ENTERTAINMENT:
ARCADIA:
EDUCATION:
Antigone: Poetry on the Stage
Arcadia Officials Explain Council Majority Position on Residential Real Estate Pg. 16
Allan Mucerino Positions Duarte as Model for 21st Century Learning
Pg. 12
Pg. 23
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Thursday, October 1, 2015 - October 7, 2015
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Pasadena: City of Choice or City by Default?
COMPLIMENTARY COPY VOLUME 19, NO. 40 BY MARSHA V. ROOD, FAICP
Construction in Pasadena is in rapid-clip mode these past few years.This new development on the corner of Sierra Madre Villa and Foothill Boulevard, ironically the busy and noisy construction site dwarfs… A Noise Within Theatre company and a new apartment building east of the new construction. Many of the new developments also obscure views of the San Gabriel Mountains - Photo by Terry Miller
I served as the Pasadena City’s Development Administrator in the Housing and Development Department from 1982 – 2000. My job was to know where the City was headed and to make the engine perform to get it there. My primary role was to revitalize what was then a very dilapidated Downtown Pasadena, including Old Pasadena. In that role, I pioneered for Pasadena the economic development strategy of place-based economics instead of a projectby-project development approach. Based upon creating a valuable place, Downtown Pasadena has become a national and international model of how to revitalize a dying Main Street. It is
SEE PG. 18
Feds Raid USFIA’s Offices in Arcadia; Wuo’s Connection to GemCoin Under More Scrutiny BY TERRY MILLER In what can only be described as a surreal event, scores of employees of USFIA were sacked Tuesday after a federal raid. The employees had to abruptly leave the building in which they worked, many holding personal belongings spilling out of boxes and bags as they tried to avoid the news cameras there to cover what has become a major embarrassment for Arcadia Councilman John Wuo. As more and more media arrived after getting tips
on the developing story, federal agents could be seen through the windows going through boxes of paperwork. SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) officials Tuesday afternoon seized the assets of USFIAGemCoin, a company that has been under scrutiny for allegedly defrauding Chinese-American investors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. As this story was unfolding at about 5:45 p.m., a helicopter hovered over the site briefly. It bore an Immigration and Customs Enforcement logo. We couldn’t
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independently confirm the connection with the case but the timing was curious. Arcadia Police assisted U.S. Marshals Service and a court-appointed receiver in serving a temporary restraining order against US Fine Investment Arts, Inc. and its CEO Steven Chen at his Live Oak offices on Tuesday. The filing states Chen and his companies violated federal securities laws. Attorney Long Z. Liu was present when the SEC agents entered the building SEE PG. 16
- Photo by Terry Miller
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