Why John Adams wouldn't be mad about Ontario's July 3 celebration

Decades ago, when I was in the Boy Scouts, my friend and I went to play flute and drum at a Veterans Day event for a service organization. I can't remember if it was the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars or who, but whoever it was, they were pretty traditional.

You see, they celebrated Veterans Day ON VETERANS DAY. And they made a point of saying so. Even back long ago when I was a Boy Scout, Monday holidays were the rage, but not for everyone.

Of course, there are other reasons to move a holiday. In a nation where a good number of people self-identify as Christian, there is often a reluctance to celebrate on Sunday. This affects my home city of Ontario, California:

Residents will start celebrating Independence Day on July 3 with a Fourth of July parade. The celebration will begin at 9 a.m. and feature community floats and equestrian teams. Following the parade there will be a "bring your own picnic," gathering along the Euclid Avenue median.

Yes, my city is celebrating July 4 on July 3. (Although for some odd reason, the fireworks will still take place on the 4th. The fireworks take place in the newer part of Ontario, though - perhaps they're a bunch of Satan worshippers or something.)

Now I'm sure that some people are horrified about celebrating July 4 on July 3, but I imagine that John Adams wouldn't be one of them. (And not just because of his Unitarian leanings.) Because, you see, the U.S. didn't declare independence on July 4.

We declared independence on July 2 - an act that caused Adams to state:

"The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival."

Adams was wrong on his celebration date, because we ended up celebrating on July 4, the date that the final approval, with edits, was given.

By 12 of the 13 colonies. New York waited a few days to approve.

Oh, and the document wasn't signed until August 2.

By 53 of the people who approved it. Three signed later.

So if you want to choose a day to celebrate American independence, take your pick.

Trigger to be sold? Say it isn't so!

For some reason Roy Rogers entered my mind this evening, and I idly searched my FriendFeed friends to see how much they talked about Roy. After seeing the paltry response, I wrote:

Only three of my FriendFeed friends have mentioned Roy Rogers in calendar year 2010. I need new friends.

So I searched outside my friend circle to see what people were saying about Roy.

I wish I hadn't.

You see, I ran across this article, which mentioned:

...a weekend clear-out at the former Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum, which closed last year.

Last I heard the museum had relocated from Victorville to Branson in 2003. The former Victorville site is now an auto mall. Apparently the museum didn't succeed in Branson either. Here's part of what Roy Rogers Jr. said:

The decision to close the Museum has come after two years of steady decline in visitors to the Museum. A lot of factors have made our decision for us. The economy for one, people are just not traveling as much. Dad's fans are getting older, and concerned about their retirement funds. Everyone is concerned about their future in this present economy. Secondly, with our high fiscal obligations we cannot continue to accumulate debt to keep the doors open.This situation is one I have not wanted to happen. Dad always said- “If the museum starts costing you money, then liquidate everything and move on.” Myself and my family have tried to hold together the Museum and collection for over 15 years, so it is very difficult to think that it will all be gone soon.

But the article was not about the museum closure. It was about something even more shocking.

One of Hollywood's most beloved animal stars is to be sold off at auction -- even though it's dead.

Country cowboy and singer Roy Rogers had his trusty equine sidekick Trigger stuffed when the animal died in 1965.

A taxidermist was commissioned to mount the animal in a rearing position.

Now, the creature is to be sold off next month....

Yes, they're auctioning off Trigger.

And you know how the joke goes...there's a likely buyer.

Avoiding the three letter "t" word in Ontario hotels

Cities that market themselves as travel destinations have to maintain a fine balancing act. The purpose of the marketing is to make money, but at the same time you want the destination to be attractive.

Of course, when you make money, you have to determine whether it's more important for city businesses to make money, or the city government to make money. The cities themselves can make a case for the latter, saying that the income is not only needed to continue to promote the city, but is also needed to maintain all of the services that the visitors and the residents require.

And when you're in a recession, everybody loses. In the case of Ontario, the city lost 27% of the revenue that it gets from its transient occupancy t - wait, I'd better not say that three letter "t" word.

As a result, the city of Ontario has increased its transient occupancy...you know...rate from 11.75% to 12.75%. It is expected that this will result in a $680,000 revenue increase.

