The way it really was

While there was far too much tragedy and plenty of reasons for deep concern — a sputtering economy, rampant unemployment and expansion of the War on Terror, to name a few — 2009 was actually a bellwether year, not only for the nation, but for everyone associated with the Pasadena Weekly, which provided one of the year’s few positive stories on the local media scene by celebrating 25 years in business.

No question, last January contained some of an anxiety-ridden America’s most important and inspiring historical moments, not the least of them the inauguration of Barack Obama, the country’s first black president. However, the unparalleled sense of hope that Obama inspired faded quickly enough when people started waking up to just what a challenge the new president faced in renewing faith in the system, turning around the fractured economy, improving health care, forestalling foreclosures, reining in greedy bankers, restoring international relations, ending the quagmire in Iraq and dealing with the equally vexing conflict in Afghanistan.

Here at home, partisan wrangling at the state and federal legislative levels translated into more slashed budgets for the Pasadena  Board of Education, now including newly elected members Elizabeth Pomeroy and Ramon Miramontes, and the City Council, which added a new member
in Terry Tornek, replacing veteran Councilman Sid Tyler.

Januaury

January had its lighter political moments, with All Saints Episcopal Church’s Rev. Ed Bacon appearing on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and telling O’s TV audience that “being gay is a gift from God,” and the 32nd Occasional Doo Dah Parade — which used to be in November — featuring the diminutive but determined Ann Lau, president of the Visual Arts Guild and one of the more visible sign-carrying protesters against allowing a float celebrating the Beijing Olympics into the previous year’s Rose Parade, as Doo Dah’s curmudgeony Thorny Rose. Soon, though, prospects for a prosperous New Year dimmed considerably when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for raising taxes and cutting school spending — again. In the world of art, Mayor Bill Bogaard formally urged locals to help support The Orchestras of Pasadena, a consolidation of the Pasadena Symphony, the Pasadena POPS and the Pasadena Youth Symphony aimed at saving money and preserving all three musical groups.

February

By the start of February, questionable placement of cell phone towers had some Glendale residents up in arms, the editor’s son and onetime PW illustrator, Ted Uhrich, was marrying his sweetheart, Dorene Scanlon, both from Glendale, on a beach in Carlsbad, Caltrans was making the second of three attempts to evict longtime renter and agency critic Don Jones from one of the hundreds of homes that Caltrans owns in the co-called 710 Corridor, and John Laurence Whitaker, who once posed as a school volunteer under a different name and was later accused of two murders, was calling from jail just to tell City Hall Reporter André Coleman that “I did not kill anybody.” Also that month, the Pasadena City Council was voting to save much of Annandale Canyon from development, but refusing to save trees, allowing — over wide public outcry — eradication of shady ficus trees along Colorado Boulevard, as advocated by the Pasadena Playhouse District board. The month ends with cancer-survivor and cycling champion Lance Armstrong riding through town as part of Amgen’s Breakaway from Cancer Initiative and local police wondering how seven of
11 shots fired into Pasadena resident and paroled felon Leroy Barnes after a traffic stop could end up in Barnes’ back. Speaking of police, aspiring writer and local Officer Victor Cass was publishing yet another novel, this one
called “Telenovela.”

March

In March, local leaders were still expressing support for Obama’s stimulus plans, school officials were finding ways to plug what they called the school-to-prison pipeline for troubled kids and actress Shannen Doherty was briefly acting as editor of Pasadena Magazine. Also in March, city officials were taking steps to enact a new anti-flier/handbill law. Few officials seemed to recall the council had tried a similar thing 10 years prior, only to have a federal judge toss the city’s proposal out of court.

April

By April, PW’s sister paper, LA CityBeat, was closing and Glendale was hosting elections for the City Council, a contest in which incumbents Ara Najarian and Frank Quintero were re-elected and Laura Friedman beat out former Pasadena police Chief Bruce Philpott for a third seat on the council. Marijuana dispensaries in LA and US Attorney Gen. Eric Holder’s refusal to enforce anti-pot laws were dominating headlines throughout the spring, while PW columnist and former owner Jim Laris was saying farewell to his beloved canine friend, Hadley.

May

In May, someone in Washington must have been reading PW, because two Republican congressmen from two major committees looking into cap-and-trade, Reps. Joe Barton (R., Texas) and Greg Walden (R., Ore.), the ranking members respectively of the Energy Committee and the Oversight Subcommittee, wanted to see the stories written by Investigative Reporter Chip Jacobs about Anne Masters Sholtz, the former pollution-credit broker who was convicted of defrauding customers of millions of dollars. Another alleged serial killer, John Thomas Jr., was popping up on the public radar screen, this time in Glendale, poet Maya Angelou was reading from her latest work, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” and Pasadena activist Roberta Martinez was presenting her first book, “Latinos in Pasadena.”

June

June saw gang busts causing a major drop in local crime. On the international front, Iranians were taking to the streets of Tehran with deadly consequences to protest against fixed elections there, President Clinton was making deals with North Korea to free jailed journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling, and Maxine Russell of Calabasas was telling PW Reporter Carl Kozlowski about her private war against the American and Chinese governments for the truth about the murder of her son in China.

