April 2007 Archives

From my list of journalistic achievements, I can now check off making reference to "Blue Thunder," as accomplished in Tuesday's story about the po-po's plans for an expensive new toy on one of its helos. (Apologies to Lt. Bob Mulhall, flight operations chief, who discouraged me from referring to it as a "toy.")

Unfortunately there's more after the jump ...

Blog rule No. 1: No cat pictures. Not mine. Not yours.

Yet who can say no to the Internet-meme-du jour that is "kitty-plays-the-piano."

When I'm in Bangkok it takes some effort to find a legit-yet-affordable establishment -- outside of the four-star, Western hotels lining Sukhumvit Road -- where I'm guaranteed not to be offered "Happy Finish" or more.

As Foothill Cities picked up on, the council briefly addressed the issue of commercial prostitution in Pasadena.

I wanted to write about the matter, and Pasadena's moratorium-friendly council asking for a breather on issuing permits to new massage parlors. Recent council agendas showed a number of new parlors looking to open for business in the Crown City (of Roses.) Not that it's like the 1980s Pasadena of my youth, when sexual entrepreneurs operated visibly along the length of the boulevard.

But I knew they weren't going to get into a substantive debate on the matter and in hindsight, we made the right call to cover the Central District development issue. Look for something later this week.

Municipal politics can be tedious and messy, but that's the reality of part-time legislators expected to make expert decisions on complex matters on a weekday night.

During Monday's back and forth over shifting (trading? transferring? adjusting?) development rights in Pasadena's Central District, it was obvious the two outgoing council members were handling the looming end of their political lives differently.

Insiders have suggested Joyce Streator, who is stepping down from her long run representing the Northwest, has had it. That seemed clear during the sometimes-redundant and esoteric debate last night. At one point, Joyce turned to Victor Gordo with an exasperated look, sighed audibly and dropped her head down into her hands on the desk.

Councilman Paul Little however seemed more gregarious and upbeat than usual, even stepping down from the dais in the midst of deliberations to chat about Poopgate.

After the council hashed out a compromise measure to deal with the matter at hand, Paul offered his own "friendly amendment" to Councilman Chris Holden's motion:

"I was going to ask for a friendly amendment and ask the Sergeant at Arms to put us out of our misery right now."

Kryptonite, the BBC reports, has been discovered in Serbia.

Former mayoral candidate Aaron Proctor has been busy dishing out sauce over at proctorformayor.com.

And in case you visit his site and miss it (self-promotion not being one of Aaron's virtues), Aaron's appointment to the Human Relations Commission is up before the council at tonight's meeting. Who nominated Aaron? None other than his former opponent, Pasadena's once-and-future Mayor Bill Bogaard. Because that's the Bogaard Way.

If anything came from the experience, Mr. 11.2%'s exposure to the Pasadena political establishment gave him sufficient comedic material. The kind of stuff I expected to see during his campaign. Some links below, but visit the site for more. And a grievous quantity of his slideshows on the Tubes of You.

-- A tribute to "sexy, sexy" Pasadena Councilman Steve Haderlein. Notably, the companion video embeded above is now Google's fifth result for "Steve Haderlein."

As promised, here's what I scibbled down Tuesday morning as the likely outcome of the April 17 run off election:

City Council
District 1
51% Robinson
49% Salzer

District 2
57% McAustin
43% Lomako

PUSD

Seat 2
60% Renatta Cooper
40% Mark Mastromatteo

Seat 4
51% Bill Bibbiani
49% Bob Harrison

Not too bad. But given my apparent lack of precognitive abilities, I'll stick with interviewing and reporting.

Big change in the District 1 numbers between the time I left the Convention Center, where Robin Salzer was maintaining a big lead of Jacque Robinson.

Precinct voters -- that is people who actually show up and vote -- gave Jacque the bump she needed to finish about 100 votes ahead of Robin.

Margaret McAustin, as expected, easily won the District 2 race.

Renatta Cooper, who finished with a strong lead on March 6, did equally well to take PUSD Seat 2.

Seat 4 incumbent Bill Bibbiani, the sole sitting member of the unpopular school board to ask voters for another term, was edged out by restaurant owner Bob Harrison.

And a last-minute addition: Sierra Madre's Measure V squeeked through on a (what's more narrow than a razor?) margin that could only be measured by its atomic weight.

"Semi-final" results:

City Council
District 1
Jacque Robinson 1,009 53.0
Robin Salzer 894 46.9

District 2
Margaret McAustin 1,015 61.1
Jim Lomako 646 38.8

PUSD Board of Education

Seat 2
Mark Mastromatteo 4,642 36.4
Renatta Cooper 8,099 63.5

Seat 4
Bob Harrison 6,949 53.1
William A. Bibbiani 6,115 46.8

Apparently the early returns from absentee ballots will again be delayed past 8:30 p.m., much as they were on March 6 ...