As for my reluctance to use the t-word, I'm taking this from Councilman Alan Wapner:

"I don't see the TOT as a tax as much as a user fee, and, right now, we don't have as much users as we use to," Councilman Alan Wapner said.

However, this isn't a case in which you'll have to pay the tax, whether you like it or not. No, this will have to be voted upon by the people on November 2. Unfortunately, according to Liset Marquez, the vote itself will add $125,000 to election costs.

Riverside and Upland Footy Fun

LiveSoccerTV.com includes a list of soccer-friendly pubs in North America. Two local pubs are listed:

Auld Dubliner in Riverside

The Black Watch Pub in Upland

But will either place be open early for the 7am (in our time zone) World Cup games?

How local can you get?

I've had the day off of work today, and I've taken care of a few tasks here at home, built some Apollos and Poseidons in Starfleet Commander, and sent this tweet:

@OntarioCA did howard snider stop by YOUR house?

Now @OntarioCA didn't answer my previous tweet (see this post for the story behind that), so I'm not holding out hope that this one will be answered either.

But while @OntarioCA may not know who Howard Snider is, long-time readers of Empoprise-IE certainly know. Snider is the former mayor of Ontario and an active member of Kiwanis, and he has come door-to-door in 2009 and 2008 to promote an early June Kiwanis breakfast event.

A few weeks ago he made his annual visit to our door, and we bought tickets for this year's event, which will take place on Euclid Avenue tomorrow. He happened to visit just after the L.A. City Council announced its intent to study selling Ontario International Airport back to Ontario. Sadly, Snider had no special knowledge of the L.A. City Council's actions.

Is the original Vince's Spaghetti not the original Vince's Spaghetti?

In the process of writing my Monday post about the @OntarioCA Twitter account, I performed a Google search for "vince's spaghetti." When I did, the first search result was Vince's Spaghetti...in Torrance, California.

The first part of the Vince's Torrance story sounds familiar to a lot of us:

It has been over 55 years since Vincent Cuccia and his two brothers first opened Vince's Restaurant in Ontario, California.

Built on Holt Boulevard near the corner of Mountain Avenue, the original Vince's was a six-stool, open-air roadside stand which put to good use the acres and acres of orange groves that comprised Ontario in the middle 1940's. Along with orange juice, Vince's originally served a French Dip Sandwich, based on an Au Jus recipe created by Vince's mother, to the many movie stars as they traveled along the highway to Palm Springs, and to the members of the Armed Forces stationed at Edwards Air Force Base.

But ever the visionary, and frustrated by an inability to find spaghetti and meat sauce comparable to that in his native Chicago, Vince convinced his mother to help him develop the meat sauce recipe that is still used today. After almost two years of trial and error and taste tests, to which the family would add their opinions: "add some more of this," or "it's got a little too much of that"—Vince and his mother created exactly what they—and apparently a lot of other people—were looking for.

At the same time, the menu was not the only thing marked for expansion. As word of Vince's fabulous spaghetti sauce spread, people would line up to get take-out of the same generous portions that are still served today. Before long, the original idea of orange juice and fresh fruit was absorbed by the almost 600 plates of spaghetti served daily—a total of almost 11 tons of spaghetti served per week.


But fast forward a few decades after 1945, and the story...um...forks:

After 25 years of working with the family, Vince and his brothers agreed to go their separate ways; Vince sold his interest in the Ontario location and moved with his wife Louise, daughter Rosemary (affectionately known as DeeDee), and her husband Bill, to the South Bay.

Hawthorne Boulevard looked attractive to Vince, so he settled on the corner at 23609, and in April, 1973, Vince's Spaghetti Restaurant of Torrance was opened.

So if Vince himself (who has since passed away) moved to Torrance, then is the Torrance location the original Vince's?

Interestingly enough, the Ontario version of this story seems to be lacking one particular word. See if you can spot it.

The Cuccias arrived from Chicago as WWII was ending.

