The Adventures of Aaron Proctor

Some new faces of 2007 (From left to right): District 1 Councilwoman Jacque Robinson, District 2 Councilwoman Margaret McAustin, and “Planny” - the Planning Commission dalmatian.

By the power vested in me by hyperlinking and blog archiving, here’s a shout out to the year 2007 - one of the most memorable years of not only my life but Pasadena’s as well.
2007 was definitely a year that saw both challenges for me in my personal life and for the City of Pasadena. While my life saw me unjustly fired from two jobs in the same year and subsequently being exiled to St. Louis, Pasadena saw gang violence, strip club buy outs, Rose Bowl float drama, door hanger drama, developer drama, high school football game drama, a police chief doubling as a City Manager, long-time PUSD board members upset from their seats, and lots, lots more.

Kimberley Brown ran against Steve Madison in the District 6 Council election. I’d like to have her in my polling place, if you catch my drift.

The year started out with some exciting Council and PUSD board races - all culminating with the March Primary election and the April runoff election (well, the latter if you didn’t get trounced by Mayor Bogaard).

Danny Bakewell made hell for Council to quell.

This very blog blossomed and came into its own a few weeks after the dust cleared from the election. As you’ll see, this site started out as my own personal campaign site. After the election, it became a place where I continually posted my attempts at comedic musings, controversial rants, controversial musings, and comedic rants (Ha!).
Ever since late March or early April, this site has become a favorite of elected officials, political candidates, anonymous pundits, newspaper reporters, crazy liberal bitches, bitches with smokin’ bodies, family members, erstwhile school board members, losers on professional wrestling message boards, Nigerian porno spammers, and Average Joes.

Local bloggers Centinel (left) and Dormitas (right).

And it’s not just this blog either. The entire blogsophere - moreso Blogadena - has grown to be quite the influential source from everything like straight information to complete ridicule of/on our leaders. More people pay attention to what goes on at historic City Hall than ever before. Let’s band together and make 2008 even more memorable!

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. So why not sit a spell and do just that - choose your own Proctor-guided adventure in the archives of 2007.

• January
• February
• March
• April
• May
• June
• July
• August
• September
• October
• November
• December
• Febtabuary

Breakdown: 2007 In Numbers

• 195,000: The number of total hits for the year 2007 this site will reach sometime just before the end of the year.
• 8: The number of people on City Council (including the Mayor) who read this blog.
• Approximately 2300: The number of times the word ‘fuck’ is used on this site.
• 47: The number of times I’ve pissed people off.
• 86 minutes: The amount of time it takes Mayor Bogaard to finish a sentence.
• 48: Updated - number of times I’ve pissed people off.
• 3,000,000: The number of people I pissed off in the St. Louis area.
• $5,000,000: The amount the City spent to rid it of a strip club (the amount invested in to gang violence was far less).
• 40: Ounces of King Cobra goodness.
• $10 million: The amount Victor Gordo claimed we need in order to pay our police officers and fire fighters, in support of 2008’s worst decision, Measure D.
• $25 million: The amount in surplus the City actually will have. So why do we need Measure D again?
• 65,000 or so: The number of registered voters in Pasadena
• 5: The number of registered voters in Pasadena who vote
• 4: The number of registered voters in Pasadena who can name the Mayor or any member of City Council
• 73: The number of times Joe Hopkins attributed gang violence to a late 80’s or early 90’s hip hop group
• 8,294: The number of hours for entire City Council meetings this year
• 277: The number of times Jim Lomako used the phrase “granny flats” during the District 2 election
• 3,156: The amount of people who think things located just above Washington & Allen are part of incorporated Pasadena and not unincorporated Pasadena or Altadena.
• 1472: The number of geniuses in Pasadena.

Some Things I Learned In 2007

• John Shaft is a complicated man and no one understands him but his woman.
• Sid Tyler doesn’t use e-mail, he uses fe-male.
• The Midwest isn’t good for anything except cheap alcohol and cheap cigarettes.
• No MTA or ARTS bus in Pasadena is ever on time.
• Martin Truitt is 7 feet tall, weighs 650 pounds, and lives in a cave under the Allen Gold Line station.
• Running for office doesn’t get you a burger named after you. Calling the owner of a restaurant a ‘dick’ in the Pasadena Weekly does.
• Ace Star-News reporter Todd Ruiz and I have both seperately had sexual relations with this one chick back in our younger days. She had good taste.  UPDATE (Dec 27, 2007):  Chick pulls a Steve Madison and cries to me about this.  I took her picture down…here’s the e-mail I sent back:

  Because I'm a nice guy, a paragon of virtue, an icon, a superstar, role
  model, genius, et al....and since it's Kwanzaa, I'll take down your
  picture from that entry.
  
  It's a shame you don't have a sense of humor.  Then again, that's why
  you're a 30 year old Goth chick.
  
  - AP
  www.proctorformayor.com

• This chick on Law & Order: SVU reminds me of Jane Rodriguez.
• The Philadelphia Eagles and the Philadelphia Phillies are responsible for breaking my heart twice.
• Giving up the eyeliner and the eyeshadow and the weird clothes has been one of the better decisions I’ve made in life.
• Pasadena needs a Wendy’s and an Arby’s.
• City Council public comment cards make decent paper airplanes.
• Steve Haderlein is a sexy mofo.
• The hairstyle that Emo kids have is called a “Cry shield”. The kind of kids who listen to Emo are called “eleven-teens”.
• Jill organizes fun picnics.
• Former District 2 City Councilman Paul Little used steroids between his 2001 and 2003 terms.
• That guy on Orange Grove isn’t going to use the 50 cents you gave him to buy food.

I guess that all sums up 2007.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

- AP

One of my legions of fans sent this into me.  As a request, the writer shall remain anonymous.

Pasadena Unified School District:  Spending Money We Don’t Have

The real estate boom over the past few years (which is now being likened to the dot com crash of the 90’s) has prompted many of the lower income Pasadenans to sell out and move to greener pastures while more affluent folks – who either have no kids or send theirs to private school – have moved in.   It was this lack of butts in seats, as it were, which caused the much publicized closing of the four local public schools.  Less students attending our public schools means less state funding which means less money for Pasadena public school students … or so they say.

To be honest, I’ve seen first-hand a severe lack of funding in the Pasadena School District for many years, stretching back to the days when you could still find a decent house in Altadena for under $200,000., long before the big yuppie invasion of the past few years.   Why, just in 2001 I witnessed teachers at Altadena Elementary scrambling to be the first one to the supply room on delivery day and resorting to hoarding just to maintain the bare minimum of those necessary tools a teacher needs to teach a class.

It is now 2007 and our school district seems to have come no farther.  Don Benito Elementary was forced to fire their librarian just last year for lack of funds.  The school’s parents got together and set up their own library on the campus with mostly donated books but it remained closed as they were still unable to raise the $20,000. salary necessary to hire a librarian.   The highest ranking elementary school in the city didn’t even have a librarian… Hell, they didn’t even have a P.E. teacher.  Each home room instructor was in charge of the physical education for their respective class.  People who had no physical education themselves, no training, who most likely weren’t even involved in sports or any sort of athletics themselves, and possibly never were, were teaching P.E. to our students.   That’s the equivalent of an English teacher teaching Mathematics or a Science teacher teaching Music.

Funding this year has allowed Don Benito to hire the much needed P.E. teacher.  But the situation would cause one to ask:  for a city as rich as Pasadena is, why is our school district considered in worse shape than those belonging to some of the most socially repressed, crime-ridden, financially undernourished cities in the entire state?

Maybe it’s because the powers that be decided it was more feasible to hire a superintendent at the rate of $360,000. per year than to hire a librarian at $20,000.  And just five or six months later, they have now put out, as the Star-News called it, “a help wanted sign” for an Assistant Superintendent at the rate of $200,000. per year.   Tell me they had no one in mind for the job when they cooked up this travesty.  Tell me they didn’t take down that sign as soon as they put it up.

More bureaucracy isn’t going to clean up our school district.  Dumping close to $600,000. into two salaries isn’t going to fix the dilapidated school buildings or hire the teachers needed to keep our city’s children from slipping through the cracks.   The people who send their children to public school are just as important as the people who don’t.  We pay our property taxes just like the next guy.  We patronize local businesses and vote in elections along with everyone else.

The Pasadena Mayoral seat was on rotation back in the day between members of the city council.  That was a great system!  It kept the good ole boy club out of Pasadena politics… for the most part.   I propose Pasadena Unified adopt that same system.  Let the Principals of all the Pasadena Public Schools rotate in and out of the Superintendent position… and the Assistant to Superintendent, if that position is so necessary.  At least that way we could be sure that the person in control is there for the kids and not just some puppet for the government.   Then we could put our money back into the children where it belongs instead of into the pockets of bureaucrats.   
- AP