Rick McClure responds

Last Monday, I posted an item entitled Dipping into the local election junk mail which included the following regarding the Ontario-Montclair School District election:

One of the teachers' union mailings was very teamwork-oriented, speaking of teacher-principal-parent teams as well as the "Teachers' Education Team" of Steve Garcia, Elvia Rivas, and Kris Brake. Garcia is the only incumbent who was mentioned in this mailer. The union says that the three will respond to Sacramento's budget cuts by keeping "budget cuts as far away from the classroom as possible." Brake, in her separate mailer, says that she "will work to ensure that taxpayer funds are utilized to directly benefit students."

But the teachers' union sent out a separate mailer - one that lives up to the high "standards" set by the state governor's race....

What follows is a hard-hitting attack on Paul Vincent Avila's stances on the issues affecting the board...well, except for the issues part. The hard-hitting attack is still there....

Perhaps I'm going out on a limb here, but I highly suspect that the teachers' union has objections to Avila other than his language or his electioneering.

My post prompted a reply from Rick McClure, President of the Ontario-Montclair Teachers Association, which I am reproducing here in full:

Well, as the President of the union responsible for that piece I think I'm qualified to speak to this. I suggest you go to www.voteoutavila.com and see and read for yourself about Mr. Avila. If after reading just his emails to me and the other candidates for the school board you think I've got ulterior motives, well OK. But I'm willing to bet my next paycheck that instead you'll be saying, "OMG, this nut's an elected official!"

If you go to the www.voteoutavila.com website, you can see electronic copies of BOTH mailings - the one regarding Avila is at the top of the page, while the one regarding "the education team" of Garcia, Rivas, and Brake is at the bottom of the page. (Since this is the "vote out Avila" website, the order of the ads is reasonable - there is another page in which "the education team" is at the top.) There are also links (some of which have expired) to some of the correspondence from and to Avila.

To my knowledge, Avila does not have a campaign website, but his official school board biography, as well as the biographies of J. Steve Garcia and the other incumbent school board members, can be found here.

Alan Wapner's LAX-ONT conflict of interest claims

As noted previously, Ontario City Councilman Alan Wapner has been a vocal proponent of purchasing Ontario International Airport from its current owner, the city of Los Angeles. In a recent letter in the Los Angeles Times, Wapner argued that the city of Los Angeles has a conflict of interest in running ONT:

Los Angeles has an inherent conflict of interest in controlling both airports. As Los Angeles struggles to regain lost traffic at LAX and to pay for a multibillion-dollar expansion, it views ONT as something of a competitor deserving scant attention.

I don't know if Wapner's claim is true or not, and considering the moves by LAX's neighbors to limit traffic, you'd think that the opposite would be the case. However, Wapner has evidence from Los Angeles World Airports' own Executive Director:

To avoid this conflict, Los Angeles World Airports, the agency that operates both facilities, must relinquish control of ONT and concentrate on LAX. The need for this was highlighted by LAWA Executive Director Gina Marie Lindsey's comments at the July 14 meeting of the L.A. Board of Airport Commissioners:

"Now continuing to pursue a strategy that actively pushes traffic away from the city of Los Angeles and into other jurisdictions could be viewed as a little self-destructive."

Wapner also claims that one reason for ONT's high fees is the 15% administrative fee tacked on by LAWA.

Unfortunately - and Wapner should realize this - he is dealing with bureaucrats. And the last thing that a bureaucrat would want to do is to reduce his/her power.

A little more Mills at Ontario...but more approachable

It's a truism that malls are always expanding and adding new stores. They are never contracting and losing stores. Basically, all this means is that some tenant moved out (not discussed) and some other tenant moved in (discussed ad nauseum).

But sometimes malls do expand. A few years after I moved to California, the Montclair Plaza added a second floor. And now, the Ontario Mills center is expanding...a bit:

Areas that used to serve as loading docks will make way for additional exterior storefront entrances as well as extra parking.

Actually, although the increase square footage apparently isn't that significant, the configuration is. Exterior storefront entrances are vitally important to some retailers.

Sports Authority will occupy more than 50,000 square feet and will be in Neighborhood 3, replacing the Baby Depot.

The sports retailer, Smith said, is actually returning to the Mills.

It used to occupy the space where Forever 21 is located, but one of the reasons it left several years ago was because it didn't have an exterior entrance, Smith said.