Once in California, the Cuccia's opened a family sandwich stand in late Summer 1945. Frank Cuccia's father John was still in Europe in the Army when Cuccia's uncles and aunt opened the stand. Two months later Cuccia says, one of those uncles happened to be eating a plate of his mother's spaghetti when a customer spied it and asked if the plate of pasta and meatballs was on the menu. It wasn't, but anything for a good customer and a plate of spaghetti was brought in from the family's home. The rest is history.

Yes - if you scan the entire history, you will never see any of Frank's uncles mentioned by name. And, needless to say, the Ontario website says nothing about the Torrance location.

I don't know if this apparent schism is accidental, if there's a simmering feud, or if the two branches of the family are lobbing meatballs at each other.

Have any of my readers been out to Torrance? Can you offer a comparison?

Pretending to be local?

If you choose to do so, you can use the Internet to target a very small vertical cross-section of the total Internet audience, allowing you to focus on just those things that are of interest to you. Therefore, since the Inland Empire of California is one of four chosen Empoprises focus areas, I was very pleased when my Twitter account was followed by @OntarioCA. But as I read the tweets, I noticed something. See if you can notice it also.

We love Ontario's unique local businesses & they need all of us. Make your Local Pledge now! http://ow.ly/1DQU6

Donate to a local charity? Love a local restaurant? Shop the farmers market? Make a My Local Pledge now & tell friends! http://ow.ly/1EgZT

If you read these and other tweets, you will note that these tweets are devoid of specific local content. The tweeter (or tweet committee) doesn't make explicit mention of Chaffey High School or Vince's or anything that is actually in Ontario.

The reason becomes apparent when you go to the linked website, My Local Pledge. On the one hand, the website strongly urges people to buy in their local communities. On the other hand, it covers a lot of local communities.

Agoura Hills
Anaheim
Bakersfield
Bellflower
Berkeley
Beverly Hills
Brentwood
Burbank
Calabasas
Carlsbad
Carson
Chatsworth
Chico
Chula Vista
Claremont
Clovis
Concord
Corona
Costa Mesa
Culver City
Daly City
Eagle Rock
El Cajon
Encino
Fremont
Fresno
Glendale
Glendora
Hermosa Beach
Huntington Beach
Irvine
Long Beach
Los Angeles
Los Feliz
Malibu
Manhattan Beach
Marina Del Rey
Newport Beach
North Hollywood
Northridge
Oakland
Oceanside
Ontario
Oxnard
Palm Springs
Palmdale
Pasadena
Pleasanton
Pomona
Redondo Beach
Reseda
Sacramento
San Diego
San Francisco
San Jose
Santa Barbara
Santa Clara
Santa Clarita
Santa Monica
Sherman Oaks
Silver Lake
Stockton
Studio City
Tarzana
Thousand Oaks
Torrance
Van Nuys
Venice
Ventura
West Hollywood
Woodland Hills

This got me wondering - where is My Local Pledge itself based? If I support My Local Pledge, am I contributing to Ontario? Well, according to a whois search, I'm not:

Registrant Info: (FAST-14284098)
City Sites LLC
Katherine Higgins
1011 East Olive Ave
Burbank, California 91501
United States
Phone: +1.8185667660
Fax..:
Email: kate@citysitesinc.com
Last modified: 2010-04-01 00:36:29 GMT

Well, let's see if I get a response to this tweet:

@OntarioCA Is Vince's open today?

Of course, if I were really smart, I'd tweet that on a Wednesday...

P.S. I just belatedly discovered Vince's Spaghetti's Facebook page.

In praise of San Bernardino International Airport...eventually

When Norton Air Force Base was closed, it converted to an entity with the grandiose name of San Bernardino International Airport. If it hadn't been for September 11, this airport could very well have become a passenger-carrying concern. However, the airport can't serve passenger traffic yet, and may not for some time:

The cost to make San Bernardino International Airport passenger ready for airlines has risen to $92.4 million and will likely rise again....

[T]he Inland Valley Development Agency overseeing the redevelopment of the former Norton Air Force Base approved spending another $5.93 million to finish the airport....

[T]he $5.9 million would mainly be used to secure the airport according to TSA standards.

