[UPDATED] City Manager Steve Mermell said that he has asked the human resources department to develop a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for city employees.
According to Mermell the policy will be similar to one already in effect in San Francisco.
“The City of Pasadena announced at their City Council meeting tonight that the City Manager is implementing a policy to require mandatory vaccinations for their over 2,000 employees,” said Public Information Officer Lisa Derderian. “Currently, they are at approximately 60% of employees who attested to being vaccinated although with an upward trend in positive cases in city employees and the new variant in our community, a mandatory policy is the right thing to do to protect employees who at times spend more hours at work then home. The policy will be effective when there is official FDA approval for the vaccines. The City of Pasadena would be the first to initiate this policy in Southern California and the UC System recently announced they have a similar mandate.”
It is not known how the city will deal with noncompliant employees.
In San Francisco, city employees must prove they have been vaccinated. As of June 28, employees were given 30 days to prove they had been vaccinated.
City employees in that region who do not comply with the new rule could be disciplined or even fired. However, workers are able to request an exemption for either medical conditions or religious beliefs.
It is not known if Pasadena’s city employees will be placed on a deadline.
Mermell told the City Council that the city employee vaccination rate is lower than the city’s vaccination rate.
About 80% of the city’s population over 12 years old has been vaccinated.
Mermell said the vaccination rate of city employees is in the mid to high 60% range, and the rate among public safety employees could also be in that range, but about 1,100 of the city’s employees responded that they had been vaccinated in a survey.
This is a breaking news story and Pasadena Now will update it as more information becomes available.
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