? Compare/contrast these results with earlier elections. Are we emerging into de facto Council districts, or was this election just a fluke? Debate and Discuss. (sorry I just finished a class and I’m in testing mode right now).

MANY thanks to Mike D. for the wonderful map and the hard work.

About 11:30 p.m., sheriff’s deputies got a call about the shooting.

Edwards, among the first to see the aftermath, said the man was shot at least twice in the arm and three times in the chest and stomach. She tied the towel around his arm to try and stop the bleeding.

She reassured the 49-year-old man. Another bystander translated her words into Spanish and kept pressure on his stomach until paramedics arrived.

…

On Monday afternoon, the street still showed evidence of the previous night’s violence.

Some students walking home from Placerita Jr. High School stared and gasped as they passed a dried puddle of blood on the sidewalk between Walnut Street and Chestnut Street.

A shred of blood-soaked gauze, tattered ribbons of yellow police tape and an opened neck brace littered the front of the home where the shooting took place.

A white picket fence nearby was peppered with what appeared to be several bullet holes.

A witness statement, vivid imagery & a great description of the crime scene. I can almost feel the emotion and fear of the residents in that area. This is what crime reporting should be.

More please.

And to the Tea Party/Minutemen who lobbied to get Jonathan Randles fired last winter? Go fly a kite.

PS: Check out the ridiculous comments on the Signal story.

One of those incumbents, Francis Ferry, seemed to be especially weak this time around, but he pulled it out at the end in a true squeaker by a margin of only 32 votes over David Gauny, the closest challenger.

I caught up with Ferry this afternoon to get his read on the election and ask him what his plans are for the next four years.

On the Election Outcome:

“It was a humdinger,” Ferry told me with a hint of excitement in his voice.

Ferry likened today’s count of the remaining ballots to a close sports contest. “It was like a buzzer beater in a game. I’m excited to get another four years,” he said.

Ferry said he’s been there before. His first time running for City Council, he lost by a close margin.

“I’ve been in five elections and I lost the first election very closely,” he said. “I’ve been there and I know the feeling of coming up short.”

He continued: “I don’t want to disrespect the challengers, I know they worked hard.”

On the Campaign:

Ferry told me that he expected his 2010 reelection campaign to be different and perhaps closer than the last three he’s won. For starters, Ferry said there have been a number of contentious issues before the City Council in recent years, including the hospital expansion and public road closures (like Benz Road in Saugus).

He acknowledges that because of his stance on these matters (and more importantly his vote), he’s “alienated some people.”

“I’m an outspoken person. I don’t have a hidden agenda. If you want to know if I want public roads open, I say it out loud,” he said.

“I definitely knew [it would be a tougher campaign] based on the rhetoric of people who came to the microphone over the last two years,” he added.

Ferry also acknowledged that his base of support has eroded somewhat in Santa Clarita. For years, Ferry worked as a teacher, coach and administrator in the Hart School District. He got to know parents and teachers in the area, who supported him in previous election campaigns.

But for the last four years, he’s been principal of Bishop Alemany High School in Mission Hills. “Some of the base I generated as a teacher in the Hart District has eroded,” he told me.

Ferry said he watched the precinct numbers as they came in and knew it was going to be a tight race. He said in previous elections, he received between 7,000 and 8,000 votes (he received just over 6,500 in this year’s election).

On Immigration as the Surprise Issue of the Campaign

Perhaps most surprising to Ferry in 2010 was the emergence of illegal immigration as a big campaign issue.

“I didn’t foresee the immigration issue,” he told me, adding that he didn’t see it mentioned in the ballot statements of any of the candidates, challengers or incumbents.

But, it had an impact nonetheless.

“Immigration changed the nature of the race,” he said. “It became a primary issue for one candidate,” he added, alluding to David Gauny.

I asked him if he thought that Gauny’s use of illegal immigration was a cynical ploy to get out the vote on election day. He said he didn’t know but said that if a candidate was serious about immigration, he should “still be so after the vote.”

He reiterated that he opposes illegal immigration but said the debate over illegal immigration was becoming a “racial issue”  in the last few months. Recall the uproar that met Ferry after he debated Minutemen in the Council chambers during a February Council meeting.

On YouTube and Blogs

That lead to another set of questions I wanted to ask him. Here in the SCVTalk bubble, inspecting the candidates and their statements under microscope as we are wont to do, it felt as if immigration and some other issues might really derail the incumbents chance’s this year.

Not so says Ferry.

“People who look at blogs are a very specific type of person,” he said.

He also alluded to the Not a Ferry Fan videos and other YouTube videos, hinting that those videos didn’t enjoy wide distribution and that the video blogger took his comments out of context, playing his more colorful moments again and again to prejudice the viewer.

Overall, he said, people should be pretty satisfied with the way the City of Santa Clarita is run. “We’re one of the only cities in the state in the black with a 15% reserve. That’s significant for taxpayers,” he told me.

He also touted the Cross Valley Connector, the recently completed roadway that connects Interstate 5  to Canyon Country.

His Plans

Ferry plans to continue to focus on youth outreach in his next four years. He won’t be up for Mayor again soon, so I didn’t ask him about the Mayor Dude campaign.

He also wants to work on Whittaker-Bermite and senior citizen issues.

I asked him what he thought about the claims of some that the Newhall Library was being built without input and that it might face away from Main Street.

He said the building, as designed, is beautiful. He felt that the city is fortunate to have the money to spend on libraries and other services.

As to the way the building is being built, Ferry admitted to not being a details man. “I don’t get into the details on the Newhall library,” he told me, saying that he trusted the experts who made recommendations about the building.