Of course you can build an airport, but will the airlines come? The recent rocky history of Ontario International Airport, where airlines have departed because of low passenger traffic and high airport fees, suggest that there may be challenges. However, the airport is apparently offering incentives to airlines, and the Inland Valley Development Agency will continue to subsidize the airport.

But will that be enough?

In praise of Ontario International Airport

There are certain things that I will avoid saying if at all possible. For example, I try my hardest to refrain from using the name "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim." (That is literally the first time that I have used this phrase in years.) In fact, I went so far as to rename Arte Moreno to emphasize my dissatisfaction with the name.

Another name that I try to avoid is "LA/Ontario International Airport." However, the airport name can be justified in a way that the baseball team name cannot - the city of Los Angeles actually owns the airport in Ontario.

But if Ontario City Council member Alan Wapner has its way, that might change.

ONT lost nearly 26 percent of its air traffic volume in the past year and also had to deal with a $7 million shortfall to its 2009-10 budget.

In recent years, Wapner said he has noticed a lack of communication when it comes to ONT between LAWA and the city of Los Angeles.

Wapner has also said LAWA has not done enough to lower operating costs and drive more air traffic to ONT.

As a result, Wapner made a request of the Los Angeles City Council.

The city of Los Angeles will study what it would require and what it would stand to lose or gain to return control of Ontario International Airport to the city of Ontario, according to a motion approved 12-3 Monday by the city council.

During a three-minute discussion toward the end of an 11-hour special Los Angeles City Council meeting Monday to talk about the city’s budget crisis, councilmembers Greig Smith and Bill Rosendahl introduced the motion. It requires the city administrative officer, chief legislative analyst and Los Angeles World Airports which owns and operates LAX and Ontario Airport, to research the feasibility of transferring control of the airport to the city of Ontario and report back before Sept. 1.

But does this study truly mean anything?

Rosendahl downplayed the motion as a “courtesy” to the city of Ontario. He said he had received a call from Ontario Councilman and Vice Mayor Alan Wapner.

“They’ve called me, the vice mayor of that, the other day, and he said blah, blah, blah,” Rosendahl said during the meeting, referring to the call from Wapner.

As the city spends a hefty sum to modernize LAX, Rosendahl inferred that traffic would naturally pick up at Ontario airport and, in that case, transferring the airport to the Inland city wouldn’t be necessary.

@YogurtimeUpland - I am eating my words

At one point I held over a dozen mayorships in Foursquare, but as the service has become more popular, I have lost every one of my mayorships except for one - the mayorship for Yogurtime, a frozen yogurt place at 110 South Mountain in Upland, California.

I've only written about Yogurtime once in my Empoprise-IE Inland Empire blog - in a December 2009 post that looked at the brouhaha between certain customers of Yogurtime and the Upland High Gay-Straight Alliance.

But I did write about Yogurtime at length in my Empoprise-BI business blog - in a post (also from December 2009) that noted that Yogurtime didn't really control the online marketing of their business. Search results for Yogurtime were dominated by results from Yelp and other sources - and by a Yogurtime Twitter page. Just one problem:

Yogurtime's Twitter account ranks very highly in Google search results. Only problem is that this @yogurtime Twitter account is for a Yogurtime in Hong Kong.

So, because I know how to spell SEO, I made a humble suggestion:

So all the folks in Upland need to do is to establish a @yogurtimeupland Twitter account, and hopefully all the third-party content on Yogurtime will be pushed down the search queue....

I'd email Yogurtime with these suggestions...but their email is not listed. Perhaps they'll find this post and at least set up a Twitter account to communicate with their customers online.

And maybe they'll implement privileges for FourSquare mayors. :) One can only hope...

Well, it's now several months later, and I spent a little bit of time on Sunday afternoon in Yogurtime (maintaining my mayorship, of course). While there, I noticed that Yogurtime HAS set up a @YogurtimeUpland Twitter account. While I seriously doubt that my post prompted them to do this - I don't even know if they ever saw my post - I'm glad to see that Yogurtime has joined its Hong Kong brethren in the Twitter world.

The first @YogurtimeUpland tweet was on April 10, and by April 20 they were already offering online specials:

Today only: whisper 3Free to the cashier to receive 3 ounces of yogurt for free!

