Peter Pastor

I had hoped to stay in city government where I had greatly enjoyed a 4 1/2 year stint working for my local councilman, Alan Gerson, of District One, lower Manhattan. Unfortunately, he failed in his third reelection campaign, leaving me with few options other than starting another business.

I had always enjoyed having my own business; I had opened a locksmith in 1981 which became one of New York;'s largest, then pivoted to owning two restaurants in New Orleans.

Stellar Doors allowed me to use my skills in contracting and the locksmith business to create my own small company. In fifteen years, I made a modest living, utilizing my marketing skills to develop a solid website and my sales ability to secure work.

While I am in excellent health, I find that at 68 years of age, it is time to stop descending ladders and navigating crumbling doorways.

As legislative director, I analyzed all bills put before the city council and helped decide which bills to sponsor.

I shepherded bills through the long process of making them into law, assembling advocates to appear at council hearings, developing strategies to gain the support of the house speaker and the mayor, as well as our fellow council members.

I helped craft bills to benefit our constituents, such as anti-noise bills, environmental bills which greatly reduced levels of sulfur emissions in New York, affordable housing legislation,safe biking, anti-bullying legislation, which was eventually adopted by the Dept. of Education

. I was also small business liaison, a position where I worked with many mom and pop businesses which were suffering terrible losses as lower Manhattan was being rebuilt, leaving numerous streets and storefronts blocked.

I also worked on the city budget and handled delicate constituent matters.

While working on my masters in English Literature, I was immediately hired to teach English Composition and rhetoric. Just as I had done as a high school teacher, I taught my students how to organize their thoughts to write compelling arguments and showed them how to write with technical proficiency.

I am proud that my students gave me high grades when they accessed my performance; in particular, they lauded my ability to get them to write and reason effectively.

I taught ninth grade English to honor students, college prep students and general level students.

Each level required a different approach. The honors students were much lime my Stuyvesant classmates; brilliant, driven, ambitious. I spent a good deal of time channeling their energies into engaging in logical discourse. California is a magnificent state, but emotion tends to guide many people over facts and logic. I encouraged my students to keep their passions but to always build their arguments with facts.

College prep kids needed a bit more prodding and I needed to inject more fun and humor to keep them engaged.

The general students were difficult, more like in mates than students. I tried to find sparks within them and offer them guidance, but it's difficult to undo poverty and parental neglect.