Ready your F5 (that's the refresh key) finger and keep checking here.

BUT WAIT: They just went live. Nothing at ci.pasadena.whatever so go to cityofpasadena.net:

In short:

City Council
District 1: Robin Salzer has a sizeable lead on Jacque Robinson among absentee voters.
District 2: Margaret McAustin trouncing Jim Lomako 2-to-1.

PUSD
Seat 2: Renatta Cooper is way ahead of Mark Mastromatteo
Seat 4: Bill Bibbiani is a slivery 99 votes ahead of Bob Harrison.

District 1
Jacque Robinson 356 42.3
Robin Salzer 485 57.6

District 2
Margaret McAustin 466 62.2
Jim Lomako 283 37.7

PUSD Board of Education
Mark Mastromatteo 2,643 38.9
Renatta Cooper 4,134 61.0

Bob Harrison 3,409 49.2
William A. Bibbiani 3,508 50.7

I'm surprised the national media didn't harp on the Virginia Tech massacre occurring four days before the eighth anniversary of Columbine, but there are still several days to milk the story.

Today's headlines emphasized the killer's "twisted" and "disturbing" writing.

I hope they were referring to more than these two pieces:

Mr. Brownstone and Richard McBeef

They're angsty and bad, but deeply disturbing?

Hopefully no one at First Avenue Junior High or Arcadia High saved my "creative writing."

Seven months of campaigning will end in a few hours with the winners and losers on the Pasadena City Council and PUSD school board decided.

Any guesses how the votes will come down?

I've committed my predictions to hard copy, I'll own up to how far off I was after final results are in.

Just under four hours remain to vote.

I took this picture this morning outside a Sierra Madre polling location.

We've got:

Bob v. Bib fighting for the character of the PUSD school board, during which time both (Bob) Harrison and (Bill) Bibbiani have jockeyed to be perceived the bigger "outsider" to the often-unpopular elected body.

Unequivocally outside, and if you listen to the whisper campaigns, "angry" Jim Lomako is up against establishment-oriented Margaret McAustin to represent central Pasadena's District 2.

In Sierra Madre, where residents are on the brink of reverting to pre-Social Contract barbarism, there's a ballot measure that would strip City Hall of its authority to make some development decisions and put them into the hands of residents.

But the race everyone is watching: Robin v. Robinson, the contest to represent Northwest Pasadena on the City Council.

I used to blame my parents and their generation for not taking care of that whole "race thing" when they had it in their sights. Reach some bone-deep level of understanding, move on to new challenges and never broach the subject again.

But it doesn't work that way. It's a question without answer for every generation to puzzle over and struggle with anew. Unfortunately the collective consciousness seems to have filed it away as yesterday's dilemma and race, by and large, doesn't get talked about it. Except when someone crosses the fuzzy - but certainly not warm - threshold of outrage. But at least Don Imus hasn't gone into "rehab."

I'm back. On the table. And operating.

In a recent profile of Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard, I think the Times too easily swallowed his assertion of being "boring."

In one word: prestidigitation.

Yes, on the surface, characterizing Bill might seem only a feat worthy of pre-medical-malpracticed Dana Carvey of Saturday Night Live.

Maybe it takes a jaundiced journalist's view of how contemporary considerations get in the way of straight discourse, but one doesn't have to read too far between Bill's lines to pick up on how immediately provocative and funny he can be.

One blog reader, who asked to go unidentifed, agrees. She urged me to review the March 19 council meeting (I was at Arcadia's Planning Commission that night) to capture some Bill-unplugged.

There was hardly a dull moment at Tuesday night's Arcadia City Council meeting.

With 15 minutes to type Wednesday's story, here's a few details worth mentioning that didn't make it:

1. Before opening the public hearing on whether to approve Westfield's second phase expansion known as "The Promenade," the City Council voted 4 to 1 to make new rules for that hearing and next week's hearing when it will decide the fate of Caruso Affiliated's The Shops at Santa Anita.

Speaker cards will be collected up until the start of the hearing, at which point the City Clerk will do a Las Vegas-style shuffling to randomize the order they are called. This is in response to voluminous complaints received after the previous week's Planning Commission meeting where proponents and opponents turned in thick stacks of cards -- and according to the city -- the proponents happened to come first.

"It didn't look right," said Councilman Peter Amundson on Tuesday, although he agreed it was an unintended oversight. Amundson added that the city would have to "go overboard" to appear "above the board."

Councilman John Wuo voted against it and questioned why the city should deviate from its traditional process of allowing proponents to be followed by opponents.

The motive cited was that with upward of 100 people wanting to speak, opponents would be required to wait late into the night to speak. Then there's the reporters, who eager to gauge the audience's opinion have to bug out at 9:30 p.m. to write their stories.