Major Issues Going Forward

If you’ve read this blog long enough, you can probably guess what the major issues in Santa Clarita are going to be over the next four years. For one, Ferry acknowledged the Lyons connection through to Dockweiler (bypassing the Placerita Homeowners) could be controversial. He also said he wants to see what’s happening with the Smiser property off Wiley Canyon, and he wants to ensure that traffic doesn’t affect local neighborhoods.

Final Notes

Ferry didn’t directly name TimBen Boydston, but he did mention the “former CouncilMember” during my interview with him. For some of you this may be a bit of ancient history; but a review is useful. In 2007 and 2008, Boydston and Ferry clashed often as the hospital expansion became a big issue.

In one particularly dramatic moment, Boydston read an email from a City of Santa Clarita planning staff member who, he alleged, was too chummy with a developer lobbyist.

Ferry reacted in his typically dramatic style, standing up from his seat and saying that Boydston was never elected to his post. He memorably shouted, “Give me a break Boydston!”

Ferry explained to me that when a Councilmember attacks City staff, he’s quick to rise to their defense. “Staff can’t argue with a councilmember, ” he told me. “They’re powerless” against elected officials.

The volunteers were passing out business cards and carried radios with them, presumably to spot and report troublemakers. They also told us about their new monthly meetings at Newhall Church of the Nazarene. Are these folks planning more local action? Is Newhall Church of Nazarene the new hot nexus of conservative Santa Clarita (and is the IHOP old and tired)?

Time will tell.

Now Tea Party had said it was going to be on the lookout for trouble. Imposters -wily liberals out tea-bagging the Tea Partiers or liberal bloggers in disguise of journalists- were minimal to non-existent from what I could see. I did see one group of college aged kids drive by in a Taurus and shout “YOU’RE ALL FASCISTS” with a bullhorn. I admit it. I LOLed.

I think the Signal’s estimate of 500-1,000 protesters is probably on the low side. It was probably over 1,000 people and it stretched along the same part of Valencia Blvd that it did last year. The crowd was no more than four deep at various points along the road. There’s no way there were 2,500 people there at any one time; but it’s possible that that amount came and left during the three hour event.

The crowd itself was mostly white and probably evenly divided among men and women. The group varied widely in age, from kids to 20/30 somethings to middle aged folks and retired people.

Also, there were Meg Whitman volunteers or campaign workers on site, handing out expensive, full-color booklets on Meg’s plan for California. Our good friend and All-American conservative stand-up guy Petz was in a deep discussion with a Meg Whitman rep, probably telling her how Meg had thrown Bob Kellar under the bus last  winter. Anyway, it was obvious the Whitman campaign was attempting to make inroads with the Tea Partiers. Hard to say if Tea Party is going to Buy it Now, or bid at the last moment on Whitman or Poisner (couldn’t resist).

Some other anecdotes:

• Horn honks, thumbs up, and “Yeahs!” were constant and deafening from drivers
• SCV’s population of monster stomper trucks decked out with motocross and boat stickers was out in force for the rally. These trucks, which outnumber registered Democrats in Santa Clarita, roared their engines up and down Valencia Blvd, some of them complete with various American flags
• One such truck, a ginormous red Dodge Ram with Cummins turbo diesel, was stopped at at the light at Valencia & Citrus. The light turned green, and to show off the American-made muscle, the driver goosed his engine (as many did that day) and roared away, leaving a noxious blue smoke cloud in his wake which lead to the following exchange between two motherly Tea Party protesters and me:

TPP #1: “Thanks a lot jerk!”

TPP #2: “Yeah. That guy needs a smog check or something.”

At that, I facepalmed and said to the ladies, “But a smog check is excess government regulation that limits our freedom to pollute!”

TPP #1 & #2: *blank stare*

• Signs: Whereas last year the signs were split probably 70/30 between state and federal issues, this year most were focused on the unholy trinity of big government and taxes: Obama, Pelosi and Reid. There were virtually no state signs or signs for primary candidates.
• Most of the signs were what Iw ould call mainstream Tea Party signs. Alas, there were few Teabonics signs. But a significant minority of the signs departed from the norm. For instance:

I appreciated the literary nod to psuedo-philosopher Ayn Rand

Kevin Korenthal takes home the prize in the "Use of Household Items in a Protest Sign" category

A Psalm 109:8 "The Assassination Psalm" sign was present

Bill Reynolds, aka Not a Ferry Fan, was on hand with a custom-made sign explaining that, I think, environmentalists are actually communists. Or maybe he likes Christmas.

Only one sign that I saw attacked Obama, who deployed an additional 50,000 troops to A-Stan, on foreign policy

At first I thought she was anti-tea party. But then I talked to her and she explained her sign.

There were many more gun rights signs, posters and nods to guns and weapons at the protest this year

Alas, I was hoping to see someone wearing or holding a sign like this, but no luck:

Every person deserves the right to his or her good name, especially when they have been exonerated of one of the most heinous accusations that can be made against an individual today: sexual abuse of a young person.

That is why it is shocking that the Santa Clarita Signal Newspaper would choose to run a story April 7 concerning a single discredited allegation against an exemplary priest and future pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Monsignor Richard Martini, without first putting in the extra effort to get all the facts.

…

Monsignor Martini was never removed from ministry and has never had another allegation made against him in 31 years as a priest.

Finally, the Signal owes Monsignor Martini and the Catholic Community an apology for implying that he was criminally charged with abuse. The story wrongly states that he “was never convicted of the allegation.” The fact is Monsignor Martini has never been charged with any crime whatsoever.

Ouch. Seeing your town’s newspaper called out like that is pretty disappointing. Hopefully the Signal will learn from this and improve. Here’s the original story.

On the other hand, can anyone blame parents for being a bit on-edge and suspicious of anything coming from the Catholic hierarchy lately? It’s not like the church has built up a reservoir of good-will and trust in its handling of sex abuse cases; quite the opposite in fact.