San Gabriel River Reservoirs are Full of Water
April 16, 2010
I went on a 15 mile bicycle ride in the mountains with Allyson on Wednesday. I drove up Route 39 to West Fork and biked up to Cogswell Dam and back (approx. 900 foot elevation change, half of that was the last mile). I drove past three other dams on the way up: Santa Fe, Morris and San Gabriel. Behind each one (including Cogswell) was what looked like substantial amounts of water. Morris Dam was so full that water was coming over the spillway (indeed, they all looked to be near capacity, except for Santa Fe Dam).
Pictures will follow.
Harbicht, Segal & Amundson Sweep Arcadia Elections
April 14, 2010
Bob Harbicht – 4,563 (23.6%)
Mark “Mickey” Segal – 4,557 (23.6%)
Peter Amundson – 3,851 (19.9%)
Paul Cheng – 2,232 (11.5%)
Sho Tay – 2,529 (13.1%)
Jason Lee – 1,536 (7.9%)
Total voters at precincts Tuesday: 3,178 (11%)
Total absentee ballots mailed: 4,308 (14.9%)
Overall voter turnout: 7,486 (25.9%)
28,840 registered voters
http://arcadiasbest.com/2010/04/election-results-april-13/
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_14877941
The Mysterious “S. Tong”
April 6, 2010
Today I received another campaign mailer from S. Tong of South El Monte. It consists of four separate documents, all much like the first mailer I received last month. From all these, a clearer picture begins to emerge.
The first document is a two-page open letter to the citizens of the City of Arcadia. Arcadians are urgently told to not vote for Paul Cheng because “CHARACTER COUNTS.” Tong accuses Cheng of fraud, extortion, misrepresentation of qualifications and preying upon the Chinese immigrant community.
The second document is a three-page open letter to John Stephens at the Arcadia Weekly. It reveals that S. Tong’s full name is “Shong-Ching Tong”, a retired 75-year-old individual. Tong attempts to methodically attack the Weekly as unprofessional and detail some of the encounters Tong has had with Cheng.
The third document is a one page letter to Andre Quintero, Mayor of El Monte. In it, Tong expresses disbelief that Quintero is the City Attorney of Hesperia, California, asserts that Quintero is not a prosecutor and asks for proof that Cheng was also an attorney for Hesperia and accuses Cheng of not properly filing court papers.
The fourth document is a single page letter in Chinese, presumably a translation of Tong’s letter to Quintero.
What to make of all this? I also did a cursory search online for any information regarding these three people. For all the venom Tong has in his writings, Quintero and Cheng seem to check out. Tong, however, seems a bit strange. I mentioned last time that Tong’s writing is not very good English. I am reluctant to make an issue out of this; not everyone can write well and immigrants simply have less practice with what to them is a foreign language. But Tong’s English is tortured at best and at worst is a grade-A example of “Engrish”. Adherence to proper grammar and syntax is absent. Modifiers (adverbs and adjectives) pop up unexpectedly. Verb-tense agreement is absent. Sentences fragment so much that it is difficult to know what is happening. This is not mere pedantics: I am genuinely struggling to understand what Tong is saying.
It gets worse.
A search for Tong’s name online yields a number of databases hosting court records. They reveal Tong’s history of filing pro se lawsuits (acting as one’s own lawyer). He has also appealed several matters to the Supreme Court of the United States, only to be denied each time. One case he filed with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revolved around an attempt to get out of a ticket for driving without a seatbelt, namely, by suing the court commissioner (the court ruled against him on the grounds that jurists cannot be sued just because you didn’t like their ruling). In the above mentioned letter to Quintero, Tong doesn’t seem to understand what a prosecutor or city attorney is, or that a man living in El Monte (or Arcadia) really can be City Attorney of Hesperia.
The Strange Campaign Mailer
March 21, 2010
I received a flyer in the mail yesterday. It denounced Paul Cheng in very strong language.
As a registered voter, I have become accustomed to getting electioneering stuff in the post. Most of the time it is the standard “Vote For Me” shtick. As the election draws near, I get attack ads too.
But this was something haven’t seen before. It lays into Candidate Cheng, accusing him of dishonesty, fraud, and lies, insisting that, “CHARACTER COUNTS which Cheng does not have.” The flyer continues on, expounding in poor English, that Cheng has falsely claimed to be a public prosecutor and has willfully misled Chinese immigrants in an effort to extort money from them. Accompanying this is a copy of Cheng’s Mandarin language business ad from the phone book and several accusations, both in English and Chinese.
I’ve seen plenty of attack ads in the past. But these typically revolve around impugning the character of the candidate by bringing out past statements and policies that are not in line with what voters want or expect. Never have I seen an attack on a candidate that openly accused them of such blatant violations of the law (fraud, extortion, perjury, etc.). But what is most interesting about this, is that it does not prominently bear the name of who published and distributed it. Only in the small return address does it say:
Paid for by S. TONG
2570 Chico Ave
South El Monte, CA 91733
Who is “S. Tong” and why are they mailing such flyers from an auto body repair shop in South El Monte?
More to follow in the next few days.
