In Remarks to Resident’s Association, Mayor Tornek Begins to Unveil His Agenda

Mayor Terry Tornek’s reflective comments at the Interfaith Prayer breakfast Thursday focused on National Prayer Day, our constitutional right to freedom of worship, peace and justice.

His frank comments about City Hall the night before at the annual meeting of the West Pasadena Residents Association struck a more determined tone.

“We need to have accountability in City Hall. People need to understand that if they don’t do their jobs correctly … there are going to be consequences,” Mayor Tornek said before about 175 members of the influential association.

“I don’t want to demonize city employees. I was a city employee,” he continued. “I hold most of the people who work at City Hall in a very high regard, but I think that there has been some slippage in terms of people’s dedication and in terms of their following the rules.”

Tornek said although he intends to avoid “a climate of fear, which is not productive” he also intends to make certain that city staff need to “take their job seriously” and follow the rules.

The Mayor’s impromptu comments came in a question-and-answer session with residents after he delivered prepared remarks to the group. In his talk Tornek said to expect an early initiative from his office defining coherent methods to communicate to citizens better, informing them about city actions and programs.

“One of the great failures I think we have at City Hall is that we don’t communicate necessarily effectively with all of you in terms of the information that you should have, in terms of what we’re about,” Tornek said.

The Mayor said the thinks most of the information published on various city websites isn’t clear and or structured well enough.

“I think the Mayor needs to reach out, too” to deliver city messages and interact, Tornek said.

One of Tornek’s first planned meetings will probably focus on East Pasadena. He said that part of the city “feels very much detached from the rest of us in the city, which is a dangerous thing.”

“I think we really need to take our show on the road and convey to people that they are not detached from City Hall, that ‘we’re not immune to what you’re thinking down on Garfield,'” Tornek said.

Separately, Tornek also pointed to his concern that City Hall staff often “pre-digests” information about city projects and programs gives elected officials and the public only the conclusions reached by the staff.

“I would rather have it be a little messier, frankly, and let some of the alternatives be arrayed. Let the people hear what the choices are. Let the people know what the alternatives are and then make a decision in public. I think there’s a little retraining that has to happen at City Hall,” he said.

The Mayor said when he walked the city during election campaigning people in every neighborhood are proud to say that they’re from Pasadena. but they’re all worried that we’re slipping and that we are not necessarily the model city that we have been.

“We need to restore people’s confidence in city government,” Tornek said. “We need to make sure that they understand that we’re listening to what they have to say and that we can work our way through some of these challenges I’ve listed but also find the sweet spot in terms of what is an appropriate level of change that we can manage, that we can be proud of and that we really make our city stronger.”