And it's not just the Mills. When Barnes & Noble moved down Montclair's Central Avenue to relocate in Montclair Plaza a few years ago, the new Barnes & Noble included an exterior entrance.

Of course, if exterior entrances become more and more important, then you'll end up with...a traditional shopping center, or perhaps something more akin to Victoria Gardens.

Only in California...

TMI - Take the train to Cagle's?

I had to find the phone number for Cagle's Appliances in Ontario, so I went to Google to find it.



Now on the one hand, I appreciate the integration that Google has performed between locations and nearby transportation systems, and I can certainly verify that you can get to Cagle's by walking from the Ontario Amtrak station.

But as much as I admire Cagle's, I don't think that people are going to be taking a long-distance train to get there. However, should you be a Tucson, Arizona resident who is looking for a California appliance store, here's how the Sunset Limited can meet your transportation needs.

• Board the Sunset Limited in Tucson on Tuesday evening. It currently departs at 10:30 pm, but this may change when daylight saving time ends.


• Disembark at Ontario at 6:21 am Wednesday morning.


• Take your time walking east on Holt to Cagle's. Maybe you could stop somewhere for breakfast.


• When Cagle's opens at 8:30, go ahead and head on in. Take your time browsing around. But don't take too much time.


• Be sure you're back at the train station to board the eastbound train on Wednesday at 3:34 pm. (You did stop for lunch on Holt, didn't you?)


• You're back in Tucson at 12:06 am on Thursday, give or take an hour depending upon time changes. But you have some new appliances!

Note, however, that the Sunset Limited only runs three days a week. And since Cagle's is closed on Sundays, which is one of the days that the Sunset Limited is in Ontario, there are only two days a week in which you can take the Sunset Limited for your shopping excursion. So plan carefully.

Or if the train trip doesn't work for you, Cagle's is a short cab ride away from Ontario International Airport.


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Dipping into the local election junk mail

On Saturday morning, I did something that I had been avoiding.

I started looking at the accumulated election-related junk mail.

And it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Of course, there's still a little bit of time before the election, so it can turn really bad really quickly.

For the purposes of the Empoprise-IE Inland Empire blog, I'll ignore the statewide races and just concentrate on the local stuff.

I heard from two incumbents - Congressman Joe "Food on the Table" Baca and Ontario City Council Member "Fire Chief" Jim Bowman. Because of their incumbency, they didn't have to resort to negative campaigning. Both are creating jobs, and both are tough. Baca didn't mention who was supporting him, but Bowman noted union support (the fire fighters' union and the police union endorse him) and also noted that every member of the current City Council endorses him. The phrase "independent voice" was not found either of the two Bowman mailers that were in the pile.

Another incumbent of sorts mailed me - the city of Ontario itself. While the mailing was about Measure V (an increase in the hotel-motel tax), the mailer was careful not to endorse Measure V. The mailer just provided information...along with a lot of pictures of fire trucks, fire fighers, and police officers. (For some reason, a picture of someone filling a pothole wasn't deemed sexy enough for this brochure.)

Oh, and remember Fred J. Minook? He sent me a mailer also, which talked about dreaming big and being "innovative." Without trashing the current council (again, a refreshing break from negative advertising), Minook listed some of the things that he wants to do, including the redevelopment of Holt, Euclid, and Mountain to increase businesses and tax revenue; attracting more museums and cultural institutions "so our residents do not have to travel to Los Angeles"; and other big plans. One might question the specifics and logic of ideas such as this:

Fred would expand the Convention Center to attract major conventions and stem the losses.

(What if the bigger conventions DON'T come?) but Minook certainly gets credit for raising the issue.

Unfortunately, the apparent civility in the Ontario mayoral election doesn't appear to have extended to the Ontario-Montclair School District board election. The police and fire unions aren't the only unions that are participating in the election; of the three mailings that I had concerning the OMSD election, two were from the local teachers' union, and the third was from a teachers' union-endorsed candidate.

One of the teachers' union mailings was very teamwork-oriented, speaking of teacher-principal-parent teams as well as the "Teachers' Education Team" of Steve Garcia, Elvia Rivas, and Kris Brake. Garcia is the only incumbent who was mentioned in this mailer. The union says that the three will respond to Sacramento's budget cuts by keeping "budget cuts as far away from the classroom as possible." Brake, in her separate mailer, says that she "will work to ensure that taxpayer funds are utilized to directly benefit students."

