A new model for police oversight in Pasadena will make its way to the City Council for a vote on Monday, July 27, but its passage is anything but guaranteed if the panel from whence it came is any indication.
At the Public Safety Committee meeting on Wednesday, only two of the four members appeared to support the proposed ordinance — its authors, Mayor Terry Tornek and committee chair Councilman John Kennedy.
The proposed law would create a new Police Oversight Commission comprised of 15 civilian appointees. Eight of those appointments would come from the mayor and City Council, each council member selecting one person for the role.
Another three positions would be appointed by community groups — potentially the local NAACP chapter or Pasadena’s day laborers’ group — while both the city manager and the chief of police would appoint one member apiece.
Tornek said the structure isn’t set in stone. The members could be appointed by others if the public wasn’t satisfied with a commission largely curated by city officials — something more than a dozen speakers railed against in public comments. They argued the commission members could be biased as result.
The commission would make recommendations to the City Council, City Manager’s Office and the Police Department, according to Tornek’s presentation on the topic and a staff report. Specifically, its role would be:
- To monitor and receive reports on hiring and training.
- To monitor and publish statistics on use of force, as well as complaints against the department and outcomes from those complaints.
- To provide input on policy decisions before they’re enacted.
- To produce a publicly available annual report.
Each member would go through 30 hours of training, and the commission would report back to the council ahead of the 2022 election about possible improvements, including ones that could substantially modify the commission’s structure and may require voter approval, according to the staff report.
Simultaneously, the ordinance would also give the city manager power to create an independent police auditor who would report to his office. The position could be filled with either an individual or a firm, which would review investigations of all uses of deadly force and in-custody deaths, determining if the queries were complete, thorough, objective and fair, the staff report says.
The auditor would also review investigations of personnel complaints of bias-based policing and recommend changes and additions to Police Department policies.
These reports would go to the new commission, but in the end, only the police chief and city manager would have the power to enact change.
The model has the support of Police Chief John Perez, who said while the topic is very complicated, this model could be a starting for “the evolution of oversight, so as to meet the needs of the community.
“There are over 18,000 police agencies in the nation and less than 200 of these agencies have any type of oversight,” Perez wrote in a statement. “As I have publicly stated, I am supportive of the model proposed by Mayor Tornek and Councilmember Kennedy. It is imperative (that) everyone involved work collaboratively to achieve this goal.”
That’s nice, but…
The plan doesn’t align with the demands of several activists, who wrote into the Public Safety Committee, criticizing the proposal for how members would be selected and questioning the integrity of an independent auditor who would have to report to the city manager.
Most public comments, however, urged the committee to move ahead with the proposal.
Still, it didn’t have the backing of Vice Mayor Tyron Hampton, who alongside Kennedy was a chief proponent of a new police oversight model — but not the one championed by Kennedy and Tornek now.
“Your proposal is really a slap in the face to everybody who sent an email, a slap in the face to everybody who said they want real accountability,” Hampton said. “Let me speak to you as a constituent: This is what we call, frankly, b.s.”
Hampton said this new commission wouldn’t be “any different than the Public Safety Committee,” further arguing that because the auditor would report to the city manager, “there’s no independence there.”
He said activists’ see the city manager attached to this plan and they immediately distrust it because “they see government.”
In tense exchanges, Kennedy and Tornek both defended the proposal vigorously.
“From the day that I joined the City Council, with significant opposition, I discussed and brought to the fore the whole issue of additional police accountability, civilian accountability,” Kennedy said, adding he was unsuccessful for years in attracting his colleagues’ support.
It would be nice to use a model of a truly independent oversight body, Kennedy said, but it’s simply impossible given the structure of the city charter because a body that’s appointed by the City Council doesn’t have any legal authority over city employees, including police officers.
Changing that would require a ballot measure approved by voters and the deadline for submitting such a ballot measure is weeks away. Charter reform is a more complicated topic that needs more time, Tornek said.