Unfortunately, not many people know about the Twitter account yet. When I began following the account this afternoon, there were only two other followers. But even though there are only three followers, the Twitter presence is already yielding positive results. While a Google search of "Yogurtime" still results in the Yelp listing being the first entry, the @YogurtimeUpland Twitter account has climbed up to third (after the Foursquare entry). My December 2009 Empoprise-BI blog post has fallen to 19th.

Imagine what will happen when more people find out about the Twitter account. Yogurtime will have more control over their online presence and reputation. And that can be a good thing.

Claremont High School's Kori Carter featured in Saturday's Los Angeles Times

I was reading the paper today, and ran across this article on Kori Carter, a hurdler at Claremont High School.

Now I have never been to a Claremont High track meet, but I was talking to someone who happens to know Carter, and apparently the paper describes her fairly accurately.

Here's how Melissa Rohlin started her article:

Before Kori Carter annihilates her high school competitors with her speed, she disarms them with a hug.

The Claremont High senior, one of the top young hurdlers in the nation, approaches each of her adversaries before races, throws her arms around them and says a prayer. Her family said that some people find it endearing, and others find it mystifying.

"I'm just a hugger," Carter said. "It's just how I say hello. It's not that big of a deal to be nice to people."

More here.

#followfriday why @thevixy @EvelynErives @darknight247

I'm...um...following in the tradition of my Friday April 9 post in my Empoprise-MU music blog and, semi-following a suggestions from Chris Brogan, using a blog post to provide additional "follow Friday" information on the people that I'm following.

The three people mentioned in this post are in some way connected with the Inland Empire.

Let's start with Caroline. I knew that I was going to include @thevixy in this Inland Empire list. Caroline is a student, a tweeter, a blogger, a FriendFeeder, and probably a few dozen other things. Definitely a multi-faceted individual. Plus, she likes my stuff on FriendFeed.

While social media types know Caroline, Inland Empire radio types know Evelyn - Evelyn Erives of KGGI. She tweets as @EvelynErives when she isn't trading barbs with Jeff Pope in the morning. Erives blogs at the KGGI web site.

Now the next person isn't famous on radio, and I'm not sure how famous he is in the social media world, but Foursquare users in the area certainly know him. Salvador tweets as @darknight247, and of course can also be found on Foursquare. And he gets around a lot, so he could oust you as mayor of a location - he ousted me.

And yes, I do have a Twitter list associated with the Empoprise-IE blog: http://twitter.com/empoprises/empoprise-ie.

We demand more sloshing pools!

I haven't mentioned anything about the Easter earthquake in this blog, but I did add a comment to David Allen's blog post about the earthquake. Allen described his impressions of the earthquake, which in a sense paralleled most of us in southern California - Is this an earthquake? How big is it? Where is it centered?

Note that I said MOST of us. I didn't personally feel the quake myself, as I noted:

I was in Ontario, walking across the room, and didn't feel anything, but the people that were sitting commented on how long the earthquake was. Then I saw the pool in the backyard and noticed that the water in the pool was in mini-tsunami mode.

A little later in the afternoon I turned on the radio and listened to KNX's coverage of the quake. This is when I learned that the epicenter was far away from us, south of Mexicali.

When you live in southern California, you learn how different media outlets cover a quake. In the case of KNX radio, they tend to take a lot of phone calls, some of which in retrospect have minimal news value. I didn't call KNX with my impressions, but obviously mine would fall into the "minimal news value" category. KNX did, however, take a call from someone who was in contact with relatives in Mexico.

But not all of us tuned into the radio. Blog commenter John Clifford noted:

Spent the next 3 hours watching SPECIAL REPORTS on the quake and the conversation turned to the sorry state of the media that showed images of sloshing pools over and over and over again.

This prompted Allen to reply:

[Hey, John Bredehoft (see above) might have found those images fascinating. -- DA]

Frankly, our local television news is often subject to ridicule for its coverage. In my mind, the most infamous occurrence was when Channel 4 had a reporter on scene in Santa Barbara, reporting LIVE, to state that Linda McCartney did NOT die in Santa Barbara, but in Arizona. (For those who don't recall the intentional confusion surrounding the death of McCartney, see here.)