July

A little closer to home, July had PW photographer Catherine Bauknight winning an award at the Maui Film Festival for her documentary, “Hawai’i: A Voice for Sovereignty,” former state Attorney General John Van de Kamp calling for an end to capital punishment and US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee finding that he could run but not hide from people questioning his role in writing memos condoning torture as a Bush administration Justice Department lawyer. By the end of the month, PW was celebrating its 25th year with a gala, put together by PW and Arroyo Publisher Jon Guynn, on the steps of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, attracting nearly 1,500 people. But our joy over putting on the biggest event of the city’s social calendar was tempered by the news that 17-year-old Lily Burk, daughter of fellow journalist Greg Burk and Deborah Drooz, was murdered, allegedly by paroled felon Charles Samuel.

Augest

In August, Deputy Editor Joe Piasecki was starting his studies as an Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism Fellow at USC, and prodigal son Jake Armstrong was returning to the fold as Joe’s replacement. Around this time, PW started receiving mysterious press releases and news tips from long-silent PW editor emeritus and public relations specialist Jerry Cornelius, sent via email, Twitter and FaceBook from atop Cornelius’ Ivory Tower office. At City Hall, officials and preservationists were taking another look at the long-empty YWCA building near City Hall, a structure built by famed architect Julia Morgan. Author Ivor Davis was revising and re-releasing his tome on the murders committed by Charles Manson and his “family” 40 years ago that month (a case famously prosecuted by Pasadena resident Vincent Bugliosi), PW columnist Ellen Snortland was calling for mandatory self-defense training for young girls and local leaders were expressing shock over what NAACP Pasadena Branch President Joe Brown called “pandemic” dropout rates at area schools. Also that month, former Pasadena City College President Paulette Perfumo was taking an abrupt and unexplained leave of absence, after which she resigned, and Stephen Eich was pumping new life into the aging Pasadena Playhouse as its new executive director.

September
September began with fire on the mountain — a raging inferno that stretched along the foothills from Azusa to Sylmar in what came to be called the Station Fire, killing two firefighters, causing more than $1 billion in damage and creating a rainy-season mudslide hazard on now-denuded hillsides. At home, officials were considering changing the name of Robinson Park to Jackie Robinson Park, an idea which, if approved, would have been widely viewed as a sign of disrespect to other members of the family, especially Jackie’s Olympian older brother, Mack. In the end, the name remains simply Robinson Park. At the end of the month, Tournament of Roses President Gary DiSanto was losing his battle with cancer at the age of 62 and moon-walking astronaut and former Tournament of Roses Grand Marshal Buzz Aldrin was calling on NASA to focus its resources on a mission to Mars. 

October

By October, Police Chief Bernard Melekian was deciding to go to work for the US Justice Department after nearly 14 years at the helm in Pasadena. Filmmaker Michael Moore was explaining to Kozlowski how greed ruined America’s financial system, Bill Clinton was challenging Americans to be better citizens and legendary blind Pasadena boxing coach Canto “TNT” Robledo was being commemorated at the Villa Parke Community Center. PW Art Director Joel Vendette and Production Manager Yvonne Guerrero were producing arguably the paper’s best-ever Best of Pasadena edition, Monty Python’s John Cleese was paying a visit to Glendale’s Alex Theatre, U2 and the Black Eyed Peas were packing the Rose Bowl and “This Is It,” the documentary about the last days of Michael Jackson, was debuting to rave reviews.

November

November saw Pasadena Police Chief Melekian saying so long and the search for his replacement beginning in earnest. Activist Ralph McKnight and Councilman Chris Holden were trying to find new ways of connecting the community on the Web, council members were putting off tougher restrictions on housing paroled sex offenders out of fear of making an already terrible problem even worse, and a committee of the Altadena Town Council was calling for the ouster of one of its own, Herbert Simmons, for allegedly promoting an educational promotion program as one endorsed by the ATC, which it wasn’t.

December

Although things seemed to be turning around on the economic front in December with the opening of luxurious Gold Class Cinema at One Colorado, cash-strapped school officials were desperately looking for ways to close a $20 million budget deficit. At City Hall, City Manager Michael Beck was vowing to close an $11 million deficit “one way or another” and Councilman Steve Madison warmed to ways of snuffing out smoking once and for all, now even in apartments and condos. In Altadena, Simmons was quitting before the full council could expel him, maintaining that he did nothing wrong. Meanwhile, over at Fuller Theological Seminary, ex-Marine-turned-theology student Jake Diliberto was telling Larry King that the occupation of Afghanistan must end, which was much what Northwest Pasadena’s Ricardo Costa was saying about his neighborhood, an urban war zone patrolled by noisy police helicopters that fly over that crime-plagued area much more than others.

Yes, many things happened in 2009, some sad, some happy, all memorable. But much remains unknown.
Will Van de Kamp get his wish to abolish the death penalty?
Will the Playhouse survive the recession?
Will the PUSD lay off dozens of teachers and cut key classes to save money? Or will officials ask (and convince?) voters to approve a parcel tax to keep schools open?
What programs will the city ax to solve its budget problems?
What’s going to happen with the old Julia Morgan YWCA building?
Will the city really try to stop people from smoking in their homes?
And who’s going to take over for Melekian as chief? For that matter, will the cops reduce their noisy helicopter surveillance patrols of Northwest?
Pick up Pasadena Weekly next year to find out the answer to these and lots of other important questions.
In the meantime, Happy New Year!