Beyond that, for Kennedy, the most important part is coming up with a proposal that can pass the City Council. That’s what he believed they had here.
“Tonight, I would say to those who aren’t happy with what we came up with, it’s a model that we can use to get us to a better place,” Kennedy said. “It’s not an ending place. It’s a beginning place because we have no effective model now.”
‘We’re in a political season’
Currently, the city’s Public Safety Committee handles most minor Police Department issues. More serious incidents, such as controversial shootings, may rise to the level of the full City Council.
Both bodies can ask the city manager or police chief to discipline an employee, but neither the council nor the committee has any authority over the employees themselves.
If this newly proposed model passes the council on Monday, it’s unclear what the delineation of duties may be when there’s both a Public Safety Committee and a Police Oversight Commission.
It’s something Councilman Steve Madison flagged during the meeting, expressing some skepticism for the proposal. He wasn’t sure if they could legally seat and install a body of unelected officials, though the plan had been formulated and vetted through the City Attorney’s Office.
He also questioned if officers would have enough time to attend two meetings in one week.
It’s a complicated issue, Madison said, and “this is not something we should get out over our skis on.” He said he would support moving the discussion to the City Council, but wouldn’t commit to supporting the measure come Monday.
Madison pointed to how quickly this proposal was formulated and wondered if there were political motivations behind it.
“Let’s be candid,” he said. “We’re in a political season. The mayor is in an election” against fellow Councilman Victor Gordo.
Madison said he “couldn’t help but think if I was sitting in (the mayor’s) seat,” that he might look at this issue and intend to use it for political gain. The suggestion prompted pushback from the mayor.
“The only commitment I’ve made on this is that we wouldn’t” move slowly with it, Tornek said, “that we would try to recognize the tremendous ground swell and deal with it quickly.”
Still, Tornek agreed with one of Madison’s critiques and questioned what would become of the Public Safety Committee if this plan moved forward.
When it came to Hampton’s criticisms, however, the mayor was more adamant about defending the plan he co-authored with Kennedy.
“This is significant reform. It’s not faux reform. And the reason it’s not just a recodification of the Public Safety Committee (is) it makes an effort to at least engage the community in a significant way,” Tornek said.
He defended the city’s other commissions, saying they did good work, and lauded the city’s current auditor for her work under the City Manager’s Office.
The city’s auditor has historically produced unbiased and independent work — some critical of the city which flagged real issues, such as a recent problems with the city’s petty cash policies, Tornek said.
Still, the mayor acknowledged there was a “large body of opinion that thinks this doesn’t go nearly far enough,” but “it’s as far as I’m willing to go.”
That was frustrating for Hampton, who continued to rail against the proposal and refused to vote for it, abstaining even as Madison, Tornek and Kennedy cast votes to bring it to the City Council.
“I want you guys to realize that this is not far for me,” Hampton said, adding the public and police harass him for being a Black man when he goes for a run or a drive. “Five years ago, this is the proposal people asked for. This is not the proposal people would support today.”
Hampton said he wanted to see the city’s charter amended to allow for what he called a truly independent commission and auditor, which could do more than just make recommendations to the council and Police Department
His colleagues weren’t willing to tackle that problem, however, particularly Tornek who argued that charter reform was an extremely complicated issue. But if Hampton wanted to take it on and bring a proposal to the City Council, Tornek said he would schedule the discussion.
Similarly, Kennedy questioned whether such a proposal would pass the City Council.
Both Kennedy and Tornek stressed charter reform could be tackled in the 2022 election, after they’ve seen the strengths and weaknesses of the currently proposed commission. That’s why the ordinance calls for a review of the commission ahead of that election, they said.
“I would say to the community and those who are rightly asking for more oversight: Work with us,” Kennedy said. “Advocate for what the mayor and I have put together — not as a period, but as a comma — knowing that more will follow.”