But for people like me who missed the spectacular TV coverage, there's always YouTube. Temecula:



Temple City:



West Los Angeles:



Now by way of comparison, take a look at this earthquake pool coverage from Hawaii:



If you find this fascinating, I could find more videos.

Von Trapp Fact and Fiction, This Time at Chaffey High School

Chaffey High School will be presenting a production of "The Sound of Music." This play (and the more-famous movie) is a semi-accurate telling of the story of the singing von Trapp family. Some of the differences between the musical and the real story are documented in other places on the web.

"The Sound of Music" ends with the von Trapp family leaving Austria, but does not tell about their subsequent emigration to the United States. Chaffey High School provides these helpful details:

[T]he show will be produced by Billman/Masterson productions and a cast of 80 at the majestic Gardiner W Spring Auditorium on the campus of Chaffey High School.

The true story of Maria, Captain von Trapp and their seven children will be rightly told in GWS as it was here that the family made their first American concert appearance on February 5, 1942.

A wonderful coincidence, but unfortunately the National Archives can't confirm the historic nature of the Chaffey appearance:

The family, along with their musical conductor, Rev. Franz Wasner, and secretary, Martha Zochbauer, left Austria for Italy in June 1938. They entered the United States at New York in the fall of 1938 under six month visitors' visas and almost immediately began a concert tour in Pennsylvania. Son Johannes was born in January 1939 in Philadelphia.

I have not found an accurate listing of von Trapp concert appearances, but mathematics seems to suggest that a concert in Pennsylvania in late 1938 would have occurred well before any appearance in California in February 1942.

Incidentally, the National Archives itself documents the differences between the real and fictionalized von Trapp family. Here are some of them:

Maria came to the von Trapp family in 1926 as a tutor for one of the children, Maria, who was recovering from scarlet fever, not as governess to all the children.

Maria and Georg married in 1927, 11 years before the family left Austria, not right before the Nazi takeover of Austria.

Maria did not marry Georg von Trapp because she was in love with him. As she said in her autobiography Maria, she fell in love with the children at first sight, not their father. When he asked her to marry him, she was not sure if she should abandon her religious calling but was advised by the nuns to do God's will and marry Georg. "I really and truly was not in love. I liked him but didn't love him. However, I loved the children, so in a way I really married the children. . . . [B]y and by I learned to love him more than I have ever loved before or after."

There were 10, not 7 von Trapp children.

The names, ages, and sexes of the children were changed.

The family was musically inclined before Maria arrived, but she did teach them to sing madrigals.

Georg, far from being the detached, cold-blooded patriarch of the family who disapproved of music, as portrayed in the first half of The Sound of Music, was actually a gentle, warmhearted parent who enjoyed musical activities with his family. While this change in his character might have made for a better story in emphasizing Maria's healing effect on the von Trapps, it distressed his family greatly.

The family did not secretly escape over the Alps to freedom in Switzerland, carrying their suitcases and musical instruments. As daughter Maria said in a 2003 interview printed in Opera News, "We did tell people that we were going to America to sing. And we did not climb over mountains with all our heavy suitcases and instruments. We left by train, pretending nothing."

The inaccuracy that hurt the family the most was the portrayal of Georg the father, but I would assume that they accepted this as part of God's will. But I don't know if Georg or Maria could have conceived of a day in which their establishment, the Trapp Family Lodge, would eventually have Twitter and Facebook accounts. I saw the following on the latter:

This April, the hills are alive with the sounds of...beer. Join us for the Trapp Lodge brewery grand opening celebration Apr 16-18

Hey, the von Trapps were Austrian Catholics. They weren't Methodists or anything like that. If you want to say "So long, farewell" and head to the brewery, read this.

Off with their heads! Or did two local YMCAs shoot themselves in the feet?

Whatever you call it - firings, layoffs, downsizing, rightsizing - the idea is that you can reduce an organization's costs without taking a major hit in revenue. Which is why the CEO of a company is never laid off, because the CEO is essential to a company's operations.

A board of directors, however, is another matter. Or at least that's how two local YMCAs look at it, according to Mediha Fejzagic DiMartino:

The governing boards at two Inland Valley YMCAs have been dissolved and their executive directors laid off.

The changes, prompted by the challenging economic environment, were implemented late last week for the Ontario/Montclair as well as the Rancho Cucamonga & Fontana Valley YMCAs.

Needless to say, there are two sides (at least) to this story. DiMartino talked to the president/CEO of the West End YMCA, which oversees the two YMCAs in question (plus two others). President Debra Anderson took pains to emphasize that no programs would be affected. And that probably makes sense; it's probably not a board of directors person who tosses out the basketballs.

So what did the boards of directors do?

According to some understandably angry former board members, they did...fundraising.

"They don't understand the complexity of YMCA," [former Ontario/Montclair executive director Larry Enriquez] said. "It has a huge impact on the community. This was supposed to be a good year. We had a number of funders committed."...

[Olivia] Sevilla [former chairwoman of the Ontario-Montclair board of managers] ... said several grant opportunities totalling close to $400,000 may be in jeopardy.

Sevilla also made a point of noting that the board members were entrenched in the community, which is another way of saying that they have clout, and know people who have clout.

Case in point - Sevilla's predecessor in the position was Sue Ovitt (who didn't like the changes either), who is now on the Chaffey Joint Union High School District board.

And Sue Ovitt is married to a former teacher at Chaffey High.

Who later became mayor of Ontario.

Who is now on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors.

Debra Anderson would probably be better off standing in front of a unionized grocery store in northwest Ontario with an "I Love Wal-Mart" sign. The local YMCAs may run into a bit of trouble if the political establishment is mad at them.

The proximity seems like a lose-lose-lose for everyone involved.

Chino Hills, California (Chino Hills Parkway west of Pipeline).

Klatch Coffee and Starbucks - an interesting turn of events

You have Starbucks, you have the other big chains...and you have the smaller chains.

Klatch Coffee has locations in San Dimas and Rancho Cucamonga, and now they're getting ready to open a new one. Liset Marquez...um...spills the beans:

The Klatch is now expanding, moving into a former Starbucks location in Ontario...

Specifically, the location in 951 North Haven Avenue.

It turns out that I'm familiar with this location - it's near a Kohl's, and right across the street from Ontario Mills. I've been to this Starbucks before and liked it, but I was unaware that this particular Starbucks had closed.

Klatch Coffee's own page on the new location is here.

And to put a little historical perspective on this, it was about two years ago that Starbucks had its famous store closure to teach its baristas how to make coffee. Klatch Coffee took the attitude "Our people ALREADY know how to make coffee," and took advantage of Starbucks' closure. I wrote about it at the time.

I'm sure the management at Klatch Coffee is really enjoying this.

The advantage of Facebook-friending Robeks Claremont

Some time ago, I discovered that the Robeks smoothie place in Claremont had its own Facebook page, and I went ahead and joined it. Which ended up paying off.

The page itself is private, so I can't really show it to you, but last weekend they announced that they were going to have a "Free Coffee Smoothies" special on Tuesday between 6pm and 7pm. Customers could sample three of their new smoothies - coffee, mocha, and hazelnut - and the first fifteen people who signed up on Facebook would then be eligible to get a free 12 oz coffee smoothie. However, you had to give Robeks the right to make a Facebook/MySpace commercial of your experience.

By the time I saw the announcement, more than 15 people had already signed up, so I knew that I wouldn't get the free smoothie, but I figured that I'd try the samples.

Unfortunately for Robeks, the hour of their special happened to be the exact same hour that a fierce rainstorm was pelting Claremont. Therefore, by the time I arrived at Robeks at around 6:20 pm, there were fewer than 15 people in the store.

Way fewer.

As in, five people - if you count the two employees.

So the best laid plans of mice and smoothie shops are at the mercy of freak Southern California weather.

They did ask my ratings of the three smoothies on a 1-10 scale, and I gave the coffee smoothie a 7.5-8, the hazelnut smoothie a 6 (I'm not a hazelnut fan), and the mocha a 9.

