June 2007 Archives

City slips $4.7 million tip into Peppermint Gardens' G-string to quit town.

Personn's Nursery wolf cries are answered with long-term lease agreement.

Does anyone else remember the Pasadena that was home to the Pussycat Theater? That strip club up on North Lake Avenue? That adult arcade in the basement of what is now, I believe, The Pottery Barn in Old Pas?

I was at a young and impressionable, but for some reason seeing those places and knowing they existed didn't ruin my childhood or set me on the road to perversion. That would come later.

So $5 million to placate prudishness? Oh wait, it was about "negative secondary effects." Unfortunately, our own police department said East Pasadena's other strip club didn't really pose a nuisance.

In Pasadena, when you have a problem, you cut a check.

The moratorium/code revision process was flawed, but what other political solution existed? Acknowledge that property owners may have the right to do something that might annoy most of us?

But that's what that whole other, third branch of government is for.

Council members squirmed Monday night when several Chinese women and Falun Gong-ers brought their stories of torture, abducted family members and organ harvesting by the Chinese Government to council chambers.

What a bunch of kill-joys.

With a stack of cards for more speakers in his hands, Mayor Bill Bogaard held over further public comments until the end of business after 10 p.m., but that didn't make the women go away.

Three or four more speakers were followed up by this woman one council member, on double-super-NORLY-secret background described as "pretty hot."

Sitting in the back, the Falun Gongers watched the council fall over itself to understand her poorly articulated description of why she lacked "enjoyment" of her Prado condo because a door made too much noise.

MISSING from the lineup was Mr. "Too provactive? Too subtle?" Faulkner," known for his Dada-esque "light ups" on the Youtubes about the Pasadena Humane Society and "spineless twits" on the council.

Feeling touched by greatness at the previous council meeting, I stepped outside to ask about the "false and misleading reports" and figure out what he was so pissed off about.

Apparently a review done seven years ago could not confirm the Humane Society was conducting patrols it said it was, he explained.

Apparently he blames the society for all unleashed dogs, and much of his anger stems from an incident some years back where he was attacked by another person after having to physically intervene to prevent an unleashed dog from attacking his in a city park.

Dogs are a big part of Faulkner's life -- he trains them. If his story is accurate, it's imaginable he'd have some traumatic response to being forced to harm another animal and be perceived as abusive.

When we're hurt, we want retribution, and Faulkner's blame of the Humane Society hasn't lost its edge over the years.

Absent from

This month is his 20th year at the Star-News, and now editor Larry Wilson will now be taking on the entire valley from his office at 911 Colorado.

Whittier's Hector Gonzalez joins us to insure we make reasonably well with the syntaxes and the grammars.

I first met Maurice Booker just before Christmas last year. He walked into the newsroom with a story of injustice to share, as so many people do.

So many times, however, we have to explain to people being unfair or rude is not a crime -- or news. Maurice's story regarded his bad blood with a member of Union Station's security staff, and how he felt unfairly cut off from services due to a personality conflict.

Maurice posseses a daunting intelligence and is the only person in Pasadena that I can have informed discussions about Shamil Basayev's role in post-Soviet Chechnya or the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

Just like Michelle Obama stole some of the spotlight when the couple visited Pasadena recently, one blog reader has suggested Team Kucinich might be better served to feature Dennis' "secret weapon," Elizabeth Kucinich.

Were Dennis truly a menace to the power elite of the Democratic Party instead of a fringey, conscience candidate ... his appearance Sunday in Altadena probably would be neither free nor open to the public.

Bogaard. Gordon. Ruiz. New edition of City Beat taped Friday for KPAS, one half of the city's public-access juggernaut.

We mostly talked about violence and budget-making.

Which prompted a question -- in one of those uncomfortable moments of quasi-punditry -- about the city's priorities as evinced by how it cuts checks.

About $113,000 to address youth violence through a summer jobs program and summer camp versus $2.5 million to make parking more convenient for shoppers in Old Pasadena.

Who knew The Noticeable One aka The Highway Dandyman aka Mayoral Candidate Aaron Proctor was replete with a Dark Past!?

Given the Sept. 14, 2001 date of this article, one could imagine it was an ill-conceived comment made on the Internet that prompted an over-reactive arrest of our erstwhile resident, candidate and commentator for making terrorist threats:

Growing D.A. unit puts cybercriminals in its sights

Philadelphia Business Journal - September 14, 2001
by Jeremy Feiler

Self-described Goth rock star Aaron Proctor in July threatened to blow up the popular downtown Club Shampoo.

A few months earlier, 15-year-old "P.M." allegedly used the alias of Shaykh Yaseem Bilal Abdur-Razzaq, a supposed lieutenant in the international terrorist network of Osama bin Laden, to threaten a federal judge, Philadelphia's NBC-10 and the editors of the New York Law Journal.

Problem was, both Proctor and P.M. left electronic fingerprints, in the form of Internet Protocol addresses, all over their alleged crime scenes.

Proctor, a 19-year-old Marcus Hook, Pa., resident, now is in jail, nabbed by the cybercrime unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office for making the threats through his Web site the day before he said he would bomb the club. P.M.'s case is being tried before the Philadelphia Family Court for the alleged terrorist threats he made through e-mail. He, too, was caught by the cybercrime team investigators.