But the teachers' union sent out a separate mailer - one that lives up to the high "standards" set by the state governor's race. It opens as follows:

It's OK
for Our Children
to Pretend to be Adults...

But It's Not OK
for Our Board Members
to Behave Like Children

What follows is a hard-hitting attack on Paul Vincent Avila's stances on the issues affecting the board...well, except for the issues part. The hard-hitting attack is still there. Examples:

Avila threw a tantrum, using profanity to berate school administrators in front of parents and teachers when his name was left off a middle schools' graduation program....

In his time on the Ontario-Montclair School Board, Avila has lost races for State Assembly 3 times, State Senate 3 times, college board 4 times and city council 6 times.

Perhaps I'm going out on a limb here, but I highly suspect that the teachers' union has objections to Avila other than his language or his electioneering.

Spirit Walk at Bellevue Cemetery on October 30

Bellevue Cemetery in Ontario holds some personal significance for me. Three family members are buried there, a neighbor is buried there, and just recently I heard that a former pastor was going to be buried there.

If I were to name these people, most of you wouldn't know them, but anyone who has studied Ontario history will certainly have heard of some of these people:

George Chaffey, founder of Ontario.
Dr. Orville Ensign, local physician.
E.H. Richardson, inventor of Hotpoint Iron.
Frances Elizabeth Oakley, citrus owner and member of Ontario's Women's Temperance Union.
Kezzie Monroe, one of the early librarians.

The Ontario Heritage Association is holding a "Spirit Walk" at the cemetery on October 30, and actors will portray each of these five people at their gravesites.

Frankly, I was surprised to discover that George Chaffey was buried here. Ontario was just one of the projects in which he was involved during his lifetime. However, I guess that it would be hard to bury him in the town of Salton.

See Liset Marquez's post for more details on the Spirit Walk.

Safariland's corporate history

I haven't really followed the Ontario firm Safariland lately, even though I have a natural interest in the company. Since I've worked in public safety software for the last 15 years, I'm always interested in Inland Empire companies like ESRI and Safariland that also play in that sector.

But when I last checked into Safariland some time ago, they were a stand-alone independent company in Ontario. A September Press-Enterprise story on Safariland's Scott O'Brien updates that history somewhat.

In 1999 O'Brien and Perkins sold their ownership in Safariland and planned on retiring. But the buyer, Armor Holdings, was unable to coordinate the operations of Safariland and 18 other manufacturers of law enforcement products it had acquired, and in 2005 O'Brien agreed to return as president and meld the separate companies into one organization....

Then in 2007 the United States unit of BAE Systems plc, a British global conglomerate, bought Armor Holdings. O'Brien continued as president. Today he is navigating Safariland, which has 1,763 employees and manufacturing plants in Inland Southern California, Florida, Wyoming and Tijuana, through a severe economic downturn.

A word on that downturn - you'd think that public safety would be pretty much recession-proof, but when governments are short on cash, they'll often try to make do with existing equipment and software for just one more year. So I can see O'Brien's challenges.

Be sure to read the interview of O'Brien in the Press-Enterprise.

Oh, and by the way, I can identify with O'Brien in another way, since he sells products that are subject to export controls. O'Brien:

Our biggest market is the Untied States. The international arena has more growth opportunity but the problem now is that BAE is very stringent about how they want business done internationally. You have to do a lot of careful vetting of whom you sell to, to make certain they are not going to take the stuff and sell it to some corrupt government.

And you thought that only auto racers came to the IE

The Citizens Business Bank Arena is bringing new people here who otherwise wouldn't come. Case in point: Elton John and Leon Russell will appear there on November 5. They've also worked on an album together, which will be released in October before their appearance.

Maybe David Allen will run for office too

I never got around to this, but Gino Filippi is running for Upland City Council this November. While his claim to fame is with the Filippi Winery, I actually know him best as a columnist for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, where he wrote about...Gatorade. Just kidding, he had a wine column.

This is what Gino Filippi said:

The Upland City Council needs revitalizing. My passion is driven by people and their contributions. I'm considered open-minded, ethical and organized. While this is my first opportunity to serve the people of Upland in an official capacity, I have served as a community volunteer for multiple organizations for over 20 years. I will work to establish term limits, maintain public safety including sidewalk and street repairs, restore library services and support local business. I have no agenda for personal gain or favors and my objective is to restore Upland to the "City of Gracious Living" as intended by its founders.