And because of the low crowds, Robeks gave me one of the coupons anyway - which I then proceeded to give to my daughter later in the evening. (She's the one who introduced me to Robeks anyway, so I owed her something.)

Oh, and they didn't feature me in a Facebook or MySpace commercial - but I am admittedly way outside of their target market...

Incidentally, if you're an Inland Empire Facebook user, just search for "Robeks Claremont" and you'll find their page.

Wal-Mart, Snobbery, and Food Choices?

I recently wrote about fast food in my business blog, and fast food plays a part in a theory about Wal-Mart.

But first, let's provide an update. And I'll try to keep calm.

The Ontario Mountain Village Association, as part of their repeated and continued attempts to preserve a graffiti-ridden empty lot in northwest Ontario - I guess they want to lower their property values by having decaying vacant space next to their homes - have filed an appeal of the City of Ontario's decision to finally allow the Wal-Mart to be constructed in northwest Ontario.

However, as I write this, the Ontario Mountain Village Association has apparently not discovered the blog post that covers their lawsuit, because of the four comments on the post, exactly zero of them support the OMVA's position. Matt has (so far) written the longest comment, and while he doesn't support the move to keep the Wal-Mart out of Ontario, he's hoping that Wal-Mart will do more than put a big box at Mountain & 5th.

Target sucks and is no better than Walmart. These stores should both stop wasting our open space on these one story box stores with oceans of parking. They should consider a two level approach with a parking structure, leaving room for a plaza, a parkway, and a restaurant.

This would make these shopping centers interesting for pedestrian shoppers instead of dangerous and uninviting. The big box approach to retail will fizzle out and die like a 1960's shopping mall, even in the burbs.

Build a Super Walmart but build it right. Come on Ontario, I know you can force them to design a more urban walmart plaza or court, a Super Walmart that would make the Chaffey brothers proud...LOL.

I've seen the more urban walmarts. They are much better than a crappy old one story Walmart. They don't waste land! (under-utilization).

But then Matt shared a theory which may be of interest.

The Rancho Cucamonga Walmart is no different from many walmarts I've seen except instead of having Mc Donalds fast food in the parking lot there is a Claim Jumper Restaurant. This is a better restaurant choice which draws larger more diverse crowds to the center while also attracting more affluent shoppers.

Rancho Walmart w/ Claim Jumper
More Affluent ($$ / $$$$$)

instead of

Upland Walmart w/ Mc Donalds
Less Affluent ($ / $$$$$).

Personally, I think that Matt is oversimplifying the causes - I think that the problems in the Upland Wal-Mart are due to bad management rather than food choices, and most people don't base their shopping destination choices on the available food. But it is an interesting idea, and if you believe Matt's model, then what will happen to the Ontario Wal-Mart when Cory Briggs' last appeal is denied and a non-union - oh, did I say "non-union"? I'm sure that doesn't enter into Briggs' plans - when Cory Briggs' last appeal is denied and a store replaces the three empty stores on the vacant lot?

On the one hand, you have a Carl's Jr next to the store site. Score one for Matt's Upland model.

On the other hand, you have a Starbucks, a My Delight Cupcakery, a wings place, a sushi grill, and some other non-fast food restaurants just down the street.

We'll follow this continuing saga.

A hub of an idea

People are really really trying to make Ontario an interconnected transportation hub. On January 6, I wrote about efforts to bring rail to Ontario International Airport. But there's another idea floating around, according to Liset Marquez:

A report released by the Urban Land Institute on Tuesday affirmed the city's vision for the 250-acre site known as the Meredith property.

The city has long envisioned creating a core development centered on a transit plaza on the vacant land just north of the 10 Freeway and east of Vineyard Avenue.

It is one of the few remaining large undeveloped sites in the city.

And, luckily for planners, it's not too far away from the airport. But one part of the plan raises an interesting question.

The recommendations are in line with the city's vision to develop the Meredith property as a lifestyle center with high-density buildings while creating a new urban downtown, said Greg Devereaux, Ontario city manager.

(Sharp-eyed readers will notice that this is a dated story. It's from January 21.)

The one interesting part of this is that the city has spent the last few years sinking lots of money into the EXISTING downtown - and now we're looking at creating a new downtown?