"Most of our cases really aren't sexy in this way," said Leonard Deutchman, chief of the economic crimes unit of the D.A.'s Office. "Most of the crimes consist of identity theft, forgery and Ebay fraud, which are incredibly hard and time-consuming to track down."

On the upside, Aaron wouldn't have objected to being described as "sexy."

So the news has gotten out that the Pasadena Sympony and Pasadena POPS are going to merge.

But the purpose of this update is to post a keyboard/drums demo of Richie Ramone's West Side Story treatment sent by e-mail the other day from his manager.

Here's the MP3.

The Pasadena political scene will be a little duller without former mayoral candidate Aaron Proctor.

Instead of releasing a statement citing 'personal hardship,' Aaron's was consistently candid in an e-mail sent to friends and/or the media:

As some of you receiving this e-mail know (and as some of you may not), I lost my job back in May and was having a hard time finding a new job as well. As time went by, I actively looked for work - even at places like Von's and Starbucks and such. I couldn't find anything and before you know it, rent was due this month.

I've lost my apartment (yes, I was kicked out) and exercised most of my resources in trying to find a place to stay without having any money. Understandably, most others are also going through money issues or just don't have the space to have me sleep on their couch while looking for work. With that said, tomorrow morning at 11:45 I'll be leaving for St. Louis, Missouri to move in with my mother and father.

Hey all -

As some of you receiving this e-mail know (and as some of you may not), I lost my job back in May and was having a hard time finding a new job as well. As time went by, I actively looked for work - even at places like Von's and Starbucks and such. I couldn't find anything and before you know it, rent was due this month.

I've lost my apartment (yes, I was kicked out) and exercised most of my resources in trying to find a place to stay without having any money. Understandably, most others are also going through money issues or just don't have the space to have me sleep on their couch while looking for work. With that said, tomorrow morning at 11:45 I'll be leaving for St. Louis, Missouri to move in with my mother and father.

Aaron Proctors don't grow on trees, he'll be missed!

UPDATE: Apparently Aaron realized he would need to resign from the Human Relations Commission. The agenda packet for Monday's council meeting includes an e-mail from Aaron sent Thursday to Mayor Bill Bogaard thanking him for the opportunity and apologizing if there was anyone he'd "let down."

UPDATE 2: The story ran in Friday's paper.

Maybe it was a mistake to end the fiscal year in June. Who wants to work on a budget with summer starting?

On a tangentially related note -- his absence from the Finance Committee meeting on Monday isn't why the budget process is runnig behind -- Councilman Victor Gordo won big points this week by returning two different calls on his cell from myself and reporter Janette Williams ... from Hawaii.

Ms. Gordo should have never let him pack that thing.

Drama-free agenda + Obamania = hour-long council meeting.

Apart from a scintillating discussion of solid-waste franchising (apparently 40+ outfits hauling trash means a lot of big, polluting trucks) the council hardly met Monday.

At least three members beat a hasty exit to share a moment with presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama.

Councilmen Chris Holden, Steve Madison and Mayor Bill Bogaard were at the fund raiser where Barack reportedly introduced Bill with an enthusiastic "Give it up for Bill Bogaard!"

Technorati Profile

Speaking of Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger, also the chairman of Pasadena-based Wesco Financial Corp. and the man behind those multi-million-dollar condos going up near the Paseo, the Fair Political Practices Commission fined him $1,500 in April for "failing to timely disclose a late contribution totaling $10,000."

Returning from a week's absence, I had a message (not a massage) from the Pasadena City Attorney's office explaining new records were available per a request I'd made.

Weighing in at $35 in copying charges, the documents couldn't be the list of city-owned cell phones I'd requested -- and am still waiting on.

Turns out they're the same documents -- now in unredacted format -- that I wrote about on May 27. (Story posted after the jump as it's fallen, unlinkable, into the newspaper's pay-to-play archive. AKA "The Abyss.")

Have members of Pasadena's City Council -- who often strain to accommodate their most vocal citizens -- applied a double standard to the Northwest? Has developer Danny Bakewell fomented racial discord -- as he has been famously accused of in the past -- to game the system?

Although the stakeholders involved may largely fall down racial lines, reality is usually more complex than, well, black and white.

Despite reams of policy and plans general, development drives politics. Pick up any newspaper and read stories about buildings. Buildings and corruption.

Healthy, journalistic skepticism has no better application than where those two tangle: politicians and developers. Their symbiotic relationships come into conflict with an open, accountable and minimally corrupt Democracy.

So, apparently, the City Attorney's office reconsidered its position that it was not in the public interest to release the super-secret evaluation forms -- without names redacted -- of the special commission that reviewed four proposals for Heritage Square project.

Heritage Square is currently a square block o' blight at Fair Oaks and Orange Grove, technically owned by said public and worth $13.4 million.

Those evaluation forms served as the commission's vote, which has served as the basis for why the council should rubber stamp its recommendation to move forward with the Bakewell Company.

Which could very well be best-suited for the job.

But government isn't supposed to happen in secret. Does public scrutiny slow things down? Make government less "efficient?" More susceptible to lobbyists? Absolutely. But also slightly less susceptible to greed, mendacity and corruption? That's the idea.

Now if only Charlie Munger would buy the Star-News and hire 20 more reporters.

UPDATED: I received a June 4 letter with the phone list.