Turkeys of our Time

It’s that time again; when we look back some of the federal, state and local leaders who make us glad 2010 is just a little more than a month away.

Although a few laudable things occurred in 2009 — the swearing-in of America’s first African-American president and the Pasadena Weekly celebrating 25 years in business, to name two — the greater part of  the past year is probably best left to history’s proverbial dustbin.

Then again, considering we end the year with fee hikes and reduced courses at state and local colleges, expanded war in Central Asia, record delinquent home payments and foreclosures and unrelenting unemployment — and on the smaller local stage, the downright childish behavior of the Altadena Town Council, an advisory board to Supervisor Mike Antonovich that’s been wasting our time and tax money trying to oust one of its recently elected members for starting a program honoring students and teachers, of all things — maybe conditions in general won’t improve all that much after New Year’s Day.

Founding Father Thomas Paine’s contention that “The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately” seems to be as true today as when Paine first wrote those words more than two centuries ago.

Maybe all anyone can really do is hope for the best and pray we learn something from the past — but don’t hold your breath while waiting for that.

Instead, join us in a look at some of the folks who made our lives just a little harder than they had to be over the past year.

President Barack Obama — We thought that the final word on the government’s efforts to spy on scientists and others working at Jet Propulsion Laboratory would have been uttered by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which ultimately tossed the case brought under provisions of the PATRIOT Act. But apparently not. Now the Obama administration is dusting off this relic of the Bush years and taking the case to the US Supreme Court. Apparently — not unlike his predecessor — President Obama also wants to know who our nation’s top scientists are boinking.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — What more can anyone say about a guy who has a firmer grip on the sword that he used as a prop to play a barbarian in the movies than the state business he’s supposed to be running? But that’s our Arnie, a movie hero and ostensible political reformer who is more pink than red in his Republican politics but still unable to work with our out-of-control Legislature.

US District Judge Jay Bybee — It seemed there was no place 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee could go without being confronted by his past as a US Justice Department attorney advocating torture in memos to President Bush. In July, Bybee was hearing a case at the federal courthouse in West Pasadena when from the audience stood a woman asking him to resign. Bybee kept mum as guards hustled the lady and others out of the building. But there was nowhere for Bybee to run, with demonstrators waiting outside the facility. “You can’t stay silent in the face of something like this,” said protester and actor David Clennon. “It should disgust all of us.”

The US Attorney’s Office — A jury was so convinced of his guilt that it found self-made millionaire and reputed gangster George Torres guilty on 55 counts that included charges of racketeering and soliciting murder. Torres faced a lifetime in prison; that is until US District Judge Stephen V. Wilson tore into the government’s two main witnesses against Torres, who were coached and bribed by an overzealous cop working on the case. In the end, Wilson tossed 50 of the most serious counts and set Torres’ bail at $1 million, which was promptly paid. Now free, Torres awaits a hearing on the five remaining lesser counts. “At some point, the prosecutors either knew information was being withheld or should have known that they were too trusting of this rogue cop, who was clearly shown breaking the rules,” said Pasadena City Councilman Steve Madison, who served as Torres’ attorney.

The Pasadena City Council — The City Council was busy this year — enacting generally toothless water-waster laws, cracking down on sidewalk signs in front of struggling restaurants and keeping us free of the menace of litter in the form of possibly political handbills. But perhaps the worst thing council members did as a group — with only former Councilman Sid Tyler dissenting — was cut down those beautiful ficus trees in the city’s Playhouse District, all in pursuit of a plan to replace those shady trees with spindly palms — and all in the dead of night, so the area’s many tree lovers wouldn’t know about it until it was too late. The latter part of the plan failed. By the time the chainsaws were revved up, everyone knew what was going on, but it was too late to stop the carnage.

Former PCC President Paulette Perfumo — Some people have all the luck. Case in point: former Pasadena City College President Paulette Perfumo. In 2006, the Solano Community College board voted 4-2 to boot Perfumo from the president’s office, but agreed to keep paying her $160,000 per year contract in monthly installments for up to 18 months. As soon as Perfumo abruptly resigned in August as Pasadena City College president, her bosses — the PCC Board of Trustees — swiftly shifted her into a just-invented, yet-to-be-defined fundraising and advocacy post, which she assumed at her current salary of more than $215,000 a year.

Episcopal Homes Communities — After purchasing the Scripps Retirement Home in Altadena, new owners Episcopal Homes Communities first shuttered and then demolished the building to make way for MonteCedro, a luxury $200 million assisted-living facility for seniors. Part of that deal was to temporarily relocate the people living at Scripps to an alternate home in Alhambra. But now the Alhambra site has its own infrastructure issues and could soon go on the market, which may leave the former Scripps residents without a place to stay. As for the former Scripps home on North El Molino Avenue, ground still hasn’t been broken on MonteCedro, and the ugly green tarp that surrounds the vacant lot is tagged with graffiti.

Reporter André Coleman and Deputy Editor Jake Armstrong contributed to this story.