Yet, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1971 and was stationed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County during the final years of the war.

[1] He first achieved notoriety in 1987, when he unexpectedly unseated former Mayor Jo Heckman for her seat on the Board of City Directors, when her reelection was considered to be a safe bet.

The controversies also have underlined the sometimes puzzling complexities of a former Republican (now an independent) who admires both leftist revolutionary Che Guevara and the U.S. Marine Corps, who speaks out on Cuba and for the rights of American gun owners like himself.

Paparian's views may seem an incongruous marriage of right and left, but his friends say they mark an independent-minded populist who favors the underdog and answers no clarion but his own.

As Mayor of Pasadena, he convened a conference on U.S.-Cuba relations at Occidental College that was co-sponsored by the United Nations Association and the Department of Diplomacy and World Affairs.

[2] Paparian has traveled frequently to Cuba to coordinate the delivery of medical supplies and equipment and has worked with the Cuban Council of Churches and Havana's pediatric hospitals.

Paparian noted, "For too long, the leadership of the Democratic Party has played the Armenian-American community on recognition of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

"[7] In what the Los Angeles Times called "one of his best-known moments," Paparian led Pasadena's opposition to the state's use of helicopters to spray pesticides to eradicate the Mediterranean fruit fly.

Paparian received national media attention when he passed an ordiance outlawing formation-flying at low altitudes, and dispatched a Pasadena police helicopter to issue a citation to the state's pesticide-spraying aircraft.

[1] In 1996, Paparian, then serving as Pasadena's Mayor, drew fire over a fund-raising "smoker" he hosted on the Rose Bowl's turf.