So does this mean that David Allen will run for the city council in Claremont or Pomona or wherever he lives?

Somehow this drop in the jobless rate is not encouraging

Again, a statistic that can be spun multiple ways.

On the one hand, the jobless rate in the Inland Empire has dropped!

Yeah...it's dropped to 14.8%.

But wait...it gets better:

Unemployment, which had reached an all-time high of 15.1 percent in the Inland area in July, declined to 14.8 percent. The jobless rate declined because more than 9,000 people left the work force last month.

In an odd twist, net employment gains were registered by construction and shipping firms (or what John Husing called "the meat-and-potato sectors" for our region), while net employment losses were registered by government agencies.

Well, at least that's a good sign. If the net gains were being registered in the public sector rather than the private sector, I'd be more worried.

Well, one regional airport is thriving

Sometimes it seems that the stories emanating from Ontario International Airport alternate between bad news and worse news. But there is a bright spot in the (sort of) local airport conversation.

Palm Springs International Airport has added a direct flight from Toronto starting Feb. 2 on West Jet.

Wow. Ontario doesn't have a direct flight to Canada, to my knowledge.

Oh, and the number of air travelers at Palm Springs is increasing.

Ontario International Airport without the "LA"?

Readers of this blog know the story. Ontario International Airport launched a big expansion, just before 9/11 hit and rendered its terminal configuration meaningless (all of the shops and restaurants ended up behind security barriers, meaning that only passengers could get to them), decreased the number of passengers because people didn't want to fly, resulted in increased rates to the airlines who flew into the airport...thus meaning that airlines began to pull out of the airport.

I guess it helps to write a 25 page study to say that, but the study apparently also calls for an action plan. inlandempire.us:

City leaders in Los Angeles, which currently operates the facility, must act now to prevent further loss of flights at ONT, where unusually high operating costs contributed to a decision by Southwest Airlines alone to cut its daily departures by a third in the last decade, the report said.

If you've never been to the airport, Southwest pretty much IS the airport. Yes, other airlines fly here, but Southwest is clearly the dominant carrier.

There are actions that can be taken, and a suggestion of who can best perform those actions. The Press-Enterprise:

Reviving ailing Ontario International Airport will require slashing costs and increasing marketing, two things the city of Ontario thinks it can do better than the city of Los Angeles....

So how do you cut costs?

The plan focuses instead on the airport's high cost to airlines -- a result due in large part to a bloated work force of city employees and millions of dollars in administrative costs collected by Los Angeles International Airport annually, according to the report.

But the Press-Enterprise cites one economist, Alan Bender, who says that operational cost-cutting won't help much.

"You go where the business is," he said. In an area where the recession has left an even deeper wound than other regions, the business climate has waned, he said. "That's more important than lowering the costs."

But you have to admit that the costs are huge.

It costs airlines an estimated $14.50 per enplaned passenger at Ontario airport. At LAX it costs $11, at John Wayne Airport in Orange County it costs $9.93 and in Long Beach Airport it's $5.34.

Hmm...maybe Los Angeles could sell the airport to Long Beach.

Why the Ag Preserve needs to be shut down

This story is from Australia, but it bears great relevance to the Inland Empire, and illustrates why the Ag Preserve needs to be shut down.

When a crowd of about 50 Aussies started pawing at their suddenly burning, aching eyes, panic set in.

Did somebody release poison gas? (But why would terrorists strike the dairy pavilion at the Royal Adelaide agricultural show?)

No, it’s so, so much worse.

Austrialian health officials were called in CSI-like to investigate the outbreak, Reuters Life! reports. The culprit: Stagnant cow urine.

More here.

Follow-up to my Royal Tahitian post

On March 3, 2009, I photoblogged a poster that I saw in the Applebee's in Ontario International Airport. Because the poster listed musicians, I posted it to my Empoprise-MU music blog. However, it talked about a local place - the Royal Tahitian. The post, entitled "At the Royal Tahitian, circa 1966," mentioned that I knew nothing about the establishment, other than the fact that Pearl Bailey, Sarah Vaughan, and Louis Armstrong had apparently performed there in 1966.

Leave it to David Allen, in a September 4 post in his blog, to fill in some of the gaps.

The Royal Tahitian operated in Ontario from 1960 to 1967 at Whispering Lakes Golf Course.


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Afterward the building became the clubhouse for the golf course (at 2525 E Riverside Drive, Ontario CA 91761), but Allen reports that the clubhouse was closed in April, and the building is slated to be demolished.

