12.27.18

• NEWS •
PASADENA | ALHAMBRA | ALTADENA | ARCADIA | EAGLE ROCK | GLENDALE | LA CAÑADA | MONTROSE | SAN MARINO | SIERRA MADRE | SOUTH PASADENA
‘FIRING ON ALL
CYLINDERS’
TRUSTEES PICK ENDRIJONAS FOR PCC
PRESIDENT/SUPERINTENDENT POST
A NEW PHASE
MERMELL NAMES NEW DIRECTOR
OF HUMAN SERVICES AND
RECREATION
P. 8
P. 8
WEB EXCLUSIVE
THE CYCLE OF LIFE
THE ROLE OF JOURNALISM IN A WEEK-BY-WEEK ACCOUNTING OF THE EVENTS THAT SHAPED OUR LIVES
BY KEVIN UHRICH
At around this time last year, journalists at the
Los Angeles Times, under new ownership,
were voting on whether to have a union represent
them. “Once a bastion of anti-union thinking,
the newsroom’s proliferation of ‘I Support the
LA Times Guild’ signs represents a monumental
shift,” writes former PW Deputy Editor Joe Piasecki,
who’s now managing editor of our sister (or
brother) paper The Argonaut, covering West LA.
While that was happening, in the world of socalled
alternative journalism, at the LA Weekly,
itself once a bastion of liberal political thought
and pro-union sentiment, managers were also
acting out of type — decimating their own shop
in order to rid the paper of its union. Nine of 13
staffers were fired in a major shakeup, described
as a “Game of Thrones” move from which the paper apparently
still has not recovered. Purchased by a group of marijuana
entrepreneurs from Orange County, the once venerable
publication has become less than a shadow of its former
self, featuring little more than entertainment briefs in thinly
disguised efforts to promote pot use in those and other stories,
including dining reviews.
More importantly, however, for reporters, columnists,
photographers and editors around the world 2018 was a very
dangerous year. Five staffers with the Capital Gazette of
Annapolis, Maryland were gunned down in their office last
June by a crazed lone gunman. A few months later, another
loon, supposedly also acting alone, allegedly sent pipe bombs
through the mail to prominent Democratic leaders, including
former President Barack Obama, and CNN. None of these
devices detonated, thank God. But in October Washington Post
columnist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered, allegedly by
Saudi Arabian agents over Khashoggi’s criticisms of the royal
regime. Before and after all these events occurred, President
Trump continued to publicly call products of the mainstream
press “fake news” and routinely excoriated the media in general
and CNN specifically as “enemies of the people.”
Including the Gazette staff and Khashoggi, at least 53
journalists were killed worldwide in 2018, of which at least 34
were singled out for murder in reprisal for their reporting —
nearly double the number from 2017, according
to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The past year proved to be even more
unsettling and mournful for friends of local
journalism, with the untimely deaths of four
top writers — PW founding member and
best-selling author Greg Critser in January,
Pulitzer Prize-winning LA Times food critic
and Pasadena resident Jonathan Gold in July,
author and former LA Weekly News Editor
Charles Rappleye in September, and veteran LA
newsman and author Lionel Rolfe in November.
As we’ll see at the end of this past-to-present
review of 2018, efforts to eliminate unions from
regional newsrooms have been anything but
successful, with journalists with the Times
getting their wish, and movements for freelancer representation
now taking hold in New York and Los Angeles. And, as we’ve
seen at the end of most years, there remains a great deal of
unfinished work to be done in the worlds of commerce, art,
culture, criminal justice, social justice, spirituality, religiosity,
politics and journalism.
Greg Critser
JANUARY
All Saints Church loses beloved longtime Pastor Zelda
Kennedy, who dies at age 70. Activists step up calls for
police policy reform in the wake of the beating of Altadena’s
Christopher Ballew, with more than 200 people attending a City
Council meeting to express outrage. Hundreds of thousands
of people participate in the Women’s March, PW founder and
best-selling author Greg Critser dies at age 63, activists and
officials alike call on cops to start collecting demographic data
on stops, Patrisse Khan-Cullors explains why Black Lives Matter
in a powerful memoir with Asha Bandele, “When They Call You
a Terrorist,” and Pasadena Mayor Terry Tornek calls on the
City Council to support a three-quarter cent sales tax increase,
a third of those proceeds to go to the fiscally beleaguered
Pasadena Unified School District.
FEBRUARY
Attorneys for 21-year-old Ballew file a lawsuit in federal
OBAMA HIGHWAY
CALTRANS PLACES SIGNS
RENAMING A PORTION OF THE
134 FREEWAY AFTER 44TH
PRESIDENT
Signs renaming a portion of the Ventura (134)
Freeway the President Barack H. Obama
Highway have been installed on a stretch of the
road between the Glendale (2) Freeway and the
Foothill (210) Freeway.
The freeway includes the exits for Occidental
College, where Obama attended classes
from 1979 to 1981. At that time, the 44th
president lived in an apartment on East Glenarm
Street in Pasadena.
State Sen. Anthony Portantino, who represents
Eagle Rock, where Occidental College
is located, introduced the bill renaming the
highway.
At a plaque dedication ceremony at Obama’s
former apartment building on Dec. 17, 2016,
several local residents suggested that Portantino
name a portion of the freeway after Obama,
given the president’s connection to the area.
Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, D-Eagle
Rock, co-authored the resolution with Portantino.
Obama and his wife Michelle visited Pasadena
several times during his campaigns and
presidency. The president returned to Highland
Park in June 2015 to appear on Marc Maron’s
“WTF” podcast on which he spoke fondly of his
time living in the area.
“This is an exciting day for Southern California
and it showcases our deep respect and
appreciation for President Obama. The president
has often mentioned his fond memories
of living in Pasadena and attending Occidental
College, so it was very appropriate to name the
portion of the freeway he traveled after him,”
Portantino said in a prepared statement.
The Pasadena Community Foundation
(PCF) and Portantino hosted an event on Sept.
23 to raise money to install the signs labeling
the highway after Obama. It was not immediately
known how much money was raised at
the event.
“Our community came together to make
this happen,” Portantino said. “It is an honor
to be in a position to have helped facilitate this
wonderful symbol of our collective respect for
the grace and dignity embodied by our 44th
president.”
Obama’s portion of the freeway is close to a
portion of the Foothill Freeway honoring Jackie
Robinson, who grew up in Pasadena and broke
the color barrier in Major League Baseball when
he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
WEEKLY WEATHER
THU
63°
FRI
59°
SAT
59°
SUN
65°
CONTINUED ON PAGE 14
MON
67°
TUE
60°
WED
58°
— André Coleman
THU
62°
12.27.18 | PASADENA WEEKLY 13