Be sure to visit Allen's post for some before and after pictures, including some handbills from the heyday of the Royal Tahitian. Some of the other performers included the Four Tops, James Brown, and Ray Charles. Also see the Sunday article that Allen wrote in his paying gig, the Daily Bulletin.

But it wasn't just about the music, according to Critiki:

The Royal Tahitian claimed to be the world's largest Polynesian restaurant, with 250 acres of tropical landscaping and "lagoons" -- however, this was simply a reference to the Ontario National Golf Course nextdoor. The main floor was the restaurant, with a bar downstairs, and a show area outside. It featured a dramatic asymmetrical swooping A-frame entrance.

However, Critiki also claims that the building was demolished in 2003. Frankly, I trust David Allen on this one - unless the golf course happened to have TWO buildings with dramatic asymmetrical swooping A-frames. Perhaps there are multiple Royal Tahitians, just like there are multiple Doyle Owls. (And no, I don't think Reed College's Doyle Owl has ever appeared at the Whispering Lakes Golf Course.)

On Pacific Island music (now - Pacific Island Dancers of Chino Hills)

As I mentioned in a post in my Empoprise-MU music blog, I first encountered Pacific Island music when I needed to select a theme song for my college radio show. Eventually I used M.K. Moke's "Moana Chimes" (after a period of using Roy Smeck's "Indiana March"), but I really hadn't run across much Pacific Island music since that time until I was invited to a Saturday evening luau.

At a senior citizen assisted living center.

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but I figured that the center would serve some pineapple, and I figured that perhaps some of the 80-year old women could still hula, so I went there with an open mind.

As it turned out, they did serve pineapple, and a variety of other foods (no roasted pig with an apple in its mouth, though). And the dancing was NOT done by the residents. Instead, the entertainment was provided by three dancers (two female, one male) and one drummer from Pacific Island Dancers, a group based on the "island" of Chino Hills, California.

Their show (presented in the parking lot of the complex) was billed as a tour of the islands, starting and ending in Tahiti, with stops in Hawaii, Samoa, and New Zealand. Much of the dancing was done to pre-recorded music (with the drummer augmenting things on some songs), but the final dances were accompanied by the drummer alone.



They also had an audience participation segment. No, none of the residents participated, but they did get five family members to go up front and shake around a bit.

A fun time was had by all. In addition to performing at corporate events, Pacific Island Dancers also offers instruction for all age groups.

Finding the local blogs

While searching for the slightest mention of a particular Ontario, California mayoral candidate, I made a discovery about the Original Skrip blog. I normally read it via Google Reader, so I just see the RSS version of the posts and don't see the entire blog in all of its goodness.

It turns out that if you actually visit the blog, you'll find a list of local blogs in the upper right corner, including this very Empoprise-IE blog. I was familiar with some of the listed blogs, but hadn't heard of some of the others. In particular, the Goddess of Garey Avenue was new to me. How many goddesses can a single city have? And yes, "GOGA" was inspired by the similarly-named Goddess of Pomona.

The Goddess of Pomona has been trying to get me to start a blog for quite some time now, so I’m finally having at it.

I have been mentioned on several other Pomona blogs over the past couple of years and was first mentioned on the the Goddess of Pomona’s blog several years ago when I was really into sungazing while on Garey Avenue. And that’s where I got my name The Goddess of Garey Avenue.

Now I'm wondering if there are any other emperors in Ontario.

Why social media political campaigning is rapidly becoming a necessity

NOTE: THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS POST ARE NOT INTENDED AS AN ENDORSEMENT OR AN OPPOSITION OF ANY CANDIDATE IN THE FORTHCOMING ONTARIO, CALIFORNIA MAYORAL ELECTION.

I have previously noted that current Ontario Mayor and mayoral candidate Paul Leon has an online presence, while mayoral candidate Frederick Minook does not.

Why is this important?

Because, as of this evening (August 24, 2010), if someone were to search Google to find out who the heck Frederick Minook is, my previous blog post on Frederick Minook would be the first search result that they would encounter.



In my blogging, I've tried to corner the market on obscure topics before, but I've never had the (theoretical) potential to affect the future of our great city.

Of course, I'll grant that most people don't make political decisions based on Google. But it's still scary to think that if someone isn't promoting their own cause, an interloper could come by and do it for them.

(empo-tymshft) An Inland Empire BBS...in 2010!

You may recall that I wrote a post a couple of years ago that talked about bulletin board systems (BBS'es) in the 20th century Inland Empire.

But that isn't the only time that I wrote about BBS systems. Matt Munson (who was mentioned in my 2008 post) apparently found a reference to my BBS'ing days while perusing the August 2004 archive of the Ontario Empoblog, and Munson ended up writing a post about his own BBS'ing days. Excerpt:

[B]ack on July 1995, I had plans for my first bbs where I wrote my plans for a message base lineup, but I only had 60 megs to run a bbs and I decided to run a part time bbs, but that was kind of not cool because people did not know the difference not to call at the daytime when they were supposed to call at night.

But Munson's time in BBS-land hasn't ended. The post includes a link to a BBS that Munson started in 2002, and is still going strong today.

Yes, a link. The BBS world has changed since the time that I'd dial in to a BBS via a modem. These days, there are new ways to access such systems.

There are three choices for interactivity, you can visit with a web browser to read the message forums, and download files (such as the telnet client and offline message reader program), flash based terminal program where you can do most things on my bbs except for downloading and uploading files, and the telnet connection where you can visit my bbs like if you were dialing with a modem.

But once you get to the BBS via the newfangled methods, it's just like you were interacting with a BBS in the 20th century.

Well, with one exception. This post includes a signature block which would have mystified me if I had seen it on the Grotto back in the day:

~ I am on twitter: @thinktank79 on Twitter ~

I can see the 20th century version of me asking, "What's a twitter?"

Now, I could conceivably join the BBS just to answer that question, and even though I'm reluctant to add yet another login (BBS systems don't support Facebook Connect or Twitter OAuth), I just might do it in this instance. But if I do, what should I use as my handle? Wasp the Houseboy? Ontario Emperor? 20th Century Modem Man?

London, Redlands, and trees

Back in July, the Financial Times of London ran a story on ESRI's Jack Dangermond. But perhaps the readers of that esteemed paper didn't get some of the implied local references. For example:

He does have an indulgence, however – trees. A keen conservationist, he buys thousands of acres of “junk” land in southern California in order to reforest it.

Considering that Dangermond works in Redlands, his appreciation for trees is understandable.

More here, including Dangermond's thought on his technology and the virtues of running a private company.

Why the Echo Hills Golf Course won't be replaced by a Hilton any time soon

Someone who worked for a Hilton call center in Hemet two years ago has made some allegations about some bad timing on Hilton's part.

Employees of a Hemet reservation call center for Hilton Worldwide were sent to the Philippines to train agents at a new call center there only two months before Hilton announced that it was closing the Hemet office....

[A]t a 2 p.m. meeting on Aug. 4, Hilton told its Hemet employees what had been rumored for months: that the center on Florida Avenue would close, on Oct. 6. Documents say 295 people will lose their jobs.

Hilton has been somewhat tight-lipped about the matter.

[A]lthough office staff handed out the phone number of a public relations executive, he did not return calls seeking comment. Four hours after the layoff was announced, that executive, David Trumble, Hilton's director of corporate communications for the western United States, e-mailed a three-paragraph statement....

Trumble took seven days to respond to e-mailed questions about Hilton's operations, including whether Hilton had call centers in the Philippines, whether Hemet employees were sent there as trainers and whether Hemet employees would receive relocation assistance.

He did not answer the latter two questions. [Former employee] Stroud said Hemet employees were offered relocation help.

This isn't the first time that Hilton has sent employees to the Philippines to train their replacements, according to this 2009 article:

Some of the 176 soon-to-be laid-off employees of the Hilton Reservations & Customer Care call center in Humboldt Industrial Park traveled to the Philippines to train workers for a new facility, according to several sources at the center.

The local call center is scheduled to close Dec. 8, a company spokesman confirmed earlier this week.

About a dozen workers, who requested anonymity because they remain employed at Hilton, claim multiple contingents of workers from the local call center have traveled to the island nation to train workers.

A spokesman for Hilton Reservation Worldwide did not return calls seeking comment on the claims.

Interestingly enough, the same article from 2009 stated that the center in Hemet was "scheduled to close." Presumably if out of town newspapers were reporting this, the employees in Hemet already knew it; they just didn't know when it would happen.

Note to Hilton employees - if you're sent on a business trip to the Philippines, polish up